R.I.P Brad Van Pelt

I've covered a fair share of NFL players through the years and so many of them now are either gone at an early age or halfway to the nursing room with health problems..prime example: three years ago, I interviewed Ernie "Big Cat" Ladd, the huge defensive lineman who toiled for San Diego Chargers and K.C. Chiefs...probably most imposing football player I ever was around: 6-10, 300-plus, hands like an anvil..the day I interviewed him at a celebrity golf tournament, he sat the whole time because both of his knees wouldn't allow him to walk for any length of time. and when he did attempt to walk, someone had to help him...last year, or maybe it's been two years now, "Big Cat" died.
then you've got the Earl Campbells and John Mackeys of the world...
depressing as hell when you read about it, but also reminds me that, as well-paid and as glamorous of a life that these guys might have or appear to have, many of them pay for it later in life with health problems.

 

The owners certainly don't.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain . . .

 

Player's Union under Upshaw certainly didn't give a shit.
It's not right to speak ill of the dead, but Gene Upshaw...

 

Don't forget Ed Garvey, who tossed away free agency before Upshaw got there.

 

"He's not my Padre"

Oh... wrong Garvey

 

Not trying to start a fight, but coal miners never made $2 million a year and the job is much worse. My dad once told me a story of his father saying he joined the army in the 1930s to escape working in the mines, "The pay was better and the odds of death were less." My grandfather still ended up with black lung.

 

I'm not sure if Van Pelt ever made 2 million a year

 

not. even. close.

 

A very fair point, but I don't think Cowbell was saying the two jobs were similiar...just that playing pro football is often slow suicide.