A healthy concern about some NFL players

Most young professional athletes never believe that they will turn 50. It's not that they think they will die young. It's just that they don't picture themselves growing old.

They don't picture much of anything, really, other than excelling in their sport. So some play hurt. Others use performance-enhancing drugs. Almost every one of them will do whatever it takes to win, come what may.

On its most basic level, this makes sense: to play with reckless abandon usually requires suspension of most rational thought.

Just the other day, San Diego Chargers offensive lineman Kris Dielman, who missed the last 10 games of the season after suffering a concussion in October, said he would be willing to risk his future health and well-being to try to win a Super Bowl ring.

"That's what I've been playing for since I got in (as an undrafted rookie in 2003)," Dielman, 30, a four-time Pro Bowler who is married with two young sons, told the Associated Press on Monday. "That was my goal, my first year, to make the team, then to make the practice squad, then to get on the 53 (-man roster). The Super Bowl ultimately was the end one. And that's what everybody's fighting for."

Dielman's injury wasn't just any old hit on the head. He continued to play after being staggered early in the fourth quarter in a game against the New York Jets on Oct. 23. His condition wasn't diagnosed until after the game. Then, on the flight home, Dielman suffered a grand mal seizure. An ambulance met the team plane and took him to the hospital, where he spent the night.

Dielman called the incident a "scare," but when asked if he would be more cautious and take himself out of the game if there were a next time, his reply spoke volumes about what pro athletes really think during this time of increasing awareness about concussions:

"Apparently, I won't do that," he said. "That's the scary part, too. I'll play through just about anything, and I've played through this one and it got me. I've made my whole career doing dumb (stuff) like that. ?That's how I got here, doing stupid (stuff) on the football field. It got me 10 years in, so I'm all right with that."

Dielman has properly labeled his behavior, yet still can't stop it. And he's not alone. A year ago, then-Seattle Seahawks receiver Brandon Stokley, 34 at the time, told USA TODAY's Jon Saraceno that it didn't matter that he had suffered more than a dozen concussions in nearly two decades of playing football, he wasn't going to stop.

"I just love it," he said. "I can't see myself giving up football because I think I might have something (bad) happen to me or my brain. Something else might happen ? I might get killed in a car crash. I cannot predict the future. I am going to live in the here and now and have fun at what I am doing."

This is why a voice of reason is needed in pro sports. The day after Dielman spoke, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said he had told veteran safety and leading tackler Ryan Clark that he was not going to play in Sunday's NFL playoff game in Denver. Clark, 32, has an inherited condition known as sickle cell trait, and the last time he played in the mile-high altitude of Denver, in 2007, he was taken to the hospital after the game and later had to have his spleen and gallbladder removed.

"It's a big game for us, but it is a game," Tomlin said. "We will keep that in perspective."

Tomlin is young to be an NFL head coach, still just 39. But the way he looked at the sports landscape this week, he appeared to be able to see 50 quite clearly.

Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNfl-TopStories/~3/rrzyeE4rPsE/1

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