Friday column: With time at a premium, she thinks of others

Gay Culverhouse doesn’t have time to dance around the issue.

Not the time, not the inclination.

If the NFL didn’t already know this, it learned it in late October when Culverhouse, daughter of the original owner of the Tampa Bay Bucs and also a past team president, told a congressional hearing what she’d discovered about her former players.

They “walk through our lives looking like old men crippled by arthritis and, in some cases, dementia,” she said. “My men have headaches that never stop. They cannot remember where they are going or what they want to say without writing it down. Some are on government welfare. Some are addicted to pain medications. Some are dead.”

It was the death of one-time Tampa Bay lineman Tom McHale — a 45-year-old with brain damage resembling a boxer’s — that spurred Culverhouse to contact former Bucs.

What she found appalled her, so much so that she began advocating for increased health benefits for ex-players, advising them about the benefits that do exist, even filling out forms for those former players who unable to do it themselves.

When she’s not advocating, she’s attacking the NFL system that underlies these serious, long-term injuries. Her weapon? Simple truth.

Calling the NFL a “cutthroat business,” Culverhouse said, “One of the things you as a committee need to understand very clearly is the fact that the team doctor is hired by the coaches and paid by the front office.” If that wasn’t clear enough, she added, “The doctor is not their medical advocate. He’s not even conflicted. He knows who pays his salary.”

To Culverhouse, simple economics drives the decisions on whether a player takes the field or not, and that, she says, has to change; the league must stop treating players as “a disposable commodity.” To that end, she founded her Player Outreach Program, designed to help all former NFL players.

“Safety must come first,” she told the hearing. “Business comes second.”

Under pressure, the NFL has taken small steps in that direction, including instituting stricter guidelines for when players should be allowed to return to action following head injuries.

In October, Culverhouse, who suffers from blood cancer and renal failure, told The New York Times that doctors had given her six months to live.

So she probably won’t be around to see any further improvements.

But when they do occur, the woman former Bucs tight end Jimmie Giles said is “like Gandhi to us” surely will be a part of them.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.