GASTINEAU’S CRY FOR HELP
Jets legend suffering dementia implores NFL to care for vets
Mark Gastineau is calling on Roger Goodell to live up to his word.
The Jets great, who revealed last year he is dealing with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, said this week he has yet to get any help from the NFL’s billiondollar concussion settlement.
“I want the NFL to treat people right,” Gastineau told WOR’s Pete McCarthy in a radio interview. “They have to. The commissioner has to. … ‘Hey, Roger Goodell, treat people right.’ ”
Gastineau said he saw Goodell a year and a half ago at a game, and the commissioner offered to help with anything he needed. Since then, Gastineau has tried reaching the former Jets public relations intern — whom Gastineau called “my ball boy” — to no avail.
“I want to hold you to your promise, Roger Goodell,” said Gastineau, a five-time Pro-Bowl defensive end with the Jets. “When I was big, I treated him good. He’s big now. You know what? Treat us good.”
The 61-year-old Gastineau was joined on the show by his wife, JoAnn, and lawyer Jason Luckasevic, who said Gastineau’s medical case was presented to the league and rejected for reasons that remain unclear.
JoAnn said NFL doctors were questioning Gastineau’s dementia diagnosis, but after eight months of going through paperwork and records, they approved it in October. Thirty days later, she said, they received a notice the NFL was appealing the settlement again for Gastineau’s Parkinson’s diagnosis.
Gastineau, part of the famed “New York Sack Exchange,” broke down sobbing as he described the difficulties he faces in daily life because of the aftereffects of a career in the NFL.
“My wife, she and I used to go around and do yard work, but you know what, she does everything now for me,” said Gastineau, who abruptly retired in 1988 before beginning a five-year boxing career. “It’s not good. It’s not good when I’m lying in bed ’til 3, 4 or 5 [in the afternoon]. It’s not good. There’ll be days I get up and I’m good. I’ll tell you, and my wife will tell you, she helps me get out of bed. She’ll help me remember names.”
Gasinteau said he used to hit and get hit so hard he would break helmets. He’s now feeling the cumulative effect of those hits and is asking for help.
“I used to think I was all that, I did,” Gastineau said. “But you know what? I was nothing. You know why? Because of what happened to me.
“The NFL is wrong. The NFL is wrong. They’re wrong. I’m not telling them to give me zillions of dollars. I don’t want zillions of dollars. I just want to be treated with respect.”