Quarterbacking a gypsy lifestyle
Renewed outlook for former NFL star
STATELINE, Nev. — Not having seen Jim McMahon in several years, I’m not sure I can pick him out on the practice range at the American Century Championship. I get a helpful tip from a regular here: “Look for a guy with no shoes.”
Another regular chimes in, “And beer cans. He might drink 18 beers during a round.”
McMahon will explain later, “I’m more comfortable barefoot. Got bad feet from all them fat f— stepping on my toes.”
At first-tee introductions Friday morning, the announcer hails McMahon as “The grittiest NFL quarterback of all time!” Now he might be the grittiest celebrity golfer of all time. McMahon strides the course barefoot, but he ain’t no contessa. He plays with spit (tobacco) and grit, treating his opponent (golf ) like it’s trying to sack his bum. At age 57, McMahon plays OK, about middle of the pack in the 91-celeb field, but he isn’t exactly thrilled with his game.
“I swing enough, I should f— figure it out,”
he spits. “I enjoy playing, it just pisses me off.”
After each day’s golf, and after any tourney dinner or other obligation, McMahon retires to the motor home he parks in a corner of a vast casino parking lot, in a fenced-off compound flanked by snowplows. His own private asphalt Idaho on the shores of Lake Tahoe.
I want to talk to McMahon about his golfgypsy lifestyle, but I’m hesitant. Five years ago, a Sports Illustrated story spotlighted his head problems. McMahon had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, surely related to the football beatings of 15 NFL seasons. Unfortunately, his toes didn’t absorb all the dents and dings.
The reports had McMahon in bad shape, in near-constant pain, wandering through life in a fog, frustrated and angry. He’d drive to an errand, phone his girlfriend and ask, like a lost child, “Where am I?”
A couple of his old football comrades with similar dementia issues opted for the six-gun exit. McMahon says he contemplated the same escape from the pain, confusion and unexplained hostility.
So I’m a bit surprised when McMahon agrees to meet at his motor home and, one night later, is expecting me when I show up. If he’s in a fog, he’s hiding it well. After a few minutes, I ask him how his head is.
He says it’s good. After his woes became public in 2012, McMahon was contacted by a person who said he might be able to help him. A New York chiropractor named Scott Rosa, who was pioneering a noninvasive treatment for head, neck and brain disease, told McMahon he had neck-alignment problems related, in part, to an undiagnosed broken neck suffered somewhere along the NFL trail.
To simplify the medical stuff, the misaligned parts were short-circuiting the flow of cerebrospinal fluid up and down his brain stem and spine. Some adjusting, shaking and tweaking freed the flow, kind of like un-kinking a garden hose. Actually there were three separate kinks. The relief was instant and dramatic.
McMahon says his short-term memory is much improved. The ice-pick headaches are gone. He’s a functioning human being. Whenever symptoms return, he goes back for a tune-up and is good to go for another few months.
The NFL is officially skeptical of the treatments, but McMahon is officially skeptical of the NFL, which he believes is in league with Big Pharma, depriving suffering former players of relief from alternative approaches, such as marijuana.
Now McMahon tries to spread the word. He works with a foundation trying to convince the NFL that weed is sometimes a better treatment for pain. And he spreads the gospel of the unkinked garden hose.
“I tell all the guys I know,” McMahon says. “A lot of guys get frustrated, they don’t know what’s going on. Some of them kill themselves. They’re embarrassed. They’ll stand there in a fog for a half hour, wondering what the f— to do. These guys are pretty proud, and to have to ask for help is not easy.”
McMahon knows he’s not cured, but, “At least now I know what’s wrong with me.”
The full extent of the damage done to his brain won’t be assessed until McMahon dies — he has already said he would donate his brain to Boston University for scientific research.
Until then, he cruises along, America’s Golf Guest, playing 60 to 70 celebrity golf tourneys every year. Most of them are one- or two-day events. The cream of the celeb-circuit crop is this one; five days of golf and back-slapping camaraderie with other famed and somewhat-maimed sports warhorses. This is his 28th year in the field.
McMahon lives in Scottsdale, Ariz. He and girlfriend Mayra picked up the motor home in San Jose (where he grew up), a loaner from an auto dealer friend. They drove it back to Phoenix, loaded in their grill and other stuff, and drove to Tahoe, stopping along the way to visit McMahon’s ex-wife. He’s got four kids, ages 26 to 34, and a four-month-old granddaughter.
He and Mayra rolled into Tahoe on Tuesday and set up shop at Camp McMahon, along with Jim’s buddy, ex-pitcher David Wells. In the past, other co-campers have included former pitcher Bret Saberhagen and actor Alfonso Ribeiro.
Wednesday night, campers and guests start rolling in about 9 p.m., grabbing beers from the coolers and plopping into camp chairs. The lighting is provided by the moon and neon lights from two hotel/ casinos. McMahon has a hotel room, so the rig is for kicking back, for partying with friends. One couple tells me they met McMahon at this tourney a decade ago when they rooted for him from the gallery, and now they’re part of his family one week a year.
Fifty feet away loom the massive speakers of an outdoor concert venue. That’s another perk for the campers: Free music. Friday night they will have front-row back-stage seats for a Lenny Kravitz concert.
McMahon says this is the best tourney he plays all year. Why?
“You’re here, at this place,” McMahon says.
He knows where he is. That’s a good thing.