Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
’72 Dolphins face health issues
Age and injury — neurological diseases highlight role of football
They called him Captain Crunch, and the name was fitting. Mike Kolen packed a punch.
Now, 45 years after the Dolphins’ No-Name Defense ran through the 1972 season undefeated, Kolen and his perfect teammates are tied together again. But instead of celebration, there’s heartache.
South Florida’s most legendary team has become a cautionary tale, a poignant symbol of the concussion saga that threatens the future of America’s favorite sport.
“Within the last month or so, I’ve been diagnosed with the initial stages of Alzheimer’s,” Kolen, a starting linebacker on Miami’s two Super Bowl-winning teams, told the Miami Herald.
And was football the cause?
“I think that’s about the only way I’d have cognitive issues,” replied Kolen, 69, who has no family history of dementia.
Kolen’s story is not unique for Miami’s most historic team. Last week, Sports Illustrated detailed how Kolen’s betterknown 1972 teammates Nick Buoniconti and Jim Kiick have both deteriorated mentally in the past few years.
After quarterback Earl Mor-
rall’s death in 2014, an autopsy revealed he had Stage 4 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease more commonly known as CTE that researchers have linked to football.
Bill Stanfill, the Dolphins’ first sack king, suffered from dementia and Parkinson’s disease when he died last fall at age 69.
Three others from that famed roster — cornerback Lloyd Mumphord, defensive back Tim Foley and running back Hubert Ginn — have quietly dealt with cognitive impairment in recent years, teammates tell the Herald.
That makes at least eight members of a roster of roughly 50 men who have experienced loss of acuity. And that figure includes only those who keep in regular contact with the organization; several do not.
Roughly a quarter of the ’72 team has passed away, including five from cancer. Manny Fernandez, a defensive lineman who was the star of Super Bowl VII, has had eight surgeries on his back alone. Center Jim Langer, 68, said his “legs are bad and my knees are shot” after six operations.
And while age, of course, shares the blame, football has played an oversized role. “[It’s] a little of both; I don’t think it’s all one or the other,” said safety Dick Anderson, a three-time All-Pro and member of the franchise’s all-time team.
Anderson and Hall of Famer Larry Little don’t have cognitive issues, but both acknowledge they’ve been become a bit forgetful in recent years. “It’s sad to see guys like Earl, Bill, Nick and Jim,” said Little, 71. “I feel bad for my teammates. I don’t feel scared, but it’s concerning. I have to ask myself, will I be in that condition a few years from now?”
The possibility is real. The statistics are daunting.
Up to five million Americans suffer from dementia, a number expected to triple by 2050 as the elderly population doubles in size. About 9 percent of Americans over age 65 have dementia, according to a November 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association-Internal Medicine.
For the Dolphins, the rate could be double that of the general population if you consider the possibility that more than eight players from the 1972 roster have or had dementia.
NFL players are three times more likely to die because of a neurodegenerative disease than the general population, and four times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. That’s according to a study published in Neurology in 2012.
Even the NFL acknowledges that there is a link between football-related head trauma and neurological diseases like CTE after denying any such connection for years.
The league has agreed to pay $1 billion for the medical expenses of some 20,000 explayers after many sued the NFL earlier this decade. The litigants alleged that the league was “aware of the evidence and the risks associated with repetitive traumatic brain injuries virtually at the inception, but deliberately ignored and actively concealed the information from the [players] and all others who participated in organized football at all levels.”
CTE is caused by repeated concussions and sub-concussive hits and has claimed the lives of some of the sport’s brightest stars, including Hall of Famer and former Dolphins linebacker Junior Seau. The symptoms include confusion, impulsive behavior, irritability, aggression, short-term memory loss and speech and language difficulties.
That language is from the Mayo Clinic, and it describes the current state of Buoniconti and Kiick. Both described, in emotional detail, their steep drop-off in physical and mental health to Sports Illustrated.
A star linebacker-turnedattorney and executive, Buoniconti has deteriorated rapidly, suffering falls, memory loss, confusion and he often has trouble putting on his own shirt.
Kiick, a tough and productive running back, “has holes in his brain,” Dr. David B. Ross, medical director of the Comprehensive Neurobehavioral Institute in Plantation, told SI. State inspectors determined Kiick’s filthy apartment was unlivable — and that Kiick was in no condition to care for himself.
Their stories dismayed Miami sports fans, many of whom grew up idolizing these stars, and their former teammates.
Fernandez, who lives in Georgia, had heard rumors that Buoniconti wasn’t doing great, but had no clue that doctors believed his old teammate probably has CTE. (A definitive diagnosis of the disease isn’t possible until after death, when an autopsy is performed.) Tests have revealed that Buoniconti’s brain has atrophied on its the right side, SI reported, and doctors believe it is because of abnormal amounts of tau proteins, which is often caused by head trauma, kills brain cells and is associated with CTE. The condition is irreversible.
“There but for the grace of God go I,” said Fernandez, who doesn’t remember the end of Super Bowl VII, which capped the Dolphins’ 17-0 season, because of a blow he took to the head.
Fernandez estimates he sustained “dozens” of concussions during his playing career. And yet, his mind is strong.
The rest of his body? It depends on the day. He still lifts weights and uses the elliptical, but admits he feels pain “everywhere” after 19 football-related surgeries. Along with chronic back issues, Fernandez has neuropathy in both feet, and spent two months in the hospital a few years back because of it.
Fernandez expected to have physical issues after playing 103 regular season games in the NFL. As for the mental challenges his teammates and countless other ex-jocks face? That was never a consideration.
Foley, a one-time titan of industry, has proven equally unreachable — even for his friends. All recent numbers one former teammate had for him have been disconnected.
Not every member of the ’72 team is ailing, of course. For every Foley, there’s standout receiver Paul Warfield, who’s a picture of health. Warfield, 74, played 14 NFL seasons and escaped with nothing but a couple of broken bones.
“Just kind of old-folks pains and so forth, but not major pains,” Warfield said from his home near Palm Springs, California. “I was very fortunate in my career to not have a major injury to a knee or hip.”
Running back Mercury Morris feels great, too, and credits his enduring strength to exercise and a magic potion he drinks regularly: coconut oil. But Warfield and Morris know they’re the lucky ones, and that hurts their heart.
“I feel for Nick because inside of him there’s a Nick Buoniconti who knows who he is,” Morris said. “And he knows he just can’t be that Nick Buoniconti now.”