Ditka's battle now real fight Ex-Bear, former Packer Kramer meet resistance from Upshaw on benefits for disabled players
By Don Pierson
Chicago Tribune pro football reporter
Published March 8, 2007, 9:36 PM CST. 
Mike Ditka and Jerry Kramer brought their crusade to help disabled retired NFL players to Ditka's restaurant Thursday, noisily continuing to pester the NFL Players Association and league owners to "do what's right."
Ditka presented his 1975 NFC championship ring when he coached for the Dallas Cowboys to Mike Sportelli, a fan from Los Angeles who paid $12,000 for it on an online auction Kramer created.
Former Packers' guard Kramer announced the memorabilia auction during Super Bowl week. It is ongoing on JerryKramer.com and Ditka and Kramer promised Thursday to ramp up efforts to expose what they believe is the NFL's unacceptable response to former players in dire need.
Operating more on emotion and personal testimony than on statistics, Ditka and Kramer told stories of former teammates in trouble and either too proud to acknowledge it or too weary of fighting for benefits.
Ditka said ex-Bears defensive lineman Dick Evey needs nursing care and Hall of Fame defensive end Doug Atkins is confined to his home in Tennessee facing medical problems. Kramer said he plans to attend a dinner to help disabled Hall of Fame Packers' safety Willie Wood. Kramer said Hall of Fame cornerback Herb Adderley is fed up despite his pension of $126 a month being raised to $157 after the league increased pensions 25 percent last summer. Kramer said another Packers' Hall of Famer, Willie Davis, has suggested making a documentary.
"I was shocked," said Sportelli, who grew up a New York Giants' fan and said he would pass down Ditka's ring to his children. "I think the league should try to do more."
Ditka is trying to plan a golf outing and autograph session sponsored by a Las Vegas hotel. Kramer said he was encouraged by former players Joe Namath, Jerry Rice, Kellen Winslow, Jack Del Rio and Larry Csonka at the Super Bowl.
"Every one of them asked, 'How can I help? What can I do?'" Kramer said.
Kramer said his "Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund" has raised $200,000, a mere "Band-Aid." He and Ditka challenged NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
"If people like Gene Upshaw would wake up and the NFL owners and the commissioner would wake up and right a wrong, that's all we're saying," Ditka said.
Added Kramer: "The problem is much more pervasive and much more widespread than I realized. There's no end to the problems we have. That might be why the NFL is reluctant to open up this disability issue because it could be an extremely expensive issue if we start caring for all the guys that need help."
Upshaw, a Hall of Fame former player, reacted almost as emotionally as Ditka and Kramer when contacted by phone in California.
"What's amazing to me is how confused these guys are about the facts," Upshaw said. "The problem with Herb Adderley is he took his pension at age 45 (22 years ago). How can I fix that now? I knew about the Willie Wood situation before they did and we responded to it and he'll be covered by the new plan that deals with dementia."
Last year's new collective bargaining agreement called for a $120 million per year increase in benefits to $700 million per year, including coverage for dementia and Alzheimer's. Upshaw said almost all the improvements are directed at former players.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello added: "No one seems to recognize what is being done. … And we are continuing to look into … retired players, especially as it concerns players with physical needs."
Said Upshaw: "To say that Roger and Upshaw need to wake up, I've been awake forever. I don't think anyone has done more for retired players than what I've done. Those guys out there talking about giving money back, when they were playing never gave a penny back for the guys who played before. The pre-59ers were not even in the pension plan. We brought them in under my watch."
Upshaw said the union paid 147 players $1.2 million last year out of a special fund to deal with financial crises.
"I'm paying guys' funeral services. I'm paying for mortgages, but I can't use their names," Upshaw said.
Ditka said his own trust helped the family of Hall of Fame cornerback Dick "Night Train" Lane when he died.
"We bought the headstone and buried him. Is that right? Come on. Wake up," Ditka said.
Upshaw said there are about 300 players on disability programs and agreed there are more who have applied for help and deserve it. He said he is talking to Goodell about cutting red tape.
Ditka charged: "They are paying lawyers to fight former players who are disabled. Does that make a lot of sense? I don't think so."
After the news conference, Ditka agreed it's unreasonable to expect any industry to take care of every former employee for life, but added, "Those who are disabled from playing the sport, whether they played five years or 10, I think you should take care of them to some degree. … This is going to take a lot of money, but it's the right thing to do."
Ditka said as a player he took three cortisone shots a week plus novocaine shots in an injured groin that eventually led to hip replacements.
"Anybody who knows anything about cortisone, you take one injection about every 45 days. I took three a week," Ditka said. "What it did was it rotted away the top of the hip. I wouldn't change the way I did it. I'm talking about the medical care back then was ridiculous. Our job was to play and we played hurt and played when we shouldn't have played because we weren't making enough money and we sure as hell didn't want the guy behind us making it."
Football always has been an emotional sport, but it hasn't always been a wealthy sport.
"[Ditka and Kramer] look at the industry, it has gone from being what George Halas had to a $7 billion industry per year," Upshaw said. "To go to where we are today is just amazing and that's what they see. But they also believe whatever the NFL is generating today is [because of] something they did. I would love to believe CBS and NBC are paying all that money for what I did when I was playing, but that's not what they're paying for."
As teams are paying free agents unprecedented contracts this week, Ditka and Kramer's cause gets magnified.
"You can always find something to counter what we're saying," Ditka said. "All we're saying is do the right thing. Fix a wrong. Help these guys. We … should make sure these people at least get to live out their life with respect."
As long as any players are suffering, no league or union action is going to satisfy Ditka and Kramer.
"We aren't going away. It has become a passion with me now," Ditka said. "When it started about a year ago, I said, 'OK, we'll raise some money to help these guys.' Now I'm ticked off."
Said Kramer: "We could go to the Super Bowl with 25 guys in wheelchairs and nurses and dementia and hospital beds and have a press conference. We could get really nasty about this, but we don't want to. We both loved our time in the game, loved the NFL, but they need to do the right thing."
dpierson@tribune.com 
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