Conrad Dobler

Summary: The plight of Leawood, Kansas' Conrad Dobler, recently profiled in the December issue of Kansas City Sports & Fitness magazine, is featured this month on HBO's award-winning program "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" on a segment analyzing how the NFL treats its former players. Dobler concluded the interview by saying that he has contemplated suicide so that he is not a burden to his loved ones.

Still Playing Hurt
To a large degree, today's NFL was built by decades of athletes who played for low salaries and endured pain, rarely making excuses. Endorsement money was a long shot at best. Their toughness and sacrifice made them the NFL's "greatest generation," and they never once suspected that the league they helped build would one day leave them in less than ideal shape. Today, with their health deteriorating and medical bills piling up, many former players are looking to the NFL for answers as their pension and disability plans fail to provide sufficient help. REAL SPORTS correspondent Jon Frankel looks at this highly charged story.

http://www.hbo.com/realsports/index.html

"Every time I say it's a game, you say it's a business. Every time I say it's a business, you say it's a game."--- O.W. Shaddock (John Matuszak), “North Dallas Forty”

You’ll never hear the P.A. announcer at Arrowhead say, “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s introduce the products who will be representing the Kansas City Chiefs in today’s game.” That would take all the fun out of it.

But, in reality the NFL is a business. And a business is designed to make a profit for its owners. The “product” in reality is its players. And, for the NFL, business is very good and its current batch of products is very popular.

However, just like in a normal business, once the product is no longer useful in making a profit there is no need to put money into it. That’s how many of the 7,000 former NFL players feel today. Many feel that since they are no longer useful to the league except to be paraded out for an occasional old-timers halftime show, they are tossed on the scrap heap.

That’s pretty much how Conrad Dobler, who once had the reputation as the “dirtiest player in all of football,” feels these days. An offensive lineman, he played 10 years in the NFL, mostly with the St. Louis Cardinals and was in three Pro Bowls. It was fun.

But today life isn’t so much fun for Dobler. He sounds bitter. And even a bit fatalistic. Forget any hint of political correctness from the 56-year-old. He uses a cane just like his close friend Dan Dierdorf does. During a recent event the league asked Dierdorf and Dobler if they would not use their canes because it might make the league look bad. Both did anyway.

Those fun football days in the 70’s and 80’s have resulted in three knee replacements for Dobler, and he is scheduled for a fourth. This year he has spent 90 days in the hospital. He almost died from a pulmonary embolism. He takes narcotics every day. The pain is constant.

He can still tell great football stories. As an example, playing against famed 14-time Pro Bowler Merlin Olsen, Dobler dominated Olsen so badly that he boasted, “ If you wanted to see it on instant replay, you had to go to the kitchen because I knocked him so far out of the TV frame.”

Olsen went on to do FTD flower commercials and even had a popular TV series “Father Murphy.” In one graveyard scene one of the tombs said, “CONRAD DOBLER. GONE, BUT NOT FORGIVEN.” Funny story.

When you talk to Dobler you get mixed messages. He thinks it’s funny that Olsen still resents him. It doesn’t phase him a bit. He still enjoys reminiscing about his playing days.

But these days Dobler is resentful the NFL doesn’t really care for its scrap heap of former players like him. “Of about 7,000 former players who played in the NFL, only about 118 are considered eligible for disability,” he says, adding with disdain, ‘They deny everything. Statistically, that makes the NFL the safest profession in the world. It is even safer than being a greeter at Wal-Mart.”

His personal medical bills are astronomical. Add to it that his wife, Joy, was paralyzed in a freak accident in 2001 when she fell climbing into a hammock, and things have piled up on him. He is grateful that that golfer Phil Mickelson learned of his situation and is currently paying his daughter’s tuition at Miami University of Ohio.

Sometimes folks think these old-timers made millions of dollars like they do today. Dobler's first contract was for $17,000 and his last was about $50,000.

He will slip into the conversation if you know any nurses refer them to his small business---Superior Healthcare Staffing---and he can find them positions. Or, if any businesses need group flu shots he can arrange it if they call him at (913) 383-0991.

And then he adds that if you know anyone interested in a nice home in Leawood…