The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

http://pro32.ap.org/article/former-players-nfl-teams-conspired-push-painkillers

Shula's name came up in a lawsuit. Being claimed that he told players if they didn't take painkillers to get back on the field they would be cut

I call BS.  Guys come forward 30-40 years later to seek a payday when they knew what they were doing.  Personal responsibility is sorely lacking these days. 

I am going to sue my friends, bartender, and bar owner for enticing me to stay out drinking and smoking while I was in high school and college (not to mention last night).  If not for them I would have graduated with a higher GPA and be making more money.

From what I understand about Shula, and considering some of the documentaries I've seen about him and how he handled injured players, this doesn't even surprise me.  I would wager that this is true, if I had to guess.

I'm not vilifying Shula, either.  The game was just different.  They didn't really know the damage they were doing and you were expected to just suck it up and tough it out. 

Different era, different culture.  It was back before the wussification of the American male. I'm going to go re-read Adam Carolla's "In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks". 

Here's a question that should be asked.

Let's compare football to a regular job.

If an employer tells an employee, "You better do this job in unsafe conditions or you are fired," can he or she be sued?

Or we could all be like those veterans suffering from concussions.  ::)

Concussion reform is good, not bad for the NFL.

I agree. And a bunch of coaches were listed in the lawsuit, Shula wasn't the only one. But he is obviously the biggest name

This is a side note, but in Don Shula: A Football Life, they show this guy who had been knocked out cold on special teams in (I believe) the Super Bowl.  In order to keep things moving from a strategic standpoint, they needed him off the field, so they show his teammates literally dragging his limp body to the sideline.

The Dolphins lost.  After the game, Shula mentions that the guy is complaining to the doc that he feels sick and his response was "well, after that, we all feel sick."  Later, the guy started vomiting and went into seizures because it turns out that he was severely concussed.  Shula visited him in the hospital and the guy didn't even know the game had been played.

They just didn't know what they were dealing with.

On top of it, the candidness which with Shula tells that story, basically laughing through it, was probably indicative of what kinda guy he was.  Get it done or get lost.

Adjust your skirt, Nancy.  And I didn't say that concussion reform is bad.  What I said was that it was a different era back then.  The long term (or even short term) effects of concussion were not known back then.  You can't wag a finger at people for the way they treated somthing 35 years ago that wasn't understood like it is today. 

I read an article or saw a sports program several years ago that said that Jake Scott was traded to the Redskins because he refused to be injected with pain killers before a preseason game  He resented the Dolphins and Shula in particular for years because of this.  Sorry I can't remember the source, but it was a long time ago.

That sounds awful, but I have to ask, was every coach doing this?

I found the article.  It turns out it was Scott's shoulder rather than his knee.   

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-05-08/sports/fl-dave-hyde-0509-20100508_1_shula-s-sons-orange-bowl-elevator-don-shula