Proudfoot can already see legacy as he fades

I saw two things while watching a National Football League game last weekend that immediately made me think of Tony Proudfoot.

It was at Ford Field in Detroit, where the Lions were hosting the Green Bay Packers in a game that meant nothing to the home side but everything to the visitors battling for a playoff spot and a chance at the Vince Lombardi Trophy.  

First, there was a running back — don't remember the team — who took the ball on a simple sweep right that found him near the sidelines as the opposing corner came up for the tackle.  

Instead of leading with his head — helmet to helmet, as has been the norm in the modern NFL for far too long — the defender lowered his body, kept his eyes on the runner and wrapped him up perfectly around the upper legs for a classic, old-fashioned tackle.  

Lombardi would have loved it.  

Second, those Packers, whom he coached to five NFL titles and victory in the first two Super Bowls, pulled quarterback Aaron Rodgers before halftime because he was showing strong concussion symptoms, had already had one this year and they weren't going to take a chance, playoffs or no.  

Lombardi, who died of colon cancer in 1970, might have had a heart attack over that decision. Because back then, and right up to the last few years, nobody knew — or perhaps didn't want to know — the long-term toll that head injuries would take on players.  

When you had your "bell rung," you "sucked it up" and went back in there "for the team." Even if you had no idea, at that moment, where you were, exactly.

Tony Proudfoot has played a big part in changing that, simply by asking a question — one we don't have a real answer for right now, though we strongly suspect.  

Basically, it was: "Am I dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) because of the number of concussions I suffered through 178 games as a Montreal Alouettes and B.C. Lions player from 1971 to 1982?" Not to mention the years of minor ball, high school and college.  

He never said it was because of that. Rather, he pointed to empirical evidence that seemed to indicate it may be so, such as that seven CFL players have died from ALS, including Larry Uteck, Jim Coode, Billy Swan and Ed Buchanan.  

With Proudfoot's own death in the next days, weeks or months as he comes to the end of his own fight, that will be nine out of roughly 5,000 since 1950, far above the national average of one or two per 100,000.  

Or that brain research is showing concussions can cause advanced dementia, another significant factor in older former athletes' deaths. Or that an NFL study showed such disorders as ALS and dementia are running 19 times higher in players than the normal rate for men.  

In an interview with this reporter for CBC Sports back in October of 2009, one that had to be conducted by email because he could no longer speak, Proudfoot also pointed to the possible effects of genetics, of environment and heavy stress as causes.  

Could also be all of the above.  

It would be deeply presumptuous, as someone who knew Proudfoot from just two interviews and a lifetime of watching him play and coach, to speak here of the effect his passing will have on his family and friends. Unimaginable.  

But we can see what a sea change is occurring in pro, college and high school football simply because Proudfoot and other former players like him have asked the questions they hope will be answered in time.  

The NFL is suddenly paying attention to head injuries.  

Despite the outcry from "traditionalists" who have forgotten that "traditionally" football players didn't lead with their helmets until the 1970s (see Jack Tatum and Darryl Stingley), the league is trying to crack down on hits to the head that lead to so many concussions.  

And they now require players to undergo proper testing before being allowed back in games. Other sports have previously done so, or are quickly following suit.  

In this reporter's belief, however, Proudfoot, former San Francisco star Eric Davis — a man who admitted he once stayed in a game even though he'd been hit in the head so hard he had temporarily lost vision in his left eye — and other ex-players have had their biggest impact in making athletes think twice.  

Is this hurting me? Should I be more careful? Is leading with my head going to put me in trouble later in life?  

'A macho kind of way'

Davis works with young people in California and helped urge the legislature there to put in rules that require high school and kids sports coaches to get a note from a player's family doctor before allowing them back after a concussion.  

Proudfoot was asked for the CBC story if he regretted being a football player.  

"The older you get, coupled with the longer you played and the more injuries you accumulated, the more you believe it was not worth it," he said. "But males have genetically evolved to be competitive and egocentric in a macho kind of way, so I doubt you will get many players to admit it was not worth it."  

Then he thought for a moment, about the friends he made and the teammates with whom he created a life long bond, and reconsidered.  

"If it wasn't football, it would have been some other dumb, aggressive, competitive endeavour," he said.

The next time you see a defender bring down a ball carrier with a beautiful wrap-up tackle — the ones those of us a certain age were taught as kids — think of Tony Proudfoot.  

And of how we may soon find the answers for the simple question he asked.