Dr. Joseph Maroon, the Steelers' longtime neurosurgeon and one of the country's foremost experts on concussions in athletes, strongly disagreed with coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht's opinion that playing football killed Terry Long.

Terry Long

"I think the conclusions drawn here are preposterous and a misinterpretation of facts," said Maroon, vice chairman of the department of neurological surgery at UPMC.

"To say he was killed by football, it's just not right, it's not appropriate. I think it's not appropriate science when you have a history of no significant head injuries."

Wecht on Tuesday reported the findings of his office's autopsy on Long, who died June 7 at age 45. The Allegheny County coroner said the former Steelers guard died from swelling of the brain caused in part by repeated and chronic head injuries received while playing football, and he compared it to boxers becoming punch drunk.

Maroon, part of the Steelers medical staff since 1981, said to his knowledge Long had only one concussion during his playing days from 1984-91, and that came when he was involved in an auto accident when he swerved to avoid hitting a deer in 1990. Maroon said Long briefly lost consciousness but had "absolutely no brain damage" from the accident.

"I was the team neurosurgeon during his entire tenure with the Steelers, and I still am," Maroon said. "I re-checked my records; there was not one cerebral concussion documented in him during those entire seven years. Not one."

That is why Maroon took issue with Wecht's surmising that Long's swelling of the brain came from "force produced when some 300-pound player with a hand the size of a Christmas ham whacks you in the head dozens of times a game, season after season."

The head slap Wecht described became illegal in the NFL in 1977, seven years before Long's rookie season.

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Maroon noted that Long admitted to swallowing sleeping pills and rat poison in the summer of 1991 after he learned he had tested positive for taking anabolic steroids.

"That can have significant neuropatholigical affects on the brain," Maroon said. "He was on steroids use and we don't know for how long or how much, which also can cause brain damage.

"There's absolutely nothing I am aware of in the medical literature to suggest that an athlete who has had a head injury -- which, by the way, is not documented in this case -- is more susceptible to developing meningitis.

"The bottom line is, in a patient who has not had truly documented head injury, no evidence of concussions -- I would have seen him if he had -- who has had a history of substance abuse, a history of suicide attempt with extremely neuro-toxic materials, and then to conclude that his brain was damaged from football is more than a long stretch."

Wecht was taken aback by Maroon's comments.

"I have great respect for Dr. Maroon, but I think we just have a disagreement here. I'm a little surprised Dr. Maroon would make such strong statements.

"I made it clear I was not in any way retrospectively being critical of any team physician or anyone else. Concussions are not anything you can see, measure, feel or quantitate, nor does it always lead to unconsciousness. The majority do not ... for Dr. Maroon or anybody short of God saying he did not suffer a concussion, you cannot do that. That's not an argument, it's a state of fact. I don't understand how you can make that statement."

Maroon is co-founder of the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program and co-developer of ImPACT, a testing source on concussions which began with the Steelers in 1992. ImPACT is now used by 20 NFL teams, the NHL, NASCAR, most of the major colleges and by more than 1,000 high schools.

"It's the major neuro-psychological testing source for determining when an athlete can return to play," Maroon said.

Former Steelers guard Craig Wolfley, who played with Long, said his former teammate seemed lucid right up to the time he died. But Wolfley did say that offensive linemen still take a head-beating, even though the head slap was made illegal.

"I used to laugh when people would ask what's Sunday like," Wolfley said. "I would say, well, you get about six inches from a brick wall and you ram your head into it about 75 to 100 times. Ha, ha, ha. Well, it's not so funny years later when you realize it's consistent trauma."

All-Pro guard Alan Faneca did not think it is as bad these days.

"I'd like to think they have better helmets," he said. "You can't play this game and think about it. That's a tragedy for something to happen. I don't know how accurate that finding is either. I don't really know the whole situation exactly."