Sports Mailbag: 5/14/05
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More on the Webster case
Ron Cook's May 1 column on Mike Webster requires clarification. Neither the NFL nor the NFL Players Association is a party to the lawsuit. Mike Webster's estate is suing the NFL Player Retirement Plan, a trust that benefits thousands of active and former players under specific guidelines.
Mike Webster was a great football player. His gradual mental and physical deterioration after football was heartbreaking. The trustees of the plan unanimously and immediately agreed, when Mike Webster first applied for disability six years ago, that he was unable to work and that his problems arose from his NFL career. Mike was receiving $110,000 a year in disability benefits when he died.
The district court did not "vindicate" that Webster's problems arose from football. The plan's trustees knew this in 1999. There has never been any dispute as to why Mike Webster became disabled. The issue is when Mike Webster became unable to work. When he left the game in 1991, he said he was "champing at the bit to get on to other things." He was very active in business and real estate. After he was hospitalized briefly in 1993, he attributed his fatigue to his "hectic work schedule and aggressive physical training."
The tragedy is that his condition gradually worsened. In November 1995, he consulted a lawyer about whether he could get disability benefits. His own lawyer advised that his current employment activities would disqualify him from receiving Social Security disability benefits, but told him how to apply for disability benefits from the NFL Player Retirement Plan.
When Mike and his lawyers did make that application in 1999, the plan trustees carefully reviewed the case and took enormous care in choosing the right effective date. In the end, they reached back three years before Mike even applied, and unanimously awarded benefits back to September 1996, an extra $309,000. Federal law prohibits the trustees from awarding more benefits than the plan allows. Despite the Baltimore judge's ruling, the decision of the plan trustees was in no way "arbitrary and capricious." Mike was awarded a total of $640,515 in disability benefits.
DOUGLAS W. ELL
Editor's Note: The writer is plan counsel for the
Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan.
Ward worth it, Cook isn't
Ron Cook's column about Hines Ward ("Is Ward worth it?" May 10) is the last straw. Cook is so uncreative and predictable.
For the record, why shouldn't Ward sign a rewarding contract? He takes more hits and catches more balls in heat, under pressure and with more pain than any of the guys with contracts already in place. Isn't he the guy we all want the ball thrown to on third down against New England? Instead, in typical Ron Cook fashion, he takes the opposite viewpoint (no matter how ridiculous) throws in a little sports symbolism, "Hines ... is a singles hitter ... think Jason Kendall ..." and calls himself a columnist.
First Published May 14, 2005 12:00 am
