The Pain Game

His wife, having digested all the medical reports about his condition, says his forgetfulness is a function of "tired brain." In the years since he left football, he has been plagued by deepening memory problems, a result, he believes, of the many concussions he suffered during his playing days.

"Don't feel sorry for me," he says. "At least somebody could say I chose this for myself. But my family never chose this. They're the ones suffering." He takes a long breath and sits down on the edge of the bed. He closes his eyes, then opens them. He reaches into the basket, picks up the trophy, stares at it and drops it back into the basket. Then he asks, "Would you like some water?"

One afternoon, Pear pops a tape into his VCR. In the next instant he's watching the 1981 Super Bowl between his Raiders and the Philadelphia Eagles at the Louisiana Superdome. He eyes the screen, grinning. "Yeah, our team is ready. I'm surprised how charged up I'm getting watching this thing. You gotta be careful with yourself sometimes not to lapse into the old macho attitudes. Look at our guys. Eagles don't have a chance. That's why I have this."

He lifts his left hand to show his Super Bowl ring. Each Raider on that year's squad received two rings, one for himself, and another as a pendant for a wife or girlfriend. Never thrilled with her husband's football career, particularly the way it ended, Heidi Pear long ago gave hers back to Dave, who is wearing it on a silver chain around his neck. "I guess I'm proud about being a champion, giving everything I had," he says. "Even if it ruined me."

He settles back on his couch to watch the game's start. For the next minute or two, he is lost in a reverie.

"You know, I can tell you what I was thinking that day," he mutters, finally. "I was standing on the sideline and thinking that it was too bad that I was gonna have to go out there playing with a broken neck in my last game -- because that's what it felt like: a broken neck."

Pear gasps then, holds up a hand. He grabs his cane and tries standing up. "Gotta get up, gotta get up," he moans. Sitting this long on the couch has caused his back to knot up, which happens frequently. He presses a hand to his face. Digging his cane into the floor, he walks around for a few minutes, then returns to the couch and sits gingerly.

In the next couple of minutes, he turns his head, reluctant to watch this much longer. "The game bit me and my family so bad that if I watch these things too long, I get down," he says. "And then I end up wishing I hadn't watched at all." He doesn't see the same game that fans do. "Fans misunderstand," he says. "Football is not a contact sport. It's a collision sport."

Thinking about today's generation of players, he says: "These young guys should be concerned about us and the other retired players now because some of them are going to be in the same place. You can't take the violence out of the game, and that's okay, because it wouldn't be football without the violence, I guess. But if you can't take the violence out, you gotta at least help the people who get hurt."

Other than his pleading letters and phone calls to the league, its retirement board and the union, Pear stayed quiet for a long while. "I guess I was ashamed at times to talk publicly about what was happening to me," he says. "I think a lot of the retired players with troubles were like that for a long time."

That has changed in recent years with the emergence of private organizations formed to assist struggling NFL retirees and publicize their plight. The two best-known -- Gridiron Greats, led by Hall of Famers Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears and Jerry Kramer of the Green Bay Packers, and Fourth and Goal, made up of retired Baltimore Colts -- immediately made it their mission to prod the injured and destitute to express their anger.

Last year, as Pear and a growing number of NFL retirees began coming out of shadows to tell their stories, a kind of critical mass was reached: For the first time, the retirees' woes caught the interest of a bloc of fans, media and politicians who, remembering the players in their glory, had difficulty believing what they were seeing. Onetime fleet young gods who ran for touchdowns now looked like old men. Powerful linemen of the '60s and '70s were visibly broken. Earl Campbell, the Hall of Fame Houston Oilers running back enfeebled by years of hits, needed a walker just to move. Former All-Pro offensive tackle Conrad Dobler, knees and hips ruined, shuffled with a cane at news conferences and talked of his medications and financial struggles. Thirty-five-year-old retired offensive guard Brian DeMarco, who suffered serious spinal and knee injuries while playing for two teams, was found in Texas, broke and unable to work or cope with his pain. Seventy-one-year-old Willie Wood, the legendary Packers defensive back whose interception was decisive in Super Bowl I, had taken residence in a Hyattsville assisted living facility, hobbled, suffering from Alzheimer's-like cognitive problems and unable to pay his bills on a $1,100 monthly NFL pension.