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Wednesday, November 5, 1997

Just how much more can Troy Aikman take?

By Jim Reeves

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

IRVING, Texas - It was at about the time that Kevin Greene tossed Erik Williams aside like he was throwing out the trash that I began to fear for Troy Aikman's life Sunday at 3Com Park.

And just because Aikman eventually survived that encounter with the 49ers - survived by somehow being able to walk off the field on his own feet, instead of leaving unconscious on a stretcher - doesn't necessarily mean Cowboys fans can breathe any easier today.

Greene hit Aikman so hard in the first quarter of the Cowboys game in San Francisco he temporarily jarred him loose from his senses and a contact lens.

I'm a lot more concerned about the former than I am the latter.

By Monday afternoon at Valley Ranch, Aikman was standing in front of his locker doing his duty as a team leader by facing the media, answering the questions that came his way as best he could.

He was lucid and sharp, his thoughts organized and precise. He was candid on some questions and danced defensively away on others, but it was obvious that he was in complete command of his faculties.

Keeping him that way - more than any other issue at Valley Ranch, including coach Barry Switzer's lack of control and leadership - must be the Cowboys' No. 1 concern.

The battering Aikman took Sunday was brutal, and watching him in the locker room afterward was almost as painful.

He moved slowly, and it was difficult to tell which hurt worse, his head, his body or his heart.

Leigh Steinberg, Aikman's longtime agent and friend, approached the Cowboys quarterback as he sat staring into his locker. Steinberg had his young son Matt in tow and wanted to introduce him to Troy.

Normally, Aikman responds to these occasions graciously. If anyone needed an outward sign to know how badly he was hurting, you only had to watch him ask even Steinberg to give him a few minutes.

"This," Steinberg said, turning away, "is sad."

He meant, I think, the rapid decay of the once powerful and great Cowboys dynasty, but he could have been referring to the slumping, hurting Aikman just as easily.

"Let's remember that in 1989 Troy gave up some years of his youth in the cause of the Cowboys," Steinberg said from his San Francisco offices Monday. "The pounding and beating he took in 1989 and 1990 have clearly foreshortened his career, and there will be some missing years at the end. The pounding he took yesterday was evocative of those years. I haven't seen him hit that hard since he was a rookie."

Of particular concern to Steinberg and others was Aikman's admission that he was having headaches after Greene drove him head first into the turf. That sounded especially ominous on the heels of last week's concussion at Philadelphia. Aikman, warrior that he is, brushed off those concerns Monday.

"I got some headaches following that hit," Aikman said, "but as far as losing consciousness or getting dizzy, that didn't happen like it did in the Philadelphia game."

Ah, no skull fracture, no foul. We get it.

Aikman, as if we didn't already know this, is far too courageous for his own good. With the Cowboys' season sliding away, the last thing Aikman will do is look for a way to shirk his responsibility as the team's most high-profile player. He's the the on-field captain of this ship and if it's going down, he'll ride it to the bottom.

If he can still stand, that is.

"It's a real concern," Steinberg said. "Troy has always been the toughest, most macho, stoic peson when it comes to his health. Fortunately, he's been a quick healer in his life.

"His focus now is simply on how they can get better. He's not in a state of denial. He does, intellectually, understand the risks and dangers. To perform, he blocks those issues out."

Doctors have admitted they're not sure how much pounding a football player should take. How many concussions are too many? What are the long-range damage possibilities?

The NFL, Steinberg said, has yet to seriously address the issue of concussions.

"In the opening credits of "Monday Night Football", two helmets are shown crashing together," Steinberg pointed out. "The whole nomenclature - he got his bell rung, he got dinged - reveres and glorifies hard hits.

"It's a difficult issue, but if we can send a spacecraft to Mars, it seems to me the technology ought to be available to produce a more concussion resistant helmet. Plus, we need a more complete diagnostic regimen for concussions, providing a definitive grading of the severity of head injuries so we can know how to respond to them."

The seriousness of the situation is why Aikman conceded Monday that, after talking with San Francisco's Steve Young, who is also one of Steinberg's clients, both quarterbacks may look for further answers this off-season.

"There might be a consideration to have some more extensive tests done after the season," Aikman said. "Not because I think anything's wrong, but just as a precaution."

It's something Steinberg is urging him to do.

"It's one thing to go through aches and pains in football that make it difficult for an athlete to reach over and pick up his child when he turns 40," Steinberg said. "It's another thing for him to not recognize that child.

"Troy and Steve both attended a seminar on concussions a few years ago. He knows that multiple head injuries expotentially trigger increased risks of Alzheimer's and early senility. He can't function as a football player worrying about this every week, but I want to still be a friend of Troy's in 20 years and I'd like for him to know who I am."

In the meantime, with seven regular-season games to play and a lot of Kevin Greenes ahead before the season ends, I have one suggestion:

More life insurance.

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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