Dave Pear's Blog

Here’s something a little lighter to start the week.
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I was going through more of my old files and ran across my original signing contract with the Baltimore Colts back in 1975. My first NFL contract was for 3 years: 1975 for $30,000; 1976 for $40,000; 1977 for $50,000. They also included a $30,000 signing bonus (!) over 3 years ($20,000 upon signing in 1975 and an additional $5,000 in 1976 and in 1977). I was subsequently traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then Hugh Culverhouse traded me off to the Oakland Raiders in 1979 after I had the nerve to ask for a raise! I played for two years with a broken neck with the Raiders when we won Super Bowl XV as the wild card team against the Eagles (Raiders 27 – Eagles 10). I was released by Al Davis after that year (more like kicked to the curb!). And yes – that’s a Riddell Helmet I’m wearing in my Topps card!
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Since then, my family has gone through over $600,000 of our own money for my ongoing football-related medical expenses and surgeries with absolutely no reimbursement from the NFL and its various plans (other than the equivalent of two seat cushions and a $5.00 co-pay they sent me after my first hip surgery as part of their fantastic hip replacement program - click HERE to read about it.)
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We uploaded a copy of my first NFL contract to Scribd for easy viewing and to make it available for downloading and printing. You can also click the Enlarge icon in the lower right corner of the menu at the bottom of the viewing screen to go Full Screen for easier reading (just hit the ESC key to close):
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Dave Pear 1975 Baltimore Colts Contract
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Some of the retired players have been sending in some additional thoughts and comments on a wide range of topics. Many were important enough that we thought it would be better to put them all up in one post. We’ll start off with a comment from Larry Kaminski followed by an answer from one the law firms currently involved with litigation against the League and the NFLPA.

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When I played football for the University of Washington Huskies and then went into the NFL first through the Baltimore Colts, on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and eventually with the Raiders, we all wore Riddell helmets. Little did I know that Riddell was an official paying sponsor of the NFL and was the supplier of choice for each of the teams for many years. This relationship made a lot of money for Riddell because kids playing Pee Wee, high school and college football were led to believe that Riddell was the best protection money could buy. And why not? All their heroes in the NFL were wearing them.
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Here’s one of my Topp Raiders cards with that older 70′s helmet – definitely not close to anything like the young players have today. (And the older guys from the 50′s and 60′s played with those leather “helmets”!) We were all coached to use our heads and helmets as part of our play and most of the older players still talk about stingers and having their bells rung several times in every game. And the League even went so far as to create their MTBI (MILD Traumatic Brain Injury) Committee headed for years by their own appointed Dr. No: Dr. Ira Casson who continued to spew their propaganda all the way up to Congress as recently as a couple of years ago.
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Our friend, George Visger, played for two years with the 49ers, ending his short career with a Super Bowl ring and 9 subsequent, life-changing brain surgeries that followed. And no disability or pension benefits because he only played for two years so he didn’t even meet the Disability Plan’s 4-year hurdle that all pre-93 players needed to qualify! Do you think his helmet was good protection?
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Bowing to heavy pressure in recent years, the League has been making changes to the rules to protect its players from the effects of concussions. They also fired Dr. No and replaced him with a real expert and advocate in the field: Dr. Rich Ellenbogen. But what about all those decades of denial while continuing to misinform its employees with fake studies? And they did that while also sending a false sense of security to school and college players making it all look and sound eerily like the long era when the tobacco industry was telling the public that cigarette smoking was harmless.
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And that is why Heidi and I decided to join a lawsuit that holds the League and Riddell responsible for hiding and perpetuating the long-term damages from concussions. The suit was officially filed this week and we’ve just uploaded a full copy to Scribd for easy viewing and to make it downloadable for printing. You can also click the Enlarge icon in the center of the menu at the bottom of the viewing screen to go Full Screen for easier reading (just hit the ESC key to close):
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Full Concussion and Helmet Lawsuit Filing Aug 3 2011
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NOTE: I’m not a lawyer and I am not here to solicit your business. But if you want more information, my contact person on this lawsuit is:
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Jason Luckasevic
Goldberg, Persky & White
e-mail: Jluckasevic@gpwlaw.com
1030 Fifth Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 338-9460 – direct
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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NFL and NFLPA’s labor woes may not be over yet

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Tuesday, 02 August 2011
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
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The National Football League owners have a labor agreement with the present members of the reconstituted National Football League Players Association but it appears that the league still has problems with the players association’s stance on not helping out former players with their medical needs years after their last game in the league. The league apparently informed Carl Eller’s legal team on Friday that the-then decertified National Football League Players Association decided not to take a $500 million offer over ten-years to get retirees life football medical benefits and an uptick in pensions as part of the recently completed collective bargaining agreement.
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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Handouts to NFL owners have been an absolute failure

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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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Two decades later, sports is out of whack
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
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About two decades ago, a tall man with an identifiable nasal twang was holding court at Gallagher’s Steak House one afternoon as he lifted a martini with a shaking hand to his mouth. The septuagenarian with a bad wig was standing near the slabs of meat that were hanging at the steak house and in a crescendo was complaining about the world of sports. The empty room began filling up as the man droned.
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“Sports is out of whack,” said the man with the familiar voice in a loudish way as he fumbled to take a sip of his martini. He was disgusted with the industry that he first entered in the 1950s as Willie Mays’ advisor.
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Last week was yet another week of vindication for the man who was despised by sportswriters for telling it like it is.
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The three — make that about five — events of the week of April 25-April 30, had nothing to do with actual games. There was the draft in a locked-out-then-open-for-business-then-locked-out National Football League.
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There was Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson moving as much earth as he could to try and keep the city’s National Basketball Association team in team in town despite the fact that the unemployment level had hit 12 percent in his region. At the same time he was rounding up $10 million in marketing partnership for the owners of the NBA Kings, the Maloof brothers, Johnson was cutting workers at the city’s police and fire departments and school administrators were trying to figure out whether they can keep sports going in Sacramento public schools.
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Posted with the express consent of Evan Weiner:

THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
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Why are NFL owners really locking out the players?

Tuesday, 26 April 2011
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
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The National Football League has been pretending that all is well in the land of the 32 franchises and the league’s more than 1,600 employees. Teams are conducting cheerleader tryouts. The league released the 2011 pre-season schedule, then came the regular season schedule announcement and the exciting month of NFL football reaches a climax with three days worth of what is essentially a major restraint of trade, the college draft. That exercise, which starts on Thursday, is made legal thanks to the 2006 National Football League-National Football League Players Association collective bargaining agreement which gives the NFL the right to offer college players a chance to join the players ranks through that mechanism even though the college players have no say in the 2006 agreement.
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So all is wonderful in the land of the NFL except for one minor detail: NFL owners have locked out the employees who perform on the field — the players and no new negotiations on the collective bargaining agreement are scheduled until May 16 after a flurry of court decisions will be made on the legality of the lockout and whether the owners can use TV monies from 2011 rights from FOX, NBC, CBS, Disney’s ESPN and DirecTV for football operations even if there is no product.
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The lockout was lifted by a Minnesota judge on Monday afternoon; the NFL will appeal the ruling which means both sides are back to the bargaining table with no rules for business for 2011. It could be that 2010 rules apply which is not necessarily good for either side. Players will have to wait six years, not four for free agency and the owners have no salary cap to control players costs.
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Reprinted in its entirety with permission from Evan Weiner:

Discarded NFL players are often forgotten in retirement

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With all the recent coverage on drugs in the NFL – both “legal” and illegal – I’ve been getting a lot of media inquiries coming in about my personal experiences from playing back in the late 70′s and early 80′s. Like a lot of things from the past, many have now come to roost as part of NFL culture today. Painkillers and Novocaine shots were accepted treatments in the locker rooms of my day and it’s a small wonder that the young players today seem to feel that they’re expected to do whatever it takes to make themselves worth those big salaries they get from the NFL. You reap what you sow and the steroid problem is at least as much a consequence of the NFL’s drug culture over the decades as it is the product of the competitiveness among today’s players themselves. What did they think would happen?

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Wayne Hawkins put in an incredible 11 years for the NFL, at one point as a teammate with Gene Upshaw as an offensive lineman with the Raiders. Sadly, that’s where the term ‘Team’ ended. While Upshaw went on to become the omnipotent head of the Union, Wayne has been deteriorating physically and mentally as a direct result of the severe injuries he suffered from his NFL career.

At the urging of Disability Attorney, John Hogan, Wayne’s wife, Sharon, recently filed an application for his T&P Disability Benefits. Sharon was gracious enough to allow us to publish her letter to the Review Board. The Hawkins have been good friends and embody everything dignified. Her letter would sway any normal human being with a heart.

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Welcome! This is the first post created for Dave Pear’s Official Blog. Dave devoted his early years to playing football and achieved what most people can only dream about: He made it into the NFL as a respected defensive tackle. After graduating from the University of Washington, Dave was drafted into the NFL to play for the Baltimore Colts in 1975, then went to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the expansion draft of 1976. He was the first Buccaneer selected to play in the Pro Bowl in 1978. Dave was subsequently traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1979 and in 1980 played for a winning Super Bowl XV team to earn that coveted ring. continue reading »