Former Football: Stokley somehow still going strong

Former Football: Stokley somehow still going strong

Jon Saraceno • USA Today • January 15, 2011

Brandon Stokley has been knocked around, knocked silly and knocked out many times by his lifetime mistress — football.

Playing for his dad in college in the 1990s, Stokley suffered a concussion one game and couldn’t recall the score at halftime. He played the second half, a risk that today is medically verboten.

The Seattle Seahawks slot receiver says he has suffered more than a dozen concussions after playing a combined 18 high school, college and NFL seasons.

The last one was 18 days ago.

Sunday at the Chicago Bears he will be stoked to play the sport that consumes him, gladly slipping on his NFL armor because, he says, "It’s really all I know."

Despite his troubling medical history — blows to the brain that could lead to serious down-the-road health issues — the 34-year-old receiver says he has no intentions of retiring. Stokley says, "(I’ll quit when) nobody wants me around the league or my wife tells me, ‘That’s enough.’

"I’m going to keep going," he says. "I just love it. I can’t see myself giving up football because I think I might have something (bad) happen to me or my brain. Something else might happen — I might get killed in a car crash. I cannot predict the future. I am going to live in the here and now and have fun at what I am doing."

Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon and professor at West Virginia University, says, "This mind-set, while understandable, flies in the face of what we now know about potential long-term consequences" of concussions. Three or more seems to be the cutoff point regarding long-term health implications, the doctor says.

But former Super Bowl-winning quarterback Phil Simms, a CBS analyst, says, "A player knows when he’s pushing the edge. I think if he thought he would have consequences, he wouldn’t do it."

Multiple concussions can cause cumulative neurological damage, including increased risks of developing epilepsy and Alzheimer’s. A 2009 study commissioned by the NFL showed former players 50 and older had higher rates of Alzheimer’s, or other memory-related maladies, than the general population.

A knee to Stokley’s helmet against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 26 forced him to miss the Seahawks’ NFC West-clinching win two weeks ago vs. the St. Louis Rams.

He returned Saturday to snag clutch third-down passes from Matt Hasselbeck, including a 45-yard touchdown for the go-ahead score in a 41-36 wild-card upset of the New Orleans Saints.

Stokley is "one of the best slot receivers in the game," Seattle quarterbacks coach Jedd Fisch says. "He uses his niftiness and craftiness to find open windows."

It was Stokley’s first score in the playoffs since the 2003 season, when he played for the Indianapolis Colts. Since then, injuries have taken a toll.

"I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think and worry about it to some extent," Stokley says. "But there is only so much you can control. I have to live for today— not for 20 years from now. I don’t know what is going to happen in five, 10 years. I can’t control that.

"As long as I am feeling good and not having symptoms from concussions, I will keep playing."

Two seasons ago, while playing for the Denver Broncos, Stokley lost his equilibrium and fell to his knees – after taking an earlier blow to the head, and after he was head-butted by teammates after a touchdown.

Last summer, he suffered a groin injury in camp and was released after an injury settlement with Denver. Seattle signed him three weeks into the season.

A much more serious injury, a torn Achilles tendon in 2006, caused Stokley to miss the playoffs and the Colts’ Super Bowl run. "It was just a miserable year because I kept getting hurt," he says. "That Super Bowl ring doesn’t have the same meaning."

It was the opposite of what he experienced six years earlier with the Baltimore Ravens. The then-second-year pro caught a touchdown pass in the Ravens’ Super Bowl XXXV victory. It was a particularly meaningful week, he says, because he shared it with his father and grandfather.

The father of two boys, Stokley recalls being at practices when his father was the offensive coordinator at Clemson and head coach at Louisiana.

He traces his precise route running and catching ability to afternoons of tossing the football with other coaches’ sons.

Nelson Stokley died last year. The ex-LSU quarterback was 66 and suffered from Alzheimer’s.

The receiver’s mother, Jane, died when he was a senior in college. Stokley’s attitude regarding the continuation of his career is partly explained, he says, by his parents’ relatively early deaths.

"I think a good motto to have is ‘Enjoy your life while you can,"’ he says. "It could be gone."