CHICAGO, IL – OCTOBER 31: Pro Football Hall of Fame member Gale Sayers is honored at halftime during the game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on October 31, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

The family of Gale Sayers announced yesterday that Sayers, 73, is dealing with the effects of dementia.

Sayers only played parts of seven seasons in the NFL, retiring in 1972 at the age of 29 due to leg injuries. But as we’ve seen with a variety of NFL retirees, length of career isn’t really a factor when it comes to dealing with the potential lifelong health issues that come with playing the sport.

Vahe Gregorian profiled the Sayers family for the Kansas City Star:

But (Gale’s wife) Ardie Sayers has come to believe its onset was years before that — possibly even as far back as when he returned to Kansas in a fund-raising capacity for a time in 2009.

While she considers Sayers, 73, physically healthy “as a horse” and notes he is working out with a trainer several days a week, she added, “That brain controls everything, doesn’t it?”

Some of his days are better than others.

On Wednesday, he scarcely spoke during a seven-hour visit by The Star.

But other times, he can hold halting conversations, and Ardie Sayers and friends believe there is a lot happening inside that he just can’t get out.

The profile is full of heartbreaking details, like this one:

That’s why she has been moving him home from a facility he’d been staying in for the last few months, and it’s why she works with him at such things as practicing signing his name.

“I say, ‘OK, come on, let’s fill up this page,’ ” said Ardie Sayers, who also is getting in-home care for her husband. “ ‘I’ll write one, and then you write one.’

“At times you can wait 30 minutes, or maybe 10 minutes. And then he’ll do it like there’s never been anything wrong. It takes a lot of patience.”

She demonstrated that with him on Wednesday, when just before dinner he went to wash his hands with carpet cleaner.

And while a career in football isn’t a prerequisite for adult-onset dementia, it’s certainly a major risk factor, and it seems very naive to assume it’s not at play for Sayers as well. Indeed, that’s what doctors have told the family:

“Like the doctor at the Mayo Clinic said, ‘Yes, a part of this has to be on football,’ ” Ardie Sayers said, adding, “It wasn’t so much getting hit in the head … It’s just the shaking of the brain when they took him down with the force they play the game in.”

Please read the full piece, as this sampling can’t do it justice, but the main point is this: these stories aren’t going away. Just from the Chicago Bears, we’ve had Jim McMahon’s well-documented health issues. Lance Briggs just announced he’s already dealing with CTE effects. And ’85 Bear Dave Duerson tragically took his own life due to symptoms of CTE.

There are countless more Chicago Bears, and exponentially more players around the league, who are going through this or will be going through this shortly. At the very least, let’s hope more of them get the help they need and deserve.

[KC Star]

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.

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