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COPYRIGHT 2001 South Florida Sun-Sentinal
by South Florida Sun-Sentinel Dave HydePAYINGPAYINGPAYINGGoal was to play, no matter (KRT)
whatMedical knowledge was limitedWhat they regret: not playing nowPAYINGPAYINGPAYINGJOINT VENTURE: Former Dolphin Bill Stanfill keeps his left hip joint in a mayonnaise jar, which he leaves on his mantle as a conversation piece. He received a left artificial hip in January; the right one is next.
Special to the Sun-Sentinel/Todd Stone
DRIVEN: Bill Stanfill, left, a Dolphins defensive end from 1969 through `76, said he did anything he needed to in order to play, including taking injections of cortisone. Staff file photo/Ursula E. Seemann
FAST LANE, MORE PAIN: Dolphins running back Mercury Morris was another member of the Perfect Season team. He took cortisone injections and continued to play through pain and injuries until his neck was broken in 1975. Today, Morris visits his chiropractor, Chris Goetz, four times a week for his neck problems, below. Above, staff file photo/Ursula Seeman; below, staff photo/A. Enrique Valentin
"WHATEVER IT TAKES": Guard Bob Kuechenberg broke his arm in December 1973. He had the bone marrow drilled out and a steel-alloy rod pounded into it so he could play in the Dolphins' 1974 Super Bowl victory. At 53 he suffers from double vision. "My only regret," he says today, "is my body won't let me go out there another Sunday and play."
Left, staff file photo/Ursula E. Seemann; right, staff photo/Mark Randall REUNITED: Members of the `72 Dolphins gathered in 1997 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the NFL's only undefeated team. Kneeling (from left): Ed Jenkins, Dick Anderson, Marlon Briscoe, Garo Yepremian. Sitting: Charlie Babb, Howard Twilley, Bob Griese, Don Shula, Mercury Morris, Howard Schnellenberger. Standing: Curtis Johnson, Larry Little, Bill Arnsparger, Jim Kiick, Bob Kuechenberg, Marv Fleming, Larry Seiple, Lloyd Mumford, Carl Noonan, Doug Crusan, Hubert Ginn, John Sandusky, Jim Langer, Mo Scarry, Bill Stanfill, Earl Morrall, Monte Clark. Back row: Carl Taseff, Vern Den Herder, Nick Buoniconti, Norm Evans, Manny Fernandez. AP file photo
By Dave Hyde
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
(KRT)
ALBANY, Ga. _ It is 9 a.m. on a Wednesday, and 25 years after his final play, the meter is still running for Bill Stanfill. He can't look up the flight of stairs in front of him. He wraps five crooked fingers around the handrail beside him.
He lifts a metal cane onto the first stair, moves his right foot up to it, then brings his left foot to join them. He repeats the process on the next step. And the next.
This is how the Dolphins' career sacks leader reaches his second-floor office this morning.
"Just too many hard miles on this body," he says, maneuvering to a desk chair that has a 6-inch cushion on it to ensure his surgically replaced hip remains positioned above his knee. That guarantees proper blood circulation.
A can of Coke sits on his desk from the day before, one-third full, as his always remain. Four fused discs won't allow his neck to tilt back and drain the rest.
In his eight-year NFL career, Stanfill chipped teeth, splintered a forearm, twice bruised his liver, broke or dislocated nine of his fingers, wore a back brace for four months (taking it off to practice every day in training camp) and ruined those four neck discs _ all while happily throwing his body in harm's way.
But, decades into his retirement and on the downside of middle age, the game keeps coming after him in a way that strikes at the core of who he was _ at who they all still are, in fact, all the Boys of `72, these soldiers of the Perfect Season and heroes of the Undefeated Dolphins, celebrated in song, myth and every-five-year anniversaries across South Florida.
They're all paying today. Their bodies are under assault. Go ahead. Pick a name. Pick a position. Pick a body part, if you want. Pick Nick Buoniconti, who has a titanium hip. Pick Doug Crusan, whose arms go numb each night. Pick Manny Fernandez, who has bone spurs and no rotator cuffs in both shoulders, no cartilage in either knee, a torn-up ankle and a back that would need two metal rods and a handful of screws to begin repairing.
Vern Den Herder gets headaches if his neck moves too much. Dick Anderson has an arthritic neck, a bad shoulder, a worse back and a left knee that feels each morning like it has been whacked with a tire iron.
Mercury Morris, named for the fleet-footed messenger of Roman gods, receives a message about football every time his neck moves and has a nerve deficiency that makes, "everything on my right side smaller than my left side _ shoulder, deltoid cap, biceps, triceps, forearm, pectorals, lat, everything," he says.
"The only person that could truly understand how we feel would be a test-crash dummy for General Motors if he had a 10-year career," says Tim Foley, whose deteriorating hip highlights an anatomy of aches. "And that's if you looked in on him after he got some age on him."
Worthless knees, replaced hips, bum shoulders, elbows that don't open, fists that won't close, headaches, neck aches, wall-to-wall back aches and numbness in arms and legs caused by pinched nerves due...
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