In the spring of 2016 I was at a meeting with Mike Eischeid, a former NFL punter and kicker that played for the Oakland Raiders and Minnesota Vikings. Eischeid is as old school as it gets when it comes to football players and on his resume has three Super Bowl appearances, two for the Vikings and one for the Raiders. He played in an era where some of the truly enigmatic characters were on the field, including some of the greatest Vikings of all time. He was there in the era of the Purple People Eaters on defense, anchored by Alan Paige, Carl Eller, and Jim Marshall. There were also some incredible offensive linemen, anchored by Hall of Fame center Mick Tingelhoff and Wally Hilgenberg.
Mr. Eischeid is not the first professional football player that I have had opportunity to know and talk to, but he is the only one who played in that era when I was an impressionable young boy that loved to watch the games on Sunday afternoons. I was even a little bit of a Viking fan for a while and found out that if you wrote players a letter they would send you an autographed photograph. All you had to do was ask! I had a number of them pinned on the wall of my bedroom as a kid. In my mind that was the Golden Era of professional football as I cheered mightily for the Miami Dolphins and my favorite players Larry Czonka and Jim Kiick. And I was very aware the Purple People Eaters on the Vikings as I ran with buddies who were diehard fans.
In my time in West Union I have not had opportunity to meet with Mr. Eischeid as much as I would like as we usually just see each other at meetings and a few community events, but I know people who know him well and have told me stories about his life as a professional football player. However, on the day I reference above, what he and his wife shared with me made a strong impression. We were making small talk prior to a meeting and I asked if he was in Minnesota when Mick Tingelhoff played. Tingelhoff had just been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and was a Nebraska alum, as am I. Mr. Eischeid affirmed that he had in fact played with him, and added with a chuckle that they were good friends and over the years had spent time with each other and their families. I got a sense that after their playing days were over these old warriors remained good friends and would gather occasionally when their schedules allowed.
In addition to Tingelhoff, Eischeid mentioned Wally Hilgenberg and a few other players and smiled at some unstated memories. I listened intently and then mentioned how I found it sad that Tingelhoff was unable to give his own speech during the induction ceremony for the Hall of Fame. The great Viking quarterback Fran Tarkenton spoke for him because Tingelhoff was unable to do so on his own due to memory loss. Eischeid mentioned that it had been sad to watch some of these once strong athletes succumb to age and the battering they put their bodies through when they played the game. He mentioned them not knowing where they were and how tough that was to see. I am not an doctor and will not diagnose, but one could guess that Tingelhoff, the victim of hundreds if not thousands of head slaps and banging heads helmet to helmet, suffered some type of neurological damage due to his days playing football. He started 240 consecutive regular season games at center, which ranks third all time. That’s a lot of banging heads, and getting slaps and forearms to the side and back of the head.
Mr. Eischeid said that it had been a while since he had seen some of the old teammates and when I asked about Hilgenberg I was not aware that he had passed away in 2008 at the age 66 due to Lou Gehrig’s disease, or at least that is what was originally determined. However, his widow and children agreed to donate his brain for examination and a different story came back. Like many former players who died well before their time, Hilgenberg’s brain showed definitive signs of CTE. What made him unique is that he was the third individual whose brain was studied that developed a type of motor neuron disease that masks itself as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Over the past few years I have paid a lot of attention to CTE and the brain research that has taken place and am very saddened by what I now see with some of my childhood heroes. Long before this disordered came to the surface I was well aware of how these Sunday warriors of my youth had bodies that were broken and who moved like old men when they were still very much middle-aged. Their daily routine was filled with pain and discomfort. But what struck me after my conversation with Mr. Eischeid was that as many of us reflect on our younger days our memories are filled with all kinds of stories about people we knew and things we had done. Oh what I would give to have a couple of hours to talk with him about his playing days and some of the characters he played with! But just as Mr. Eischeid has such fond memories of Tingelhoff and Hilgenberg, because of the damage they received playing the game of football, they would not be able to sit around the table and share those same memories. I find that very sad.
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