Sadly, ESPN Doesn’t Lay a Glove on Dr. Maroon, UPMC
January 29, 2012From the People Who Brought You nflhealthandsafety.com: The Super Bowl Player Safety Ad!
February 1, 2012
The Concussion Inc. ebook imprint is proud to announce the publication of OUT OF MY HEAD: My Life In and Out of Football by George Visger.
Visger’s autobiography is one of the most amazing stories of the triumph of the human spirit in the annals of football, concussions, or any walk of life. A defensive lineman on the San Francisco 49ers’ first Super Bowl champions in 1981-82, Visger has lived with a shunt in his brain ever since — a consequence of the many concussions he sustained during his pee-wee, high school (Alonzo Stagg High in Stockton, California), college (Colorado), and National Football League career. Yet despite suffering from “water on the brain” and impaired short-term memory, he became a wildlife biologist, a prominent figure in the fight for fair treatment of retired players by the $10-billion-a-year NFL, and an advocate of the American football concussion crisis at all levels.
As a journalist writing about sports and society, I have met many interesting people, some of them prominent or famous. It is a rare privilege to know and work with a great humanitarian, and that is the best description of George Visger. OUT OF MY HEAD includes anecdotes about how all-pro tackle Joe Klecko terrorized the 1980 New York Jets training camp, and how legendary 49ers coach Bill Walsh’s management of an emerging dynasty included the employment of a malpracticing team doctor. But my favorite passages demonstrate Visger’s big heart and project his awareness of a world larger than sports. When, on Christmas Eve in 1980, he spontaneously handed out $50 in meal money to ten homeless people in his hometown of Stockton, his family and community were inspired to mobilize for an annual event feeding and clothing up to 300 needy street people. Visger’s professional life has ranged from bar bouncer to inner-city school teacher, and his accomplishments, as well as his struggles and his tenacity throughout them, have touched thousands.
OUT OF MY HEAD: My Life In and Out of Football is available on Amazon Kindle for $2.99 at this link: http://amzn.to/znZuiL. If you do not have a Kindle or a Kindle app on another device, you can order a plain PDF file of the ebook by sending $2.99 via PayPal to paypal@muchnick.net.
The Visger book is the third title of the Concussion Inc. ebook series. The first, DUERSON, was published in November 2011. The second, UPMC: Concussion Scandal Ground Zero, was published in January 2012. For complete information on Concussion Inc. ebooks, go to https://concussioninc.net/?page_id=4925.
Irv Muchnick
media inquiries: media@muchnick.net