options FOR WHO? For what?
Forever.
Forever, Ricky Watters will live with his infamous dismissal, his implication that his health was more important than winning a football game. It is what many fans will remember, with disgust, on Sunday when he addresses them as an honorary captain before the Eagles play the Lions.
It is ugly irony, then, that, forever, Watters will live with pain he suffers from carrying and catching footballs at Veterans Stadium, among other places; pain, from head to toe.
"I got it all," he said.
His knees ache, of course. He tore his right medial collateral ligament and his left posterior cruciate ligament.
He has five pins in his right ankle. A metal plate envelops his right femur. He carries a pin in his right foot.
A shattered right index finger never properly healed; it has robbed him of his ability to draw and paint, which he loves.
Periodically, his neck and shoulders freeze up so badly, his cheeks hurt. An undiagnosed crack in his sternum healed improperly and he thought he was having a heart attack. When back issues snuck up on him a few years ago, Watters thought his kidneys were failing.
Only 43, Watters has arthritis in his hips, his right hand, his right wrist, his shoulders and his ankles; and, yes, even in his toes.
And that's the good news.
Ricky Watters' mind is broken, too.
Watters is among the legion of players involved in concussion litigation against the NFL.
He said he had dozens of concussions, from the time he starred at Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, then at Notre Dame, then in San Francisco, Philadelphia and, finally, Seattle, his last stop in a 10-year NFL career.
"Not that I knew what a concussion was then," Watters said.
How many times did he play without his full mental faculties?
"Hundreds of times."
Watters ignored the signs: headaches, fatigue, forgetfulness. His wife of 13 years, Catherina, was his fianceé when he was in Philadelphia. The Ricky she knew was disappearing: the Ricky with a photographic memory; the tireless Ricky who always followed through. She begged him to file for disability.
"How I'm going to file for disability, when I'm Superman?" Watters asked.
This is how.
Watters and his wife were bickering one day in 2004 about something she claimed to have told him. Again.
Ricky Jr. spoke up:
"Dad. She did tell you that."
Watters filed for his disability.
Certainly, he earned it.
Source : philly[dot]com
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