Former Prattville and Alabama player has ALS

[CCTAU]

I have known about this for a while but was waiting for him to publicly announce it. This is a devastating disease that just about always wins. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

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Former UA players, coach
help Kevin Turner face
toughest fight

By Tim Gayle • tgayle@gannett.com • August 20,
2010

PRATTVILLE -- Kevin Turner knew something was
wrong when he couldn't feel his arm, but he thought
it was the lingering effects of a career-ending injury
he had suffered while playing for the Philadelphia
Eagles.

Turner, a standout fullback for Prattville High
School, the University of Alabama, the New England
Patriots and the Eagles, was in his eighth sea­son of
professional football in 1999 when he was
diagnosed with a nar­rowing of the spinal column.

He consulted with several special­ists before giving
up the game in Janu­ary 2000.

"You get up there in the NFL, you're so dadgum
excited, it was a dream come true," he said. "It's
some­thing you dream of as a kid. The first six
years were incredible. Looking back on it, I
should've given it
up earlier."

He endured two surgeries to re­move parts of his
spinal column and thought a third was necessary
when a doctor brought him the words no per­son
wants to hear.

"About the first week in April, that's when the words
were actually spoken to me," Turner said. "I didn't
know for sure until June. Well, I still don't know for
sure as far as I'm concerned."

Doctors told him he had amyotro phia lateral
sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's
disease.

There is no known cause or cure for ALS and no
recovery.

It is a disease that prevents the brain from sending
signals to other parts of the body, caus­ing those
parts to eventually wither and die. It is considered
one of the most horrifying dis­eases because the
brain contin­ues to function in a normal state while
 
everything around it starts shutting down.

"The first doctor said she thought I had 12-15
years," Turn­er said. "Then I saw another doc­tor
that said five or six. The third doctor said you have
two or three years. Heck, I'm going to stop going to
see doctors. I may not make it out alive next time.

"They don't know. I'm pre­tending they don't know."

Turner was honored Thurs­day night as part of a
Prattville YMCA benefit dinner that fea­tured
Turner's collegiate coach, Gene Stallings. While
many of the people turned out for the event to listen
to Stallings and contribute to the YMCA's "Coach-A-
Child" campaign, two dozen former Alabama players
showed up to pay tribute to Turner, part of a special
sur­prise tribute planned by Willis Bradford Branch
director Keith Cantrell.


"I believe all of them know," Turner said. "Bobby
(Hum­phrey) called me several weeks ago because
he had heard about it. It was great to see everyone
come out. Honestly, I thought they were just coming
down to help me with the Y. I had no idea they were
doing what they were doing."

Former Alabama receiver Craig Sanderson, Turner's
col­lege roommate, said all of the players had a
similar reaction when they heard the news.

"It was devastating," Sander­son said. "But right
now, he and I act like nothing's wrong. We have the
same relationship we've always had. But it's devas­
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tating."

"It breaks your heart," added former teammate Siran
Stacy, who went through a personal tragedy of his
own in 2007 when his wife and four of his five chil­
dren were killed in an automo­bile accident. "This is
our broth­er, our friend, and the affliction he's
going through is tough."

Turner, 41, said he should have quit in 1997 when
he had surgery on his lower back.

"I never really felt the same after that," Turner said,

But he thought the latest problems that leave him
with no feeling in his arms were the re­sult of the
cervical stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column
that has left him in pain since 2000. Now, he said
he has no doubt the ALS is a direct result of his NFL
career.

"I know when I retired, they told me I had the spinal
column of a 65-year-old man," he said. "Any other
fullback or lineback­er probably has the same
thing."

A study by Canadian doctor Angela Genge is
exploring a pos­sible link between football and ALS.
She noted that people in sports that suffer head
trauma, such as football or soccer, suffer a higher
rate of neurological dis­ease than the rest of society
where the disease affects two people in every
100,000.

The NFL is paying attention. The league
commissioned a tele­phone survey in 2008, a year
aft­er Genge's research first gained publicity, that
shows players under the age of 50 were 19 times
more likely to be diagnosed with memory-related
diseases than the general public.


While that isn't a direct link to ALS cases, it is a step
in recog­nition of some serious prob­lems.

Turner would like to spend the rest of his life trying
to raise awareness of ALS, noting ad­vances in
treating other dis­eases such as breast cancer and
AIDS that came as a result of raising public
awareness.

While he hasn't had any di­rect contact with other
football players suffering from ALS, he knows of
 
some past cases through Internet research.

Houston Oilers defensive tackle Glenn Montgomery
was diagnosed with ALS in July 1997, and died 11
months later at the age of 31.

Minnesota Vikings lineback­er Wally Hilgenberg
played on four Super Bowl teams in the 1970s and
was diagnosed with ALS long after his retirement
from the game in 2006 and died two years later at
the age of 66.

Denver Broncos defensive end Pete Duranko
finished his career in 1974 and was diag­nosed
with ALS in 2000. He has spent the last 10 years
raising money for ALS research.

Oakland Raiders running back Steve Smith finished
his career with the Seattle Sea­hawks in 1995 and
was diag­nosed in 2002. He remains alive on a
ventilator and a feeding tube.

The hardest part for Turner was telling his three
children: Nolan, 12, a seventh-grader at Liberty Park
Junior High who plays basketball and football;
Natalie, 10, a cheerleader and gymnast Kevin
describes as the "best athlete in the family," and
Cole, 7.

While others in his home­town of Prattville and his
for­mer college and professional teammates know
his condition -- he recently had former Pat­riots
quarterback Drew Bledsoe call after learning of it --
it hasn't been easy for him to tell those closest to
him. And while he has asked no one for help, his
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Crimson Tide family has rallied to his defense.

"We don't want to do any­thing without his blessing
on it, but in the future we want to do something to h
onor him, the man, and also the father," Stacy said.
"He has some beautiful children and we've talked
amongst ourselves that maybe we can come up with
some type of endowment or scholarship for his
children."


Stallings, who flew in from his ranch in Paris, Texas,
for Thursday's event, thought he was there to honor
Turner but wasn't immediately aware of the severity
of his condition. Turn­er had not informed his
coach about his condition, but others had.

"There's not much I can say about that until he tells
me," Stallings said. "But what an out­standing young
man he was and still is. Any time I can pay trib­ute
to one of my former players, I like to do it. That's the
reason I'm here."

Sanderson, who recalled Turner's help when
Sanderson's father passed away, is eager to help his
best friend.

"At some point, we'll come together as a family to
help him in whatever way he needs," he said. "This
is as devastating a thing that has ever happened to
me because I consider him part of my immediate
family. (There will) come a time when he needs a lot
more help than he does now, and we'll be there for
him."

Turner isn't sure of the next step. He's still
researching the disease and visiting specialists,
displaying the same determi­nation he had as an
undersized running back in the Southeast­ern
Conference and the Nation­al Football League. He
hasn't consulted with NFL officials yet to see what
assistance they may provide in his fight against the
disease.

"I haven't asked them yet," he said. "If you play for
eight years, that means you have eight years to file
for any disa­bility. I've been out for 10 years. That
rule may have been for the best of intentions, but I
don't think it covers it."

In the meantime, he hovers between acceptance and
denial. The latest prognosis, that he has less than
three years to live, was a devastating emotional
blow. Acceptance was replaced by de­nial, a feeling
 
that life could not be this cruel. Denial slowly gave
way to reality and a grim deter­mination not to give
up his fight for life.

"If it is, we'll just try and fight it like everyone else
does," Turner said. "Sooner or later, somebody will
win."

 http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20100820/NEWS01/8200313/Former-UA-players-coach-help-Kevin-Turner-face-toughest-fight-

[Snaggletiger]

Horrible.  I had a neighbor die fairly quickly (a coupe of years) from it and I know another guy who has been fighting it for over 10 years.  He's fought it like crazy and goes to the gym nearly every day to ride the bike and do what he can.  He walks like the proverbial old man and his speech is nothing more than some mumbling.  Probably mid 50's.  Hate hearing this for anybody.