Mike Webster

At 50 years old, Mike Webster has this physical status:

Michael Lewis Webster (March 18, 1952 – September 24, 2002) was an American football player who played as a center in the National Football League (NFL) from 1974 to 1990 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs.

He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 1997.

Webster, nicknamed "Iron Mike," anchored the Steelers' offensive line during much of their four Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1979, and is considered by some as one of the best centers in football history.

Since his death, he has been a symbol of head injury in football and the ongoing debate about player safety.

Multiple concussions during his career, according to his physicians, damaged his frontal lobe, which resulted in cognitive impairment.

Post-football life

Before he was suspended from football, Webster was found to have been inactive. Webster had amnesia, dementia, depression, and acute bone and muscular pain after retiring. Despite the fact that his acquaintances and former coworkers were able to rent apartments for him, he lived out of his pickup truck or in train stations between Wisconsin and Pittsburgh. Terry Bradshaw billed for Webster and his relatives' travel, while Steelers owner Dan Rooney paid for a hotel room for Webster for more than three months. Nonetheless, Webster disappeared for weeks at a time without explanation and without contact with friends and relatives. He underwent unusual behaviour, and became so upbeat and restless that he used electroshock guns to induce sleep.

Garrett, his youngest son who was just a teenager at the time, went from Wisconsin to Pittsburgh to care for his father in his last years. Pamela Webster's wife died six months before his death in 2002 of a heart attack at age 50.

Webster was cremated, and his ashes were returned to his wife and their four children.

Mike Webster was diagnosed with chronic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease that can cause death. Webster was the first NFL player to be diagnosed with CTE. Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic neuropathologist, examined tissue from Webster and eight other NFL players and determined that they had the same brain damage as seen in Alzheimer's disease or dementia patients, as well as in some retired boxers. "Dementia pugilistica" was a term that was also known as "punch-drunk syndrome" in Webster's brain. Omalu's findings were largely ignored by the NFL until Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry was diagnosed with CTE shortly after his death at the age of 26 in 2009. Garrett's uncle is now the head of the Brain Injury Research Institute in Pittsburgh, which is devoted to assisting people with head injury as well as being an advocate for players with similar conditions to his father.

Webster's health has been blamed on wear and tear suffered over his playing career; some physicians said he had been in the equivalent of "25,000 automobile accidents" over the course of 25 years of playing football at the high school, college, and professional levels. Pamela's wife said years later that she felt she caused Webster's change in personality in the years prior to his death and felt shame for her decision not to divorce Webster until learning about the CTE condition after his death. Webster was playing during a period when protective gear (particularly helmets) was lacking, and head injuries were simply part of the game.

Webster was addicted to prescription drugs at the time of his death.

Despite injuries, Nicknamed "Iron Mike," Webster's fame for tenacity led him to play even through injuries. Despite accusations that they were not aware of using anabolic steroids during his career, Webster never confessed to using them even though they were legal at the time.

In the 2015 film Concussion, his struggle with mental illness as a result of CTE was chronicled. Will Smith and David Morse and Dr. Bennet Omalu portrayed Webster.

Webster's estate filed a lawsuit against the National Football League in Maryland's U.S. District Court. Under the NFL's pension fund, the estate argued that Webster was disabled at the time of his retirement and owes $1.142 million in disability insurance. On April 26, 2005, a federal judge found that the NFL compensation fund owes Webster's estate $1.18 million in benefits. With the addition of interest and fees, the total amount was expected to exceed $1.60 million. The decision was appealed by the NFL. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, confirmed the Baltimore federal judge's 2005 decision that the league's retirement policy must pay disability insurance for players whose injuries began while playing football.

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Football career

During the bulk of his time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mike Webster was regarded as the best center in the Big Ten. He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fifth round of the 1974 NFL Draft at 6-foot-1, 255 pounds. Webster spent two years as a backup center and guard while being mentored by veteran center Ray Mansfield, the team's starting center, where he stayed for 150 consecutive games. For nine years, he was the Steelers' offensive captain. He dislocated his elbow in 1986, causing him to miss four games. Webster and Terry Bradshaw form one of the best-known center-quarterback pairings in history, with the Steelers winning Super Bowl IX, XIII, and XIV. Webster has been named an All-Pro seven times and has appeared in Pro Bowl nine times. Webster, a diehard weightlifter, was known for his playing with bare arms to discourage opponents from grabbing his sleeves. The Steelers' Webster is also one of a long line of All-Pro centers. Just five men started serving in that position from 1964 to 2020: Mansfield, Webster, Jeff Hartman, Jed Hartings, and Maurkice Pouncey, with the only exceptions being injuries, as well as a three-year span between 2005 and 2009, when journeymen Sean Mahan and Justin Hartwig alternated between journeymen Sean Mahan and Justin Hartwig. Webster revived interest by mentoring the then-rookie Dawson in the same way Mansfield had mentored Webster earlier in his career.

Since 1988, Webster had been a free agent. He was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs, who first made him an offensive line coach before allowing him to return as the starting center. Webster played two seasons in Kansas City before deciding against retirement on March 11, 1991, after a 17-year career with a total of 245 games played at center. He was the last active player in the NFL to have played on all four Super Bowl champion teams of the 1970s Steelers at the time of his retirement. He had more seasons as a Steeler in franchise history (15 seasons), one season ahead of Terry Bradshaw and Hines Ward. Ben Roethlisberger set a new Webster record in the 2018 season and broke it in 2019.

Although the Steelers were no longer officially retiring jerseys at the time of his retirement, Webster's No. 67 was No. 1 at the time, but they were certainly not completely retired jerseys at the time. Since being fired, 52 has not been reissued by the team since being released. He was ranked 75 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players in 1999. In his honor, Rhinelander High School's football stadium, his alma mater, has been named Mike Webster Stadium. In 2007, Webster was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame.

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