The toll of hard knocks

Heart failure was considered the cause of Joe Tofflemire’s death last week. But football contributed.

“Heart failure, yes, but in truth, Joe was dealing with a lot of things,” said his brother Paul. “In some ways, his whole body was shot.”

The painful effects of surgeries to fuse vertebrae and rebuild his shoulder with titanium parts left him struggling to get out of bed and walk. And, Paul said, doctors had started tests for the onset of early dementia caused by the numerous concussions Joe suffered in a lifetime of football.

Joe Tofflemire was 46. Only 46. But those were “football” years.

When I told Paul that it sounded as if he were describing a man who was 76 rather than 46, he said sadly that 76 would be generous. “I have seen many guys in their 80s who could get around better than Joe.”

Studies regarding the life expectancy of former NFL players are not recent nor comprehensive. One from as far back as 1994, by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, reported the average life expectancy of a former NFL lineman as 52, compared to 77.6 for the typical American.

Another from the University of North Carolina in 2005 found a rate of Alzheimer’s or cognitive disorders 19 times higher than normal among former NFL players aged 30-49.

The raw numbers don’t capture the pain on a personal and human level; an interview with Paul Tofflemire does.

“It was really sad to have to see this happen to somebody I watched growing up so strong and so fit ... he was my inspiration,” Paul said. “He was so gifted; he could leap like a gazelle and had the strength of a bull, but to see him at the end ... my heart just ached for him.”

Tofflemire left Post Falls High in Idaho and became one of the most decorated offensive linemen in Pacific-10 Conference history as a four-year starter at center for Arizona. After being named first-team all-conference three years, he was drafted in the second round in 1989 by the Seahawks.

He started all 16 games in 1992, but the mounting injuries soon rendered him a reserve and he retired in 1994. After that short career, he landed on disability and could not work. The physical effects were not just from the violent collisions in games, of course, but from a decade of practicing and training, and putting on weight beyond the body’s reasonable structural capacity.

The other damage, to the person, was harder to detect.

“He had always been so active and when he could not be, it seemed like he lost the structure in his life,” Paul said. “Football was Joe’s life, and when it was over, there was a part of him that wasn’t there anymore.”

Paul, who lives in Sammamish now, followed Joe onto the Arizona football team, where inherited his brother’s center position. So he understands the choices a player makes, and how he can be driven by pride, money and gratification. But he also had a personal view of the deferred costs paid by his brother.

He said that Joe stayed in the Seattle area until five years ago when he returned to Post Falls to help his mother following the death of his father.

Because of his sedentary lifestyle, Joe put on weight in recent years, Paul said, which compounded his health issues. He hadn’t seen Joe since August, but they stayed in close touch, texting back and forth about football – often lamenting Arizona’s struggles.

The last exchange was Sept. 24, three days before Joe’s death, when the Wildcats lost to Oregon. “We were joking about how horrible the Wildcats were doing,” Paul said. “The last text was ‘I love you, brother,’ and he answered ‘I love you, too’.”

There was pain in his voice as he recalled the moment.

“He was such a loving, caring, good-hearted man. I’m biased, of course, but I’ve never met a more generous, thoughtful man than Joe. He was so sincere in all things. And funny ... he could walk into a room and in minutes everybody would be cracking up.”

I confess to a bias, too, that makes this column more than just an ode to an athlete dying young. I had known Joe Tofflemire for 30 years. He was just 15 or 16 when I met him, a sophomore on the first team I ever covered as a sportswriter. I got to follow him through college and again in the pros, covering his years with the Seahawks.

I told Paul that he seemed to be a true and unrelentingly gracious, humble and good-humored man.

“That’s who he was,” he said. “That’s exactly who he was.”

And, typically, he never blamed football, nor voiced resentment for all the pain. He still loved the game, especially the contact and the big hits that appeal to so many fans.

“They know what they’re getting into when they sign those contracts,” Paul said of NFL players. “But people are starting to realize what kind of damage is being done, and the cost – taking 20-plus years off your life.”

So few pause to consider the future when they sign on, though. In Joe’s case, he has two sons (ages 20 and 10), without a father. And he became part of a tragically ironic situation in which he moved back to Idaho to tend his aging mother, but it was his mother who had to walk in and find her son dead at age 46.

“He never said anything (about regrets) to me,” Paul said. “But if he could go back and do it over, I’m sure he would take his business degree and do something else with it. There are two boys who have had their father taken away too early.

“I can honestly say that if he hadn’t played in the NFL he would still be here.”

Dave Boling: 253-597-8440 dave.boling@thenewstribune.com