Frank: Oconomowoc's Derby, former NFL player, looks back after seeing 'Concussion'

A lot was going on last week, from Arrowhead hiring a new football coach to a controversy surrounding the WIAA's sportsmanship recommendations. Perhaps a little lost in the shuffle was a column by Evan Frank about Oconomowoc's Glenn Derby, a former NFL player who was a plaintiff on the concussion lawsuit brought against the league and settled in 2013. Evan invited Glenn to watch the movie "Concussion," starring Will Smith, and these were the results. This "Frank Remarks" column first appeared in the Jan. 14 Oconomowoc Focus.

Tears filled Glenn Derby’s eyes moments after he walked out of the film “Concussion.” He had known one of the medical drama’s featured characters, former Pittsburgh Steelers and Wisconsin Badgers offensive lineman Mike Webster, who played 18 years in the National Football League and died of a heart attack at age 50.

Derby, a 1983 Oconomowoc High School graduate, played against Dave Duerson and Junior Seau, who were both given emphasis in the Columbia Pictures feature film starring Will Smith. Both former NFL players took their own lives, and like Webster, were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease found in people who suffered repetitive brain trauma.

Derby is a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought against the NFL for concussion-related injuries. This is a story that hits close to home.

“Concussion” tells the story of forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu (Smith), who performed Webster’s autopsy in 2002. Webster took a considerable amount of abuse on the line of scrimmage (an estimated 70,000 blows to the head during his playing career) and suffered from amnesia, dementia, depression and acute bone and muscle pain. Webster lived out of his pickup truck or train stations at times. His wife divorced him six months before his death.

Webster helped Derby focus on certain skills when he entered the league. Derby, who also wrote about his experience watching the film in a blog post, knew this would be a difficult movie to see, but he accepted my invitation to watch the movie with me regardless, because he felt “Concussion” told an important story.

After Omalu discovered CTE in Webster, which has been found in athletes who played in contact sports and experienced repetitive brain trauma, Omalu felt the NFL would be pleased to hear about his discovery. He was wrong. The league, and its own doctors, tried to discredit Omalu. As more information has come to light about CTE and head trauma in general, the NFL has somewhat changed course.

When the subject first made national headlines, Derby, who played three-plus years professionally with the New Orleans Saints, didn’t want to believe it.

“I didn’t think it was legit,” he said. “To be honest with you, I thought most of them, and I still think a lot of them, had drug issues and alcohol issues and eating issues and issues where they weren’t taking care of themselves.”

There’s no direct answer to why someone experiences CTE and others don’t, but the use of drugs and other substances may play a factor. But it may not. We’re in the infancy of learning about CTE and its impact on athletes who suffer blows to the head.

“The thing I always questioned back then was, ‘OK, so I was done in 1991, and I got sober in 1993,” Derby said. “If I continued on that route, I don’t think I’d be here today. Back then, I was thinking it’s the lifestyle. It’s the drugs, it’s the alcohol, it’s the fast living, it’s the not taking care of yourself. I had no idea about the tau protein and the CTE until they started bringing that up.

“Then it started to make more sense because I always thought I was blessed that my first wife got me into treatment. If I hadn’t, I think I would have continued down (that path). I don’t know if it was CTE, or. ... I was only 29, 30 years old. I don’t know if that was affecting my decisions at that time or what. I still worry. I saw a neurologist and I do have some signs of different things, but who knows what’s going to happen?”

Derby played every position on the offensive line, including center, the position Webster played. Concussions, or “getting your bell rung,” as Derby called it, were part of the job. In a previous conversation, Derby said he blacked out on several occasions while playing football.

The NFL reportedly settled the highly-publicized lawsuit in 2013 for $765 million, but Derby said, “It’s settled, but it’s not completely understood yet. There’s still some more litigation going on.”

Before 2011, NFL coaches could institute an unlimited amount of padded practices during the regular season. With a new labor agreement in place, there are restrictions. Now teams are allowed 14 practices in pads each season, once a week through the first 11 weeks.

“We had more than 18 padded practices in the first two weeks,” Derby said. “Back then, our practices were full go. I had more major hits in practices than I did in games.”

Even with new guidelines in place at all age levels, the game can still be violent because of its nature. Derby and former Badgers guard Steve Stark founded Trench Training, where the two former players will train offensive and defensive linemen.

“We’re going to start at the fifth-grade level and go through, sixth, seventh, eighth, all the way through high school, maybe even college,” Derby said. “We’re going to start teaching kids that you don’t have to use the head. You use your arms, your shoulders and your legs. You learn to play the game without getting your head involved and learn technique, conditioning and learn all of that so you don’t to have to have so many hits.”

Derby especially enjoyed a segment in the film when congresswoman Linda Sánchez, during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in 2009, compared the league to the tobacco industry, which, at one time, repeatedly denied that its product caused significant harm.

“It’s the exact same thing,” Derby said. “When people smoke, yeah, they figured they’d have a quicker chance of dying, but they didn’t know how much and how significant it was.”

Four years ago, if you’d have asked Derby if he’d play football knowing what he knows now, the answer would have been no. Now?

“Knowing what I know now? Yes, I would,” Derby said. “I know now that if I got one of those dingers or one of those hits that I would have not played and I would have sat out. ... I love the game.”

Derby was able to do something so few people get to do. Football’s even in his blood. His brother, John, also an Oconomowoc High alum, played for the Detroit Lions and his nephew, A.J., is a tight end for the New England Patriots. Another son of John’s, Zach, played for the University of Iowa.

Football is something Glenn Derby did for so long. The love is still there, even with all the pain — physical and emotional — that the sport brought him. He’ll always love football, but he may just look at it a little differently now.