The number of potential victims of a work stoppage in the NFL including players, owners and, possibly, parking attendants and many others whose work is related to sport. The first casualty of lockout, however, could be a former merchant seaman from Brooklyn who has worked on the Apollo lunar module, but today is inert in Room 12 at the care facility for dementia Silverado here.
The 78 year old man, Bruce Schwager, spends hours over the day to contemplate the NFL Network, silently comforted by the images of players running, blocking and fighting against the way he did as a player line of the United States Merchant Marine Academy so long ago. He does not notice his wife, Bette, quietly packing his clothes and photos in boxes in motion, and do not understand when she accuses players union in which her husband still owned.
Since July 2009, the charitable arm of the NFL players' union has voluntarily paid medical expenses Schwager, who eventually topped $ 250,000. Schwager never played in a regular season game - he joined the Union by participating in two training camps - and the players association was treated as one of its own.
But on March 14, the first business day after the NFL lockout and the union prepared for what could be off work long and costly, a union representative called the son of Schwager and said the aid would cease immediately .
With his family unable to pay for ongoing care Silverado, Schwager is scheduled to be deported on July 2. Bette Schwager said she had not yet found a facility that would take care of her husband, who is tall, strong and combative when agitated. Schwager doctor said in an interview that forcing him to leave his familiar environment, given its advanced coronary disease, could cause a fatal heart attack.
Schwager is the situation that the association football players face the prospect of tumbling revenues during negotiations for a new labor contract - in which he is seeking increased benefits for retired players - and while Football fights all the way to compensate veterans with neurological disease is increasingly attributed to football.
Three officials of players association, whose CEO, DeMaurice Smith, did not respond to messages seeking comment on the case of Schwager. In a letter to the April 4 Schwagers lawyer, Cy Smith, DeMaurice Smith wrote, "We were and remain deeply concerned about the financial and medical well-being of Mr. Schwager and his family during this crisis" but he added that there was no "agreement to pay these costs indefinitely into the future."
DeMaurice Smith did not refer to a lock-out in his letter. But Schwager's son, Joshua, said that the aid ceases so soon after the stoppage began "can not be a coincidence."
Bette and Joshua Schwager acknowledged that the union had been no legal obligation to support their family two summers ago by the Trust to help players. The aid seems to derive partly from the way the players' union director retired, Andre Collins, played briefly with Joshua Schwager at Penn State in the late 1980s and knew the family.
Bette and Joshua Schwager contend, however, that Collins never mentioned any limit on assistance Player Assistance Trust to provide, and they relied on its promises. In e-mails she shared with the New York Times, Collins first wrote that "The NFLPA PAT Fund will be responsible for the Bill of palliative care" and, eight months later, the union was "always fully commitment "to care Schwager.
"We all base our lives on what they told us - they had to take care of him," Bette Schwager said while packing her husband's affairs. "I sold my house and signed a lease right around the corner from here so I can be near him. Now, my world collapses."
Schwager grew up in Brooklyn nearly two soon-to-be family of football leading the Lombard and Paternos, as a Jew, as were Italian. (To this day, my good friends call Schwager "Ben", the abbreviation of its Hebrew name, Binyomin.) He grew to 6 feet 3 inches and 260 pounds and has refused several scholarships to college programs to enroll in the engineering program in the United Kingdom United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY, especially the discipline of a military environment provided.
The Chicago Cardinals selected him in late 1955 draft, the cut in his camp, and then refused to barter their reserve list, despite his claims to have a chance with another team. The Cardinals kept contracted while serving in the Navy from 1956 to 1958 and has refused to release him until April 1959 when the teams felt more in shape to play.
Schwager played one year in Canada and attended training camp with the expansion New York Titans (now Jets) in 1960, but was injured and cut before the season began. He then worked for Grumman, a major supplier of military aircraft, then moved to Houston to work with NASA, where he helped design for the lunar landing module that Neil Armstrong was relieved and others on the Moon. He then went into the restaurant, and in his mid-60s, he began to show signs of early dementia, it has been institutionalized two years ago.
The 78 year old man, Bruce Schwager, spends hours over the day to contemplate the NFL Network, silently comforted by the images of players running, blocking and fighting against the way he did as a player line of the United States Merchant Marine Academy so long ago. He does not notice his wife, Bette, quietly packing his clothes and photos in boxes in motion, and do not understand when she accuses players union in which her husband still owned.
Since July 2009, the charitable arm of the NFL players' union has voluntarily paid medical expenses Schwager, who eventually topped $ 250,000. Schwager never played in a regular season game - he joined the Union by participating in two training camps - and the players association was treated as one of its own.
But on March 14, the first business day after the NFL lockout and the union prepared for what could be off work long and costly, a union representative called the son of Schwager and said the aid would cease immediately .
With his family unable to pay for ongoing care Silverado, Schwager is scheduled to be deported on July 2. Bette Schwager said she had not yet found a facility that would take care of her husband, who is tall, strong and combative when agitated. Schwager doctor said in an interview that forcing him to leave his familiar environment, given its advanced coronary disease, could cause a fatal heart attack.
Schwager is the situation that the association football players face the prospect of tumbling revenues during negotiations for a new labor contract - in which he is seeking increased benefits for retired players - and while Football fights all the way to compensate veterans with neurological disease is increasingly attributed to football.
Three officials of players association, whose CEO, DeMaurice Smith, did not respond to messages seeking comment on the case of Schwager. In a letter to the April 4 Schwagers lawyer, Cy Smith, DeMaurice Smith wrote, "We were and remain deeply concerned about the financial and medical well-being of Mr. Schwager and his family during this crisis" but he added that there was no "agreement to pay these costs indefinitely into the future."
DeMaurice Smith did not refer to a lock-out in his letter. But Schwager's son, Joshua, said that the aid ceases so soon after the stoppage began "can not be a coincidence."
Bette and Joshua Schwager acknowledged that the union had been no legal obligation to support their family two summers ago by the Trust to help players. The aid seems to derive partly from the way the players' union director retired, Andre Collins, played briefly with Joshua Schwager at Penn State in the late 1980s and knew the family.
Bette and Joshua Schwager contend, however, that Collins never mentioned any limit on assistance Player Assistance Trust to provide, and they relied on its promises. In e-mails she shared with the New York Times, Collins first wrote that "The NFLPA PAT Fund will be responsible for the Bill of palliative care" and, eight months later, the union was "always fully commitment "to care Schwager.
"We all base our lives on what they told us - they had to take care of him," Bette Schwager said while packing her husband's affairs. "I sold my house and signed a lease right around the corner from here so I can be near him. Now, my world collapses."
Schwager grew up in Brooklyn nearly two soon-to-be family of football leading the Lombard and Paternos, as a Jew, as were Italian. (To this day, my good friends call Schwager "Ben", the abbreviation of its Hebrew name, Binyomin.) He grew to 6 feet 3 inches and 260 pounds and has refused several scholarships to college programs to enroll in the engineering program in the United Kingdom United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY, especially the discipline of a military environment provided.
The Chicago Cardinals selected him in late 1955 draft, the cut in his camp, and then refused to barter their reserve list, despite his claims to have a chance with another team. The Cardinals kept contracted while serving in the Navy from 1956 to 1958 and has refused to release him until April 1959 when the teams felt more in shape to play.
Schwager played one year in Canada and attended training camp with the expansion New York Titans (now Jets) in 1960, but was injured and cut before the season began. He then worked for Grumman, a major supplier of military aircraft, then moved to Houston to work with NASA, where he helped design for the lunar landing module that Neil Armstrong was relieved and others on the Moon. He then went into the restaurant, and in his mid-60s, he began to show signs of early dementia, it has been institutionalized two years ago.
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