The Intersection of Sports and Health: Football Icons Shaun O’Hara, Ed McCaffrey, and Alex Smith

Football Icons: Shaun O’Hara, Ed McCaffrey, and Alex Smith appear on the Russo Edge podcast from Radio Row on the site of Super Bowl LIX, joining Solomon Wilcots on the most exciting event of the year. On this episode of the Russo Edge, Solomon Wilcots and these Football legends explore the intersection between athletic achievement and medical innovation.

Shaun O’Hara on Functional Movement and Career Longevity

Solomon Wilcots: I’m joined by former New York Giants offensive lineman; Shaun O’Hara is joining us here today. And Sean, today we’re talking about sports medicine and overall health care, particularly for athletes. in the general population. In what way, maybe during your playing career, do you believe that modern medicine helped you during your career?

Shaun O’Hara: Yeah, when I got to the league, my body felt great and then all of a sudden, you’re training, you go through a whole season, and by the end of the season, you don’t even feel the same. Right away, the battle of attrition is something that we all kind of started to get educated on. I think when it comes to medicine, there’s two different ways to look at things. It’s how do I treat it after it happens? And is there a way I can prevent it and treat it before it happens? I only knew about rehab post-injury.

Solomon Wilcots: Isn’t that something?

Shaun O’Hara: It wasn’t until I started learning about pre-hab that really helped me focus on if we can diagnose some imbalances. They do the functional movement screenings now to find out if you have hip tightness because tight hips lead to knee injuries. It’s kind of finding out everybody’s body dynamics are different. Finding out where you may have some issues and if you could attack them before the injury occurs, that’s even better than having to do it afterwards.

I was with Ronnie Barnes with the Giants, and he has been at the forefront of a lot of different medical treatments. He was one of the biggest proponents of hydration levels. I remember the first time I went to Giants training camp, the very first day, he gave a 35-minute dissertation on hydration and how much water you need to drink and the color of your urine. That was kind of the first time I had that broken down to me. But I kind of got into healthcare also because my wife is a nurse. That’s how I met her. I was in the hospital. and she came in my second day there and she even take care of me ever since. It’s definitely been a big part of my life.

Managing Wear and Tear Through Evolving Surgical Techniques

Solomon Wilcots: A lot of people have heard of Tommy John surgery. He had pitched for 12 years and then he tore a tendon in his elbow. Many people thought his career was over. Dr. Joe performs this surgery and extends his career. He played another 14 seasons after having that injury. That’s why it’s now named after him, the procedure, right? Can you think of maybe something or maybe a surgery that you had or some kind of repair that helped you to extend your career when you were playing?

Shaun O’Hara: Yeah, I think as any athlete, any player, you don’t ever want a surgery named after you. Like that’s one title you don’t ever want. I don’t want to be called the Soli surgery. Yeah, I had multiple surgeries. I think I had 11 surgeries throughout my career. A lot of them were scopes, knee scopes, both elbow scopes. You know, it was debridement and bone chips and all that. That was wear and tear.

I had an Achilles surgery and that was a really painful one. I had a Haglund deformity, which is kind of a bone on the end of your heel that digs into the Achilles. It would give me Achilles tendonitis, and it became chronic. That surgery, Dr. Martin O’Malley did it from HSS in New York City, it was remarkable because he didn’t have to take the entire Achilles off. He just took a portion of it off, was able to go in laparoscopically through the heel and shave the bone down without taking the whole Achilles on and then tack that 10% back on. The recovery time was much better. It was probably half the time of a normal Achilles injury. I’ve definitely had my experiences with that.

Then even post-playing, I have actually had two hernia surgeries. Who would have thought that I didn’t have a hernia surgery when I was squatting 600 pounds, hand cleaning four hundred-five pounds. But picking up firewood and a three-month-old or a two-year-old, giving them a bath, would give me a hernia. I had both done one four years after the other one, but they were both done laparoscopically and through like a robotic machine. It’s called the da Vinci. These doctors, it’s amazing with technology now what they could do. They basically go in with these arms, little robotic arms right in there, it’s a small little incision. It’s amazing how with technology and stuff like that, it expedites the recovery tenfold.

Ed McCaffrey on Why the Body Is an Athlete’s Most Critical Asset

Solomon Wilcots: Here with Ed McCaffrey, former Denver Bronco, two-time Super Bowl champion winner with the Denver Broncos, also won a Super Bowl ring, a third with the San Francisco 49ers. Ed, we’re talking about athletic achievement and healthcare. In what way shape or form, during your athletic journey, did medicine and healthcare play a major role?

Ed McCaffrey: Well, your body is your temple. This is what you go to battle with in the NFL. Even as a kid, when I was growing up, when I was little, when I was in high school, you try to do everything right. You try to eat right, get your sleep. But football’s a collision sport, you’re going to get hurt eventually. It’s really important, if you want to get on the field quicker, to get the right kind of treatment. I had trainers in high school, trainers that I would go to at colleges if I had a more serious injury.

In the NFL, I’ve had 12 surgeries, had great trainers. Ronnie Barnes, he’s a Hall of Fame trainer with the New York Football Giants. Lindsay in San Francisco, and then the Greek, Steve Antonopoulos in Denver. I spent so much time, more time than I would have liked to in the training room. Those guys were my best friends, but it was their job to do everything they could to get me back on the field. Luckily as an NFL player, we have professionals that help us get back on the field, but this is important for anybody. Now in my life, I’m in my 50s, and I want to live healthier longer.

Hopefully I won’t have to have any more surgeries or have any significant injuries. But when I do, I go to the right people to try to live my normal life again without suffering. There’s no need to be in pain if you don’t have to be. There’s no need to let an injury lead to another injury because you let it go too long without getting the proper care.

Recovering From Devastating Injuries With Modern Medicine

Solomon Wilcots: You remember a guy by the name of Tommy John, major league baseball player, blew out a tendon in his elbow. After having that surgery, he went on to play another 14 seasons. There was a time where his career would have been over with that injury, but modern medicine helped extend his career. What, maybe example you could share with us where you may have had a surgery or maybe had a treatment that you feel helped extend your career.

Ed McCaffrey: Yeah, that’s a great question. Everybody knows about Tommy John’s surgery, very popular surgery that baseball players have to repair their elbows. I remember Tommy John, he threw a lot of junk. He sure did. He had movement. He was a heck of a pitcher. But gosh, I had so many surgeries over the years, the most devastating injury I had was a broken leg.

I broke my leg in half, broke my tibia and fibula. It was on Monday night, it was the night before 9/11. Woke up in a hospital bed during 9/11. It was tragic that I broke my leg on Monday night against my old team, the New York Giants. It was even more tragic the next day when we all had to experience 9/11. It was a depressing time in my life. But it was an injury that maybe many years ago would have ended your career. I played another couple of years after that.

They look like equipment from like a Home Depot or something. titanium rod about that long. They dislocated my knee, hammered it with a hammer down the middle of my tibia. It had holes in it so the bone marrow could grow back, and they’d screw it with literally you know electrical equipment. They’d screw it in the top and the bottom but that it was a significant injury that in the past would have for sure ended my career.

I played another couple of years, they put me back together, but they had done the same with my Achilles. They did the same with my knee, they did the same with my shoulder, they did the same with my ankle, same with the double adductor surgery, and luckily, I didn’t have any significant knee injuries, but a lot of my teammates did. We’ve seen a lot of pro athletes that have that knee surgery now, ACL surgery. When I was in high school, you’re done. In the 70s, 80s, if you blew out your ACL, they would just say, you blew out your knee. That was probably the end of your career. When you had a shoulder injury that was significant enough to like your labrum, I don’t even remember them calling it a labrum. They would just say, he blew out his shoulder, he can’t play quarterback anymore.

The advances that have been made in my lifetime are phenomenal, and they’re life changing. It’s not just the surgery and the technological advancements that we’ve experienced. It’s the improvement in rehabilitation. Once you’ve had the surgery, you know how it is. I remember being the first one in, the last one to leave. You’re rehabbing all day long and if you don’t rehab properly, your injury doesn’t heal properly.

How Ongoing Care Supports Life Beyond Football

Solomon Wilcots: That’s right. In what way could you maybe share with us how healthcare and overall wellness has maybe impacted your physicality and your body in your retirement after you were done playing.

Ed McCaffrey: Yeah, that’s a great question too. I still go to my guy Greg who does muscle activation techniques, and he keeps my body aligned so that I feel good. I want to live my best life. I don’t know how much time I got left on this planet. I’m in my 50s and my goal now is just to live healthier longer.

We’re all going to start falling apart as we get older and I just want to feel as good as I possibly can for as long as I can. I try to eat right. Came out, you know, with the McCaffrey brands protein bites. They’re a really healthy snack that tastes delicious. I try to eat right. I try to get my sleep. I try to work out. I try to take care of my body, and I still get work done on it, so I feel my best.

As you get older, you’ll lose muscle mass. It’s important to continue to lift and to strengthen your muscles. A lot of older people fall, get an injury, never really recover from it. It’s important for me to still do some resistance training. You want to keep your cardio up. I’m probably at higher risk for a heart attack and certain things. Maybe more so than other people because of my family history, so I want to try to watch my weight.

People know that they feel better when they’re healthier. If you feel better, you’re going to be a better friend. You’re going to be a better husband. You’re going to be better parent. That’s where I’m at now.

Solomon Wilcots: What advice would you give maybe athletes today about how to prioritize their health care and their overall wellness?

Ed McCaffrey: Well, if you’re an athlete, you understand that to perform at your best, you need to take care of your body. You need to take care of your mind as well. I feel like if you take care of your body, usually the mind will follow. If physically you feel good, usually it’s easier to feel mentally strong and it’s easier to compete. I know that when I went into a competition, I wanted to feel like I did everything possible to give myself an edge over my competition. So hopefully you can compete, but also you just want to be the best that you can be. I didn’t compare myself to other people as much as I compared myself to the person I was before. How can I get better each and every day? Physically, mentally, emotionally?

Alex Smith’s Journey at the Intersection of Injury and Innovation

Solomon Wilcots: Right now, I’m joined by 16-year NFL veteran quarterback, Alex Smith joining us and Alex we’re talking about athletic achievement, medical innovation. What can you tell us about how the two intersected to impact your career?

Alex Smith: Oh, man, I mean, my first-hand, among other things, when I hurt my leg, I have drop foot. I have permanent drop foot. This was typically from a nerve damage. This would end your career, right? There’s no way you could ever come back and play. Now with the advancements in bracing and surgeries, more and more guys are coming back and playing with drop foot. I have other limitations that I have to adapt around but the bracing that I played with was a direct advancement that really in like the last 10 -15 years has been developed and not just on the sports side.

I benefited so much from the folks in the military specifically down at the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio which is a rehabilitation clinic that specializes in limb injuries. Many of our servicemen and women going back to elite service, that technology and all the gains on that side, I benefited from in my return to the field. I’m standing on so much growth medically, and certainly I felt compelled to document my journey hopefully for the next person that may have something similar to be able to gain and that I can be a link in that chain of progress. Not just on everything that I went through, but certainly the techniques and things that I use to try and get that.

Becoming a Student of Sports Medicine Through Injury

Solomon Wilcots: How did your medical challenges, say, increase your knowledge now of innovation and sports medicine and what’s taking place in that industry?

Alex Smith: When you have an injury like this, you kind of have to become an expert at specific things and body parts and there’s jargon and language I use now about my leg that make people look at me sideways when I use it. Because it’s my life and it became a part of it. For me to go do anything physically challenging, I have to wear some sort of brace on my leg, and I can’t tell you how many I’ve gone through over the years and trying to find the best one. I’m honestly constantly tinkering when I work with the people making braces, I’m constantly, what if we did this? What if we did that? Can we try this? I have thoughts and ideas about it and what’s unique to my situation.

Anytime you have an injury, you always look if somebody’s gone through something similar beforehand, right? What’s the road that they paved and how can that help you in your journey? Mine was pretty unprecedented from the sports world standpoint is why I lean so heavily on the military people and I’m so thankful for them. I’m so open and talk to a lot of people about that are going through maybe something similar with the leg and what worked for me and didn’t work and hopefully it can help them.

Using Experience to Support and Educate Others

Solomon Wilcots: In our post-playing careers, we end up going down a lot of different roads. You’re doing a lot of broadcasting, but you got so much knowledge and so much information, particularly as it pertains to injuries, orthopedic medicine. How does that information that you’ve been able to obtain in medical science, how does that apply in maybe some of the things that you do in your life now, or maybe in some of the things that you may end up doing?

Alex Smith: I was lucky enough to play football for 16 years. You can’t help becoming a pretty, pretty good expert when it comes to orthopedic medicine, right? You get injured a lot; you deal with a lot of knees and ankles and shoulders and hips, so you just absorb all that information. I think post-career; you start to look like at longevity now. We play a physical sport and there’s ramifications from it. Certainly, my legs are a great example of what life is going to look like as I age. I use all that information that I’ve gathered in trying to help me navigate that.

I am also happy to share it with anybody that’s out there that may be going through something similar. I think anytime you’re dealing with these types of things medically that are hard and challenging, it’s so important to be able to rely on people around you. I feel I try to be open with as much as possible.

Solomon Wilcots: We want to say thank you to all the incredible athletes who had a chance to join us on the Russo Edge Podcast right here on Radio Row at Super Bowl 59.