Over the past few years, we’ve learned about former pro athletes sadly being diagnosed with serious diseases. This past week, Pro Football Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk joined that growing list.
Faulk, the head football coach at Southern University, revealed to Dr. Sandeep Thakkar on the “The Caring Neurologist” podcast that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects movement and mobility.
Athletes and celebrities such as Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox were both diagnosed with Parkinson’s. This past summer, former Green Bay Packers running back Ahman Green was also diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s.
The neurologic disease, for which there currently is no cure, robs people of the ability to control their movements. It’s a slow, debilitating process that can begin with barely noticeable tremors.
For Faulk, one of the signs that something was wrong was the “rigidity” he would experience in his hands after playing golf.
“I just thought it was normal nerves when putting and stuff like that,” said Faulk on the podcast. “But it started to be times where…I was playing, but I wasn’t in a match, and it would still do that. And I was like, ‘Wow, is that something – is that normal?’ And the doctor was – he literally was like, ‘You need to go get checked.’”
After receiving the diagnosis, Faulk, like Green, made the decision to address it and reveal it to the public.
“I got the reins,” Green said back in July. “I’m in control. I’m not going to let this control me. There is some medicines that I’ve been taking from the doctor’s side of it, so I made sure [to stay] on my protocol there but on my side, the food is my medicine…I’m ahead of it right now.”
Faulk was a star for the Colts and the Rams, winning a Super Bowl with the latter. After retiring from the NFL, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and entered sports broadcasting. He later joined Deion Sanders’ staff as an assistant coach before taking the job at Southern this past November, where he’s led the team to a 3-4 record so far.
Faulk said he hasn’t experienced any cognitive decline, and he’s taking medication to manage the symptoms, which include the rigidity and “little tremors”.
Most importantly, he understands that this is something he now has to adjust to and deal with.
“It’s something you live with,” he said. “It’s not to where it’s a detriment to your livelihood. Now, if you don’t take care of it, there’s an opportunity for that to be. But you have to take care of it.”
And that he’s doing.
“I think I caught it early and I’m in a good place,” said Faulk. “The earlier you catch it, the better chance you have at living a better quality of life with medication compared to if you catch it later, then you, the things that you start to have, the things that you go through, it makes life a little bit more difficult.”
