Gifted but conflicted

Athletes not immune to illness' ironic complexities

The story this week said Alonzo Spellman was ordered held without bail in a federal prison in Philadelphia because a judge ruled he was too dangerous to be released. I never knew federal judges were trained as psychiatrists.

We all know about the former NFL defensive lineman's history of severe mental problems. And some of us know how unable the prison system is to cope with these problems. Spellman should be in a hospital, under restraints, of course, because he's a big guy who can do a lot of damage. But I don't think jail is the answer.

He has been diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar disorder. Manic-depressive behavior is another term for it, highs and lows. But if you've been following the accounts of Spellman's actions, you might wonder about some of the other symptoms, which are typical of schizophrenia -- hearing voices, seeing things, loss of identity, etc.

I get the feeling that Spellman, as well as other high-profile athletes -- ex-defensive lineman Dimitrius Underwood, Mike Tyson -- haven't really gotten the finest of psychiatric care.

One of the stories I read about Spellman drew the distinction between bipolarism and schizophrenia, mentioning that the latter was "non-treatable." It's typical of the pseudo-knowledge that gets tossed around when everyday journalism is out of its element. The notion that schizophrenia cannot be treated discounts everything that's been done in the field for the last 30 years or so. Think of the movie, A Beautiful Mind, in which a schizophrenic was successfully treated through medication.

Sometimes the results can be spectacular, sometimes they fail. But the meds do work. All you have to do is look at how short a period it takes for a psychiatric patient to revert to a former state -- "destabilizing," they call it -- once he goes off his meds. It could take as little as two days.

When you've intimately known someone who has suffered from psychiatric disorders, as I have for a long time, you get a working knowledge of treatments and procedures. You also see how limited psychiatry can be, particularly in the area of the gifted.

Often these are the people who regularly go off their meds. Psychiatrists can do little about it except tell them to get back on them. What isn't fully understood is that medications can take the edge off exactly what it is that makes a gifted person gifted in the first place, whether it's athletically or artistically.

A high-powered athlete feels invincible. Then he takes his meds and that little extra burst that gave him that feeling could get dulled. He's a more healthy individual, but he can't perform at the same level. So he stops taking his meds, and he can compete again, but he's on his way to a psychiatric crash. I'm just guessing, but I feel that it's been typical of Spellman's whole career, probably Tyson's as well.

Artistically, put it this way: What would people want, a lucid, stabilized, fully medicated Vincent Van Gogh, or the Van Gogh who painted Starry Night?

The hardest thing for exceptional people to accept is something that might bring them down to the level of the ordinary. I once talked to Lawrence Taylor after he had skipped out on a league-mandated drug rehab program. He'd lasted about two days.

"Group therapy was the worst," he said. "You sit around in a little circle and some lady talks about how wonderful it is that she could drive a car to the mall again, and I'm thinking, 'I've got nothing in common with her; I've got nothing in common with these people. What am I doing here?'"

We want our special people to be special. When they're not we somehow feel betrayed. And in the case of poor Alonzo Spellman, lost in the mental agonies of his own world, we put them in prison. It's sad.

Here's a sicko thing I got in the mail. A set of pictures of former Raiders safety Jack Tatum, nicknamed "The Assassin" for his cheap shot on Darryl Stingley that paralyzed the Patriots receiver, with the heading, Why Isn't the Assassin in the Hall of Fame? It's part of a promotion by Pony sporting goods called Pony's Injustice Campaign. I always think that I've seen the creepiest thing that corporate America has to offer, then they top it. But I'll say this about Tatum, who never managed to visit Stingley in the hospital or even talk to him after the accident: He and the old linebacker Hardy Brown were the two hardest hitters I've ever seen. Of course, with the way penalties are called now, Tatum would be out of business.

ESPN has a new gimmick this year. The network is letting Suzy Kolber's sideline interviews cut through the live action and run for two, three, even four plays without any commentary from the booth. What the hell, it's entertainment, right? So what if we never heard how the 49ers' No. 1 draft choice, Mike Rumph, was beaten for a 65-yard TD against Washington, or anything about the Jets' Damien Robinson's interception against the Steelers, or lots of other stuff. Wonder how much of that we'll get during the season.

Quickie quiz -- how many 300-pounders are there in the Hall of Fame? I'm talking about guys who carried an official program weight of 300 or more. Answer -- none. The closest were Dan Dierdorf at 290 and Art Shell, listed at 285, although he was probably way over that at the end of his career.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z's Mailbag, click here.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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