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By David Haugh
Chicago Tribune staff reporter

June 26, 2007, 11:02 PM CDT

WASHINGTON -- At one point during his five-minute testimony in front of a Congressional subcommittee Tuesday, Mike Ditka got so carried away with emotion he had to pause because he lost his place reading from a prepared script.

It didn't matter. Ditka spent most of his time speaking from the heart anyway, a big reason for the debate on NFL retirement benefits ending up on Capitol Hill in the first place.

"I'm not a newcomer in the game as some would like to say," an animated Ditka told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, chaired by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.). "All we're here for is for the system to get fixed. The system does not work."

Nattily attired in a blue pinstriped suit, Ditka was one of eight witnesses the subcommittee heard during a two-hour hearing that helped legitimize a cause some have dismissed as just a bunch of old jocks whining.

Besides Ditka, the other former players who testified included Harry Carson, Brent Boyd and Curt Marsh, a former Oakland Raiders lineman who has endured 31 surgeries and the amputation of his foot as a result of his NFL career.

Dave Duerson, a member of the NFL Players Association's six-member retirement disability review board that came under heavy fire, sat in the gallery some 10 feet from Ditka-his former coach and recent adversary during a heated radio exchange.

The league, the game itself and the NFLPA took such a beating during the proceedings that somebody might have thrown a flag for piling on if the discussion had lasted much longer.

"I see disenfranchisement on behalf of retired players," Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass) said. "I think it would behoove the NFL or the NFL [Players Association] to start absorbing retired players to see that they are adequately represented."

Those in the small room of the Rayburn Building hoping to hear fire-and-brimstone from "Da Coach" were not disappointed: Ditka delivered. Even a couple of legislators could be seen suppressing smiles as Ditka, talking demonstrably with his hands, used a tone that implied the sense of urgency he brought with him to the nation's capital.

"If you make people fill out enough forms, if you discourage them enough, make them jump through enough hoops, they're going to say, 'I don't need this,' " the former Bears player and coach said, his voice rising. "This is ridiculous. They're frustrated. These are proud people. ... The people today are not the makers of the game, they're the keepers of the game."

Ditka stopped to look down at his five-page script on the table. Three seconds of silence passed before he regrouped.

"Why are we in front of Congress?" he continued. "We feel something's wrong and it can be fixed. Why can't this be taken care of? That's all we're asking."

Later, during a question period, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) asked Ditka about his claim that there were 300 retired players seeking disability benefits but unable to get them. Acknowledging he might not have been correct on his estimate, Ditka quickly changed the subject and broke into a rant about the system.

"The responsibility has to go back to the league and the owners," Ditka said. "Come on, you ... it's a bunch of red tape and bureaucracy."

Noting Ditka's fire, Feeney closed his remarks by saying, "I don't want to quarrel with coach Ditka."

To which Sanchez added, smiling, "I wouldn't recommend it."

This all came after officials from the NFL and NFLPA began the proceedings by methodically stating their claim that the problems have been misrepresented.

Dennis Curran, an NFL Senior Vice President who administers various benefit plans, testified the league had increased its retirement fund from $88 million in 1982 to $1.1 billion today and active players contributed $126 million in 2006.

Stating that the NFL "is proud of its benefits," Curran pointed out how the league has reduced pension qualifications from five years of service to three.

Douglas Ell, a lawyer representing the NFLPA in executive director Gene Upshaw's absence, followed up by reporting the league had increased pensions four times since 1993. Ell also praised the new "Mackey 88" plan helping dementia patients, introduced five former players in the gallery who had no problems obtaining benefits and left an impression the union had done nothing to deserve the flak from
Ditka and Co.

Boyd, a former Vikings lineman who said he still feels the effects of concussions and suffers from clinical depression 25 years later, took the floor to refute the rosy picture Curran and Ell painted.

"Now that they have put the lipstick on the pig, I want to tell you what reality is," he said.

Boyd told how the NFLPA retirement disability board turned down his request for full benefits even though two doctors concluded his brain disorder was football-related. The board sent Boyd to a third doctor at Johns Hopkins, who disagreed.

When he encountered financial hardship as a result of his inability to work, Boyd said he received more help from Major League Baseball players such as Mark Grace, Rick Sutcliffe and other friends of agent Barry Axelrod than anybody in the NFL. He called the league's retirement policy, "delay, deny and hope I put a bullet in my head."

"The NFL was hoping I'd go away and die," he said.

Another compelling tale came from Cy Smith, the lawyer who represented the late Pittsburgh Steelers great Mike Webster. Smith related how the league denied Webster full disability before his death in 2002 despite an NFL-approved physician attributing Webster's head injuries and inability to work to the impact of football.

On behalf of Webster and his family, Smith filed suit in federal court to get a fair disability pension and won a decision that was upheld last December on appeal. When Upshaw was quoted a day later saying he would have done the same thing, it stuck with Smith.

"It would be terrific if I could say to you the NFL has learned a lesson, but sadly, I cannot," Smith told the subcommittee.

He made three recommendations: a 45-day review limit on disability applications that would reduce months and years of waiting, a mutual arbitrator deciding the fate of those applications instead of a hand-picked six-man panel and new union leadership.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), whose husband Sid Williams is a former an NFL linebacker, questioned why the NFLPA was only paying 317 retired players disability benefits totaling $20 million.

"In one of the most dangerous sports in history of mankind, only 317 are receiving disability?" Waters asked.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), after hearing all the testimony, called the situation "quite a tragedy."

When the hearing ended with the pounding of a gavel, Boyd leaned over to hug Ditka and said, "Thanks, coach."

Ditka just smiled, looking satisfied that the crusade had reached the lofty heights of Congress. Then he disappeared down a back hallway without comment, having said all he came to say.