Jim McMahon suffering memory loss

[balta1701-A]

ESPN Chicago

"My memory's pretty much gone," McMahon recently told the Chicago Tribune. "There are a lot of times when I walk into a room and forget why I walked in there. I'm going through some studies right now, and I am going to do a brain scan. It's unfortunate what the game does to you.

 

"I've worked with some neurosurgeons and it's a very serious thing, man."

 

....

"He had been worried about it for a while," said Navon, speaking from McMahon's Scottsdale, Ariz., home on Wednesday. "He does forget things. He'll ask you a question, and 20 minutes later, will ask you the same question. Initially, I thought he was joking, but he wasn't.

 

"He'll walk in a room and forget why he walked in, which we all do, but he does it on a daily basis."

 

In a recent interview with ESPNChicago.com, McMahon talked about the after-effects of his 15-year football career and said he was in pain every day, hasn't worked out in 15 years and can't run. At the same time, he said he did not second-guess the way he played.

 

"You could only play the game one way," he said. "It was the only way I knew how to play. I wouldn't change anything. I'd do it again, even though I know it's going to hurt."

 

...

McMahon was asked about the Bears' dramatic Thursday night victory in Minnesota in 1985, during which he came off the bench after being in the hospital that week with back spasms and a serious leg infection. He tossed three touchdown passes -- a performance that vaulted him to celebrity status nationally, but McMahon said he could not cite any specifics.

 

"I've been hit in the head so many times, it's hard to remember that far back," he said. "I don't remember specific games ..."

 

Navon said McMahon's confusion affects his quality of life.

 

"He definitely gets depressed, because he can't do what he used to do and wants to do," she said. "We'll be driving someplace and we'll be halfway there and he says 'Where are we going?' He has a Kindle and he'll pick a book he thinks is interesting and get a quarter of the way through and realize he read it.

 

"He's going to become very active [with the Sports Legacy Institute] and try to get as many former players involved as he can. ... He feels it's important to get more information out there. He and others took the blows for the young kids today, and now the rules are changing after they took all the hits."

[madlithuanian]

Sad... I love Jimmy Mac...

 

I went to the reunion event, and he seemed on top of his game. He was by far, the most entertaining and boistrous part of the event!

 

 

 

ESPN Chicago