You're Okay, It's Just a Bruise: A Doctor's Sideline Secrets About Pro Football's Most Outrageous Team

Along with other sideline secrets, the former L.A. Raiders' doctor reveals the occupational hazards of caring for angry 290-pound linemen and the compromises made for a management that only wants to win. National ad/promo. Tour.

Huizenga joined the L.A. Raiders in 1983 as the team internist and resigned in 1990, disillusioned at the way pro football, and the Raiders in particular, treated, or failed to treat, players' medical problems. The title was the tag line of his orthopedic colleague, Robert Rosenfeld, who used it with virtually every injured athlete and winked at the use of all sorts of pills by team members. While president of the NFL Physicians' Association, Huizenga campaigned against the use of anabolic steroids, but his proposal to ban them was quietly squelched by the owners in 1992. Here he continues the battle by detailing the case of Lyle Alzado, an ex-Raider who died in 1992 from, among other causes, decades-long use of muscle builders. The author has suggestions for making football less lethal but seems pessimistic about their adoption. A shocker, a sort of Ball Four about the grid game.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

What young, sports-minded doctor would turn down an opportunity to work for the Los Angeles Raiders? Huizenga certainly couldn't. He was the team internist from 1983 to 1990. While mastering the arcane skills of sports medicine in the raw, Huizenga discovered the prevalence of drug, alcohol, and steroid abuse in the National Football League and the extent to which good medicine takes a back seat to the good of the team. His personal crusade for medical care that emphasizes health led to a clash with a team orthopedist, who dismissed a player's potentially life-threatening physical condition with the comment that became the book's title. Management backed the orthopedist. This doctor's view of the inner workings of the Raider organization and the NFL will entertain readers while providing the average fan with a better understanding of football. Recommended for popular sports collections.
--Terry Madden, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.