He Gave His All : For Ex-Raider Marsh, That Meant His Right Leg, Which Was Amputated After Years of Pain

Curt Marsh didn’t know if he could go through with it.

Yes, the former Raider had long since given up any thoughts of playing again in the NFL. Yes, he desperately wanted only to play with his young children, running with them and chasing after them. Yes, he wanted the bone-rattling pain that had racked his body for nine years to finally, completely, unconditionally cease. And yes, he wanted this, his 14th trip to the operating room in seven years because of a badly broken right ankle, to be his last.

All these things he knew.

And yet, when the surgeon finally came for his right leg, came to amputate it below the knee, Marsh, an athlete all his life, didn’t know if he’d be able to surrender it--or would instead bolt off the operating table in a wild search for another solution. Any solution.

“I felt like I was giving up,” he said.

On the night before the surgery last September, Marsh met with his family and his pastor, Kevin Forquer, and emerged at peace with his decision.

“I had a lot of people praying for me,” he said, “and I really feel that was the difference. Because that next morning when I got up, I was really ready to do it. There was no apprehension at all.”

Marsh underwent the amputation, has been fitted with an artificial leg and, 10 months later, seems reborn, a new spirit to go along with his new limb. He is pain-free, has the time and mobility to share in his children’s activities, works as youth programs coordinator for the city of Everett and recently won a gold medal in power lifting at the 1995 Wheelchair and Amputee National Championships.

Visiting with a reporter in his Everett office, he points at Mt. Pilchuck, clearly visible from his window, and proudly announces that he’ll be hiking up there over the weekend with a group of troubled teen-agers.

Marsh, 36, puts a happy face on his sad story and exhibits no bitterness toward either the NFL in general or the Raiders in particular. He even wears a ring from the team’s 1984 victory in Super Bowl XVIII.

Yet, he will always symbolize every athlete’s nightmare, the worst-case scenario for every player who ever entered a trainer’s room.

How could this happen? How does a tough, hardened athlete go from a pain in his foot to no foot at all?

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Marsh had been a star almost as long as he had been a football player. An All-American at Snohomish High seven miles east of Everett, then at the University of Washington, Marsh played in two Rose Bowls, the Sun Bowl, the East-West Shrine game and the Japan Bowl before joining the then-Oakland Raiders as a first-round draft choice in 1981.

Marsh made the Raiders’ starting lineup as an offensive lineman in his rookie year, replacing Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw.

With all the glory, however, came the injuries. He had already undergone back surgery, suffered a broken arm, hand and finger and had spent more time in trainers’ rooms than some team doctors.

So when the pain began in his right ankle at the beginning of the Raiders’ 1986 training camp, Marsh tried to shrug it off.

For one thing, he didn’t even remember getting hurt. He had been fine at the end of the 1985 season and had yet to play in an exhibition game in ’86. The injury was no big deal in Marsh’s mind. Offensive linemen get sore feet the way coal miners get sore lungs.

Besides, Marsh figured, there were bigger things on his agenda than merely a sore ankle. The back surgery had cost him the chance to play in the 1984 Super Bowl. The broken arm had cost him his starting job in ’85. In 1986, he was determined to get that job back.

“I was motivated,” he said. “I had already played with pain on other occasions, and I felt like it was my responsibility to my teammates.”

The initial diagnosis reinforced Marsh’s desire to carry on with business as usual. Team physician Robert Rosenfeld, who died in 1994, told Marsh he was suffering from a ligament strain. The treatment consisted of draining the swollen area, taking anti-inflammatory drugs and receiving shots of Novocain.

Day after day, Marsh would take his treatment, limp onto the field for practice and then drag himself off the field in more pain than ever.

“I could see he was in a lot of pain,” said Matt Millen, a teammate in those days. “Injuries were something we never talked about. Basically, you’d say, ‘How’s the ankle?’ He’d say, ‘Kind of swollen.’ I’d say, ‘Maybe you should give it a day’s rest.’

“But he knew that the next day, he’d go out and do it all over again. I had groin and foot injuries. You shoot up and go out and hope for the best. That’s the medical school we graduated from.”

It’s a school of hard knocks. Everybody who has ever donned a helmet and pads knows that much.

“[Marsh]always went in with his eyes open,” Millen said. “He knew that playing pro football involves risks. He knew he could be hurt. He knew the only person you should trust is yourself. He knew all that. But he loved the game, he was enormously talented and he was willing to pay the price to be great.”

But Marsh certainly never envisioned the price he would end up paying.

“Really, he was a little naive,” Millen said. “He’d be told, ‘It’s just a bruise. Don’t worry about it.’ He wanted so much to believe, so he believed. A lot of us did that.”

Marsh kept limping on that bad foot through four exhibition games and the first two games of the regular season. Finally, mercifully, his season ended, not because of the injured right ankle, as it turned out, but because of a partially torn ligament in his left knee. Marsh was put on the injured list but began working out once the knee had healed.

The ankle had not healed. The pain continued, but X-rays did not show a fracture. Instead, they showed bone chips. After the 1986 season, Marsh twice underwent surgery to remove those chips.

The second surgery led to a staph infection that Marsh battled for 26 days, his fever reaching 104 degrees at one point.

None of this, however, dampened his enthusiasm about returning to the field. He was back in the weight room before he was completely healthy, working out with an intravenous tube stuck in his arm.

“I can’t believe I did that stuff. What was I thinking?” he says now. “Actually, I know what I was thinking. That was my nature. It almost sounds sick when you think about it. You’re focused, committed, driven by that inner part of you that has always wanted to get to the top of the mountain and you can still see the peak of it. And you still feel like you can get there no matter what gets in your way.”

Marsh came to training camp in 1987, but as soon as he subjected the ankle to the pressure of performing on the field, the pain and swelling returned.

Finally, unable to take part in a scrimmage against the Dallas Cowboys, Marsh had enough. He hobbled into the trainer’s room and said: “I need to know exactly what’s wrong with my ankle. This is ridiculous. I’m not going to do this anymore.”

Rosenfeld gave him the same old diagnosis--ligament strain and bone chips.

“That’s not good enough,” Marsh said. “I’m going to get a second opinion.”

Logical? In those days, that was tantamount to treason in pro football.

“It was frowned upon that you would go outside the fold to get a second opinion,” Marsh said. “The feeling was, if you did that, you were dishonoring the family.”

Millen remembers that feeling all too well.

“Guys didn’t get second opinions,” he said. “Nobody did it. They would tell you, ‘Look, this is the team doctor. He has your best interests at heart. He’s been around and been doing this for 30 years.’ If you got caught going for a second opinion, it would be like [the late Sen. Joseph] McCarthy found you out. If it happened now, Curt would never have lost his leg.”

When Marsh insisted on getting a second opinion, Rosenfeld recommended Tony Daly, the Clipper team physician, who ran a CAT scan and discovered a fracture that had not shown on the X-rays ordered by Rosenfeld.

When Marsh told Rosenfeld what Daly’s diagnosis revealed, Rosenfeld said he was sick at the news and would have felt terrible if he had sent Marsh out onto the field with a broken bone.

At least, Marsh finally knew what his problem was.

The solution was another matter.

After the first operation on the broken ankle, Marsh told his wife, Pamela: “If I ever say I want to play pro football again, shoot me.”

Marsh had figured that if he quit pro football and had an operation to mend the bone, he would be able to live a normal life. And that’s all he wanted. Seven years and 13 operations later, Marsh knew that was impossible. The last operation involved driving a six-inch nail up through his right heel. But even that failed to fuse the bone. The repeated trauma had done irreparable damage.

By that point, the swelling had expanded from the ankle to just below the knee. At times, it looked as if Marsh had a football inside his right leg.

“I’d go swimming with my kids,” he said, “and mothers would be pulling their children away like I was the Elephant Man. It was just nasty looking.”

So, reluctantly, Marsh agreed to the amputation.

When he first realized what was about to happen, he was bitter that his years with the Raiders had come down to this.

“But as I really thought it out,” he said, “I take the ultimate responsibility for the predicament I got myself in. I was a grown man. It was my body. I knew I had the choice. Whether there was pressure or not, verbal or nonverbal, to take a shot and play, it was my choice. I wanted to do it. I’m basically a loyal person by nature. I felt I owed it to my teammates and to the team to play with pain.

“The only thing I would do differently is I think I would take control of the situation a little sooner to get a second opinion.”

But Marsh has moved past any regrets.

“Playing football was worth it for the sake of getting to where I am today, working with kids,” he said. “I’m very happy doing what I’m doing and who I am. Through my faith, I feel I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

The amputation was particularly difficult on 10-year-old Christopher, the middle of Marsh’s three children. He had a very hard time saying goodby to his dad’s right leg. So, to ease the parting, the toenails from Marsh’s right foot were clipped, put in a plastic bag and presented to Christopher, who treasures the memento.

For the senior Marsh, the parting was easier.

“I mourned the times I’d missed,” he said, “being able to do the things I dreamed of doing as a father, playing with the kids and riding bikes and coaching their games. Instead, I was either in pain awaiting a surgery or on crutches following a surgery in that whole seven-year period. That’s why my amputation was a great event for me. It’s not like I enjoyed doing it, but the pain is gone.”

Not totally. Marsh’s athletic career has also left him with severely damaged hips. A bone from his amputated leg was used to rebuild the right hip, but he still faces surgery to replace the left one.

Marsh says he has not heard from anyone in the Raider organization since his surgery.

“We certainly regret the condition that he has now,” said Al Locasale, Raider executive assistant, “but we’re glad to see how he’s handling it. He was always a tough guy, and we’re glad to see he has maintained his competitive nature.

“As to his condition, that’s a medical matter, and the resident expert in this case [Rosenfeld] now resides in God’s kingdom.”

Marsh believes his case sends a message to anyone who plays for the Raiders or any other team. Indeed, to any athlete.

“They need to know that they have the power to decide what happens to their bodies,” Marsh said. “You have a choice, and with that choice, really consider what you’re willing to give up to win the game. Because when you put it in the perspective of your whole life, it becomes just a very small part of it. It’s definitely not going to be the most important thing you do.”

Yet, Millen concedes, what happened to Marsh probably won’t serve as a warning to others.

“Guys of our era,” he said, “knew about injuries suffered by people like [Dick] Butkus, [Joe] Namath and [Gale] Sayers. But you take your turn at the plate and don’t worry about the guy before you who struck out. It’s your turn and you’re just focused on hitting a home run. Hopefully, guys have an understanding that this can happen. But they can’t afford to stop and say, ‘Man, I could lose a leg.’ ”

Marsh understands.

“People ask, was it worth it? Probably not,” he said. “Would I do it again? Yeah.”