Panthers’ Quarterback Beuerlein Raises ALS Awareness and Funds in Congress

It took Steve Beuerlein 13 years to emerge as an NFL Pro Bowl quarterback. It took him all of three minutes to make his mark on Capitol Hill.

More accustomed to being met by booing fans when he comes to Washington, the Carolina Panther quarterback was instead greeted by a rousing 25-second ovation after he testified in May before a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Beuerlein, invited to Congress to raise awareness and funding for ALS research, spoke with a first-hand knowledge that brought a deeply personal note to his message: Jeff Sherer, his friend from Servite High in Anaheim, was diagnosed with ALS 2 1/2 years ago. Sherer was a 6-foot-2, 300-pound offensive right tackle on Servite’s 1982 Southern Section championship team that defeated Long Beach Poly, 31-7, in the final. With the massive Sherer smothering oncoming rushers, Beuerlein never had to worry about his front side.

“He saved my buns many times,” Beuerlein said. “He laid out for me for four years.”

Now Beuerlein is returning the favor.

Sherer, down to 240 pounds, breathes with the help of a machine. He no longer has use of his arms or legs and cannot speak.

So Beuerlein is speaking for him.

“This is a desperate situation,” he told a room packed with about 400 people in the Hart Senate Office Building. “In football terms, we could say it’s fourth and goal, the clock is running and we’ve got our backs up against the wall.”

Marya Sherer, Jeff’s wife, said she knew as she looked on during Beuerlein’s testimony that he was scoring points.

“He was amazingly composed, especially for the anxiety he had,” she said. “He spoke from the heart. He used humor and he really pushed people’s buttons who don’t normally deal with this kind of thing.”

Three months later, Beuerlein’s speech still resonates.

“Celebrities really do make a difference,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the subcommittee. “Since that speech by Steve Beuerlein, we’ve increased funding for ALS by $2.7 million.”

His appearance “put a face to ALS,” said Carol Levey, spokeswoman for the ALS Assn., the nation’s only nonprofit organization dedicated solely to finding the cause and cure for the disease and improving the quality of life for those affected.

“He’s told people what it’s like to be a friend and a caregiver to an ALS patient,” said Levey, who called Beuerlein a “big part” of a recent awareness campaign.

Beuerlein, by telephone from the Panther camp in Spartanburg, S.C., said he is only doing what Sherer would do for him.

“It’s a dreadful disease,” Beuerlein said. “Nobody should have to go through this. I plan on being heavily involved with ALS for the rest of my life.”

Beuerlein is not the only member of the 1982 Servite team making life better for the Sherers.

Brian Salerno, Beuerlein’s favorite high school receiver and the best man at Beuerlein’s and Sherer’s weddings, formed a group of 15 ex-teammates and their wives to help with medical costs and the remodeling of the Sherers’ two-story home in Lake Forest. A wheelchair stair-lift was installed so the couple can still sleep together in their second-story bedroom. A bathroom was redesigned to accommodate a wheelchair in the shower.

Through Servite, Salerno created a charity golf tournament in Beuerlein’s name. Each of the past three years the tournament has raised enough money for the Sherer Courage Fund to provide private home care that is not covered by the family’s health insurance.

The wives of the ex-Servite players call themselves the “Tupperware Team” and provide the Sherers with five meals a week. In September, the wives will spend a day helping Marya with cleaning out closets and other housework. The husbands recently spent a day in the yard installing sprinklers and landscaping.

“We really are blessed,” Marya said. “Between our family and friends, there really hasn’t been a time where I’ve needed something and somebody hasn’t come through. It’s much harder for me to ask for the help than it is for me to get it.”

Not long after Sherer was diagnosed in January of 1998, Salerno and some of his ex-teammates met with the couple and offered their help.

“They all said, ‘If we were in this position, we know you’d do the same thing,’ ” Marya said. “This is a group unlike no other. . . . There are times we wish we could do something for someone else.”

Salerno has left his job as executive vice president of a raw materials company to help turn the Sherer Courage Fund into a nonprofit agency. That will allow him to spend more time with his close friend.

“I’ve told him we’re going to do a lot of surfing the Internet,” Salerno said. “Jeff likes to read up on what’s been going on at Carolina’s camp. He hasn’t been able to do that lately.”

About three months ago, Sherer, a former electrician, lost all movement in his hands and arms. Because he was no longer able to maneuver a computer mouse, the e-mails to friends stopped and so did much of his reading. The Sherers are working with the ALS Assn. to arrange a long-term loan of an expensive eye gaze computer, which utilizes eye movements to communicate.

The Sherers delight in following Beuerlein’s career as closely as possible.

Last fall, they drove to San Francisco in a special van purchased by the Servite group to watch the Panthers play the 49ers. When Beuerlein was selected to the Pro Bowl, he paid for Jeff, Marya and then three-month-old A.J. to join him in Honolulu.

“It made my season that much more special because Jeff could enjoy it as well,” Beuerlein said.

For the first time in his professional career, Beuerlein has entered a training camp as a solid No. 1 quarterback. He earned his place with his performance last year for Carolina, his fifth NFL team.

Beuerlein led the NFL with 4,436 passing yards, 343 completions and was second in the league with 36 touchdowns and a 94.6 quarterback rating.

But the grind of starting all 16 games for the first time in his pro career took its toll. Beuerlein had five surgeries in the off-season--one to repair a bone spur and torn rotator cuff in his shoulder, another to mend torn cartilage in his left knee, another to remove bone chips from his left ankle and two more on hernia and groin injuries.

Beuerlein, a fourth-round pick of the Los Angeles Raiders in 1987 from Notre Dame, said he probably should have had two of the surgeries during the last season.

Compared to what his friend is going through, Beuerlein said his own injuries were put in proper perspective.

“Injuries are a part of what I do,” he said. “Now five is more than anyone deserves to go through, but when you put it into the context of what Jeff has gone through every day for three years, my problems were very minimal.”

It’s hard for Beuerlein and his wife, Kristen, to think about the Sherers and their children, Madison, 4, Jeff, 2 and A.J., eight months. In Washington, Beuerlein talked about what Sherer lives with each day.

“At the age of 34, this once-tremendous athlete no longer has the use of his arms or legs,” he told the subcommittee. “His five-month-old son, he’s never been able to pick up and hold him and tell him that he loves him. Imagine the pain and frustration that goes along with that.”

Some ALS patients deal with that pain and frustration for 30 years. Others don’t last a year.

“It’s a day-to-day thing,” Beuerlein said. “Jeff is still alert and he has his faculties. But it could be any time. We know that. Jeff knows that. We just hope he can hang on and stay with us a while longer because he’s an unbelievably inspirational person.”

Beuerlein almost lost his inspiration three weeks ago, while Marya was in Atlanta on a business trip. In the middle of the night, the power went out in the Sherers’ neighborhood. Everything that keeps Sherer alive is powered by electricity--including his breathing machine. Fortunately, Sherer’s caregiver was able to borrow a generator from a neighbor before it was too late.

“Jeff said he thought that was it,” Marya said. “He said, ‘I felt my body go warm.’ That [near-catastrophe] hit me like a lead weight. It didn’t even occur to me that he could die while I was away. The thought that he could go off and do that without me doesn’t seem possible.”

And the thought that there still isn’t a cure or a cause to ALS doesn’t seem possible to her either.

“It’s not a new disease. People have been studying it for 30 years and they know nothing about it. That’s something I can’t understand. We’ve come so far. We can clone sheep, but we can’t figure out a single element about what causes ALS. That’s just wrong.”