Antwaan Randle El Regrets Playing Football: 'If I Could Go Back, I Wouldn't'
(CBS) Former Steelers All-Pro Antwaan Randle El is the latest former football player to offer chilling but familiar comments about his life after football.
Randle El, just 36 years old, currently deals with memory loss and struggles to even walk down the stairs. He regrets ever playing football.
"If I could go back, I wouldn't (play football)," Randle El said in a detailed piece by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I would play baseball. I got drafted by the Cubs in the 14th round, but I didn't play baseball because of my parents. They made me go to school. Don't get me wrong, I love the game of football. But right now I could still be playing baseball."
A native of Harvey, Ill., Randle El was drafted out of high school by the Cubs in the 1997 MLB Draft. He elected to attend Indiana for football instead. A receiver, he was drafted by the Steelers in the 2002 NFL Draft and became a staple of the Pittsburgh offense. He's known as the first receiver to ever throw a touchdown pass in the Super Bowl, helping the Steelers win Super Bowl XL.
Still, Randle El regrets ever playing football.
"I ask my wife things over and over again, and she's like, 'I just told you that,'" Randle El told the Post-Gazette. "I'll ask her three times the night before and get up in the morning and forget. Stuff like that."
The Steelers were at the center of Sony's new "Concussion" movie, which documents the horrifying effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, better known as CTE. The picture includes the sad stories and eventual deaths of Pittsburgh greats Mike Webster, Justin Strzelczyk and Terry Long.
Randle El doesn't see any answer to take away the violence from football.
"There's no correcting it," he said. "There's no helmet that's going to correct it. There's no teaching that's going to correct it. It just comes down to it's a physically violent game. Football players are in a car wreck every week."
Now Randle El is living a life with the hopes that the cumulative toll of football doesn't take away his health.
"I try to chalk it up as I'm busy, I'm doing a lot, but I have to be on my knees praying about it, asking God to allow me to not have these issues and live a long life," he said, according to the Post-Gazette. "I want to see my kids raised up. I want to see my grandkids."