Padecky: Tony Moll wants NFL to understand his hurt
SONOMA
Stella takes a running start at her dad, ready to jump in his arms with a smack-thud, and doesn’t think for a moment she could hurt him. Why would she? Stella is three and half years old, maybe 40 pounds. Tony Moll, her dad, is 6-foot-5, 290 pounds and just 32 years old.
Stella jumps into his arms. Tony pulls back his head to avoid hers. The pain starts from the top of his left shoulder, travels like a speeding bullet down his left arm, into his left hand where it ends its malevolent journey, the tingling and numbness in his fingers reminding its host with brutal honesty that he played in the NFL for six years.
Stella looks for the smile. Tony squeezes out one, annoyed he can’t give his daughter his undivided affection. His annoyance doesn’t stop there. All Moll has to do is think of this coming March when he flies to Baltimore, to convince an insurance company he is not healthy.
“I’m not looking for the NFL’s money,” Moll said. “I’m filing a workman’s comp claim, that I was injured on the job and that I want health coverage if I should need it in the years ahead.”
Moll’s claims have been rebuffed to this point. It has caused as much distress for him as that pinched nerve in his neck. He’s healthy? One hundred percent healthy? And the NFL had nothing to do it with it anyway? Shoot, employing such blindness to that logic, why not call the NFL a video game with great sound effects.
With Moll in Baltimore will be an attorney who will present for the Moll health records from the Baltimore Ravens where Moll was an offensive lineman in 2009 and 2010. “They can pull all the film and see it for themselves,” Moll said.
Moll’s wife, Megan, will be there to testify, to give the insurance company examples of why her husband is not 100 percent healthy. Only a cold-hearted corporation could shrug off and claim inconsequential the following: memory loss, needing to leave a room quickly because it is too noisy or it has suddenly become too small. Megan will tell them Tony needs to wear sunglasses all the time when outdoors because of the headaches that will result if he doesn’t.
“I have come to recognize possible bouts of anger,” he said, “and understand how I need to keep calm about it.”
Megan wasn’t so calm when she sat with Tony when they saw the movie “Concussion.”
“She was terrified, emotional,” Moll said.
That was an understatement.
“I was bawling,” Megan said. “I was a lot more emotional than I thought. The first part of the movie, especially, was very hard to watch, when they showed the hitting. The clips they were showing, it was like: The harder they hit the more people watched.”
Her emotion changed as the movie portrayed the NFL as a cruel, heartless beast, obsessed with keeping its brand intact. Injuries? Brain damage? Nah.
“I started to become angry,” Megan said. “Tony was part of this. It was his life. I’m disappointed in the NFL.
The trigger points for her were multiple. Megan saw the brutality of the NFL, the lack of conscience of the NFL, the bottom line fixation of the NFL. Gosh, the NFL was acting like an insurance company. The NFL went out of its way to discredit Dr. Bennet Omalu, the county coroner in Pittsburgh who discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Law enforcement somehow found its way into the fray.
“For the NFL to know about this issue,” Moll said, “and to not want to do anything about it, it’s troubling to me to realize there was no way they wanted to help.”
The concepts of trust, honor and responsibility form a large part of Moll’s life. His grandfather and father formed Moll Construction more than 60 years ago. They built more than 3,500 homes in the North Bay. His dad became an educator as well at Sonoma Valley High School and two middle schools in Sonoma. His two brothers - one a realtor, one an engineer - have offices within walking distance of Moll’s mortgage office in downtown Sonoma.
The Molls of Sonoma have roots, a community influence, all with one intended purpose: We don’t duck responsibility. We don’t pass the buck. We own a mistake. That’s what drives Moll to distraction. He was honorable to the NFL. He wants the same consideration in return.
“When that lawsuit was filed against the NFL, I wasn’t one of the 5,000 former players in it,” Moll said of the class-action lawsuit that resulted in a $900 million settlement. “I knew when I entered the league there was a good chance I might have trouble walking later in life. It’s like signing up with the military. You know you are going to war. Sure, there was some mention of concussions but there wasn’t going to be any long-lasting effect. That was before the research came out.”
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: