A picture of San Francisco’s 1984 Super Bowl championship team hangs on one wall in former 49ers offensive tackle Keith Fahnhorst’s stock brokerage office in Minneapolis. Nearby, Fahnhorst displays a helmet from his playing days.
These days, Fahnhorst enjoys looking at his football memorabilia and reminiscing.
Yet there was a dark time after he retired after the 1987 season when any reminder of his 49ers career touched off painful waves of frustration and depression.
“It took me three years to bring any football memorabilia into my office,” Fahnhorst said. “It was too painful. It’s like part of you dies almost. That was such a big part of my life. Nothing’s really the same again. Not that it can’t be good. It’s just different.
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“You have to go through that mourning period and come out of that and go on. Some guys never do. That’s the sad part. They haven’t been able to cope with it. They spend the rest of their lives talking about the game, doing the (celebrity) golf tournaments and being with the guys and not really finding anything to fill that void.”
Former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster is the poster child for post-football trauma. His life spiraled so far out of control that he sold his four Super Bowl rings to survive. He lost a small fortune. He lost his house. For well over a year, Webster, a Hall of Fame center, lived in his car.
“He came into the league the same time I did,” said Fahnhorst, 47. “I was almost shocked to see the struggle he went through. That story struck me as how bad it can get.”
Yet even for players who have invested their money wisely and have prepared for new careers, retiring from football can be as painful psychologically as the sport itself was physically.
Harry Edwards, a sociology professor at California and a consultant for the 49ers, has watched countless players struggle to make the transition.
“There’s a postpartum kind of blues that sets in, what I call transition trauma, between seasons,” Edwards said. “At the end of one’s career, there’s a flat-out disengagement trauma that some guys never get over.”
Edwards received a call one time from a distraught mother of a former NFL player, searching for ways to help her son.
“He has gone completely in the tank, and they have no idea what to do,” Edwards said. “He was not a great player, but this was his identity. This is what he did.”
For three decades, from the time he was young boy until he was in his mid-30s, Fahnhorst was a football player. Then one day his football career was over.
Fahnhorst had prepared for a new career, spending his off-seasons working as a stockbroker. He had a job waiting for him when he retired from football. Even so, Fahnhorst found himself frustrated and depressed.
“I remember I was sitting in my office, pulling my hair out,” Fahnhorst said. “This gal who was in the business looked at me. She was a real successful broker. She said, `I’ve got a friend, a psychologist. You should go talk to him.’
“I did go see him. He really helped me see the pain I was going through. He helped. My wife helped. But it’s something you have to do by yourself. The first thing is admitting the change in your life.”
Looking back, Fahnhorst realizes how much he learned and how much he grew by going through “the retirement process.”
“You learn that you’re more than just a football player,” he said. “You learn there’s a lot more to you than just blocking people and being an athlete. You realize your wife loves you even though you don’t play football and you’re not a 49er.
“It’s quite an experience. But God help me if I had to do it again. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It’s a great experience, but painful beyond belief.”
Like Fahnhorst, former Raiders defensive back George Atkinson prepared financially for life after football, yet he still went through a tough transition after retiring from the NFL in 1979.
“I started playing football at 10 years old,” said Atkinson, an analyst on Raiders pregame and postgame radio shows as well as a weekly Raiders television show. “From 10 until 31 or 32, that’s all I did. After retirement, it took me four or five years to make the transition. Where do I go from here? What do I do? What is it I want to do? You have to rediscover who you are and where you want to go.
“Even though I was heavily invested in real estate and I had a couple liquor stores, there was something missing. There was a part of me missing. That void had to be filled. It was difficult to fill that void.”
When former 49ers wide receiver R.C. Owens retired from the NFL after the 1964 season, he followed the advice of Clyde Conner, an ex-teammate in San Francisco. Conner told him to stay away from the game for three years. Completely. Don’t go to games. Don’t even watch them on television.
“Stay away from the ballpark because this is only going to give you an easier or better chance to ease out of the game,” said Owens, now an executive assistant and alumni coordinator for the 49ers.
Owens already had lined up a public relations job for a large retail store, and he immersed himself in his new pursuit.
“Even in our alumni program, in inviting the players to fly with the team and attend a game, I try to make sure those guys are comfortable going to the game,” he said.
The summer after he retired, Fahnhorst received a telephone call from then 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, who was preparing for the 1988 season.
“He said, `We miss you,’ which was bull,” Fahnhorst said. “It meant a lot to me for him to call me and take the time when I was going through the struggle I was. I remember him asking me what it was like. I could tell then he was already thinking about what it would be like.”
When Montana retired after the 1994 season, his second as a Kansas City Chief, he found out what Fahnhorst already knew.
“Anytime there’s a game on, it’s tough for me,” Montana said shortly before having his 49ers jersey retired two seasons ago. “It’s hard to sit back and start thinking about what it was like.”
What Montana missed most was the competition on game day.
“It’s hard to find that type of level of competition anywhere,” Montana said. “The excitement that happens on a Sunday afternoon, I don’t think you can ever replace. No matter what you do.
“You can find ways to compete and have a lot of fun at doing it, but to this degree, it’s almost impossible. I miss that part of it.”
Atkinson, like Montana, misses the “adrenaline rush” of game day and the chance to compete at the highest level possible.
“That, you can’t replace,” Atkinson said. “Once you leave the game, that part of your life is over. There’s nothing in life you ever can do that will replace that. You have to realize that that part of your life is gone.
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“That could be what is missed most by players, the ability to get back to that feeling. I guess that’s why guys go in other directions. It’s just not there.”
Fahnhorst loves his job as a stockbroker. It’s fun and exciting, filled with the unexpected.
“It’s the closest thing I can find to being a football player,” Fahnhorst said. “It isn’t playing the Cowboys. There’s no substitute to having a conflict and a resolution in 3 1/2 hours. The thrill of the thing. Not a life or death struggle, but it’s as close as you can get to a pretend one. You have a resolution, then you go on to the next one. That’s what was so fun. You thrive on that.”
Even so, Edwards said, there’s something that most former players miss more than the weekly adrenaline rush of game day. They miss what he calls the “inter-existence” with a group of teammates, all striving for the same goal.
“Time after time after time, you talk to guys about what they miss,” Edwards said. “They don’t miss the hitting. They don’t even miss the crowds. What they miss is the guys in the locker room, the relationships together.
“What they’re saying is they miss what has been a serious part of myself. The inter-existence runs that thick. What has died in Keith Fahnhorst is Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana and Jesse Sapolu, Keena Turner, Steve Young and Brent Jones. That’s what he misses.”
The first time an athlete walks into sports attorney Leigh Steinberg’s office, Steinberg poses a question:
“I say, `Suppose you were horribly injured tomorrow and couldn’t play anymore. What would you like to do in life?’ ” Steinberg said.
Steinberg represents many of the league’s biggest stars, including the 49ers’ Young. To Steinberg, part of his job is to prepare his NFL stars for life after football.
Young has his law degree. San Francisco safety Tim McDonald, another Steinberg client, opened a sports bar and restaurant this year in Fresno, Calif. Former 49ers tight end Brent Jones moved from the football field to the television broadcast booth.
“This psychological transition is something we work with players on in the off-season,” Steinberg said. “Creative, aggressive people find interesting things to do. Nothing will replicate that adrenaline on the field but a lot of athletes are finding tremendous satisfaction in their second careers.”
Jones wasn’t forced out the NFL’s door. He decided to retire after the 1997 season before his skills had vanished. Then he landed a job with CBS.
“It really is (painful),” Jones said of the transition to life after football. “It does feel as if a part of you has died. I think the thing that helped me was being able to transition into something that takes a lot of your focus.
“If you have too much time on your hands you almost can’t let it go. It paralyzes you. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of guys. I think the worst thing is to be shown the door and think that you still have something. It’s a different aspect when someone tells you you’re done. I just walked away. It’s nice to pull the plug on yourself. You’re the only guy you can blame.”
Former 49ers running back Roger Craig began preparing for a career after football long before he retired. He owns a sports bar in Iowa and is involved with a number of businesses that keep him busier than he ever was as a player.
“I was prepping myself for that day,” Craig said. “I was doing a lot of different things to get ready for life after football. You have to. You can’t think you’re going to play forever. There’s a point in your career where you have to take charge.
“What helped me is knowing I had a family to turn to. There are a lot of players who don’t have a family. They kind of leave with a bitter taste in their mouths.”
Fahnhorst hates to think what might have happened to him if not for his wife, Susan.
“I had a wife who knew when to pat me on the head and knew when to kick me,” Fahnhorst said.
“She probably kicked a little more than patted. That’s a tremendous help. I couldn’t have made it without that help.”