Mike Webster biography
Mike Webster, byname of Michael Lewis Webster, (born March 18, 1952, Tomahawk, Wisconsin, U.S.—died September 24, 2002, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), American skilled gridiron soccer participant who gained 4 Super Bowls (1975, 1976, 1979, and 1980) as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL) and who is taken into account one of many biggest centres in league historical past. He is notable not only for his achieved gridiron profession however for being the primary NFL participant to be identified with continual traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which contributed to the private downward spiral that preceded his dying.
Webster performed collegiate soccer on the University of Wisconsin, the place he earned all-conference honours. Picked by the Steelers within the fifth spherical of the 1974 NFL draft, the undersized Webster performed sparingly for 2 years (throughout which the Steelers gained their first two Super Bowls) earlier than changing into an everyday member of Pittsburgh’s beginning lineup. He performed in 177 consecutive NFL video games, a unprecedented streak for an offensive lineman that lasted virtually 13 seasons. Anchoring the Steelers’ offensive line, Webster helped the crew win two extra Super Bowls in 1979 and 1980. He spent his closing two seasons as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs earlier than retiring after the 1990 NFL marketing campaign. He was chosen to play in 9 Pro Bowls and was named first-team All-Pro 5 occasions over the course of his profession.
After his retirement, Webster had quick stints as an assistant coach and a broadcaster. He then engaged in a variety of failed enterprise ventures that, mixed with resultant lawsuits, left him destitute. Webster lived with out a everlasting residence from 1993 to 1997. His issues in some ways stemmed from his creating CTE, a degenerative mind illness related to repeated head trauma that resulted in extended durations of despair and dementia till the top of his life. In 1999 Webster was arrested for forging prescriptions for Ritalin, one of many quite a few medicine he usually took to handle his ache and deteriorating psyche. He died from a coronary heart assault at age 50 and was posthumously identified with CTE. Webster’s extremely publicized decline raised consciousness of the difficulty of football-initiated mind injury and largely spurred the proliferation of CTE research within the early twenty first century.
Webster was named to the NFL’s seventy fifth Anniversary All-Time Team in 1994 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997.