English Audio Request

Without being melodramatic about it, I say, you are holding in your hands an example of the price that is paid for being a professional footballer at the top of his game.
She hesitates a second. "At least in this case, yes," she says.
* * *
As a kid, Duerson was an exceptional all-round sportsman who could have pursued a career in baseball or in basketball. But it was football that he loved best. He started playing the game aged eight and carried on through school and into the celebrated football college, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, picking up numerous awards along the way. He had 24 full seasons before he hung up his boots.
He tended to play strong safety, a key position at the back of the team that is the last line of defence. He would be lined up against the big offensive players on the opposing side, men who can weigh 300lb and whose job it is to drive and grind their team forward. It was Duerson's job to stop them, even if that meant crunching head first into the human equivalent of a brick wall.
It was when he was playing for Notre Dame at the Sugar Bowl, the annual showcase of American college-level football in New Orleans, that he met his wife of 25 years, Alicia. She wasn't interested in football. But she was instantly struck by him the first time she saw him at a party.
"Dave could walk in and capture a room. He had a lot of charisma, he had a lot of magic to him. He was 6ft 2in, but the way he carried himself he seemed like a bigger guy," she says when we meet in Chicago.
They married in 1983 after he graduated with a degree in economics. He had thoughts of going to law school or entering politics, but the draw of a professional career in football proved irresistible and he was selected to play for the Chicago Bears that same year.
Alicia and their four children attended every game. It was hard watching him take a battering in such a physical contact sport, but he was tough and competitive and she comforted herself that it was usually Duerson who delivered the pounding. "He wasn't taking the hits, so much as giving them out."