Joe Phillips

[newshound]

This guy could play a little:

Former Charger Phillips lives with memories of attack
By Greg Bishop
Seattle Times

SEATTLE — Joe Phillips noticed one man, but not the other two. He never saw them pull him to the ground next to his car outside a restaurant in San Diego.
All he remembers seeing were feet flying toward his face. Standard kicks and roundhouse kicks and crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon kicks. They used the wheel for better angles, kicking Phillips between 60 and 70 times before the sirens sounded and three assailants had nearly beaten him to death.
One minute he's Joe Phillips, Chargers nose tackle, healthy and fit and immortal — all the things a football player in the prime of his career is supposed to be.
The next he's Joe Phillips, victim, worrying not about the rest of the 1990 season, but about whether his face or sight or life would ever return to normal.
“That kind of event changes a person forever,” Phillips said in a phone interview from his mother's home in Oregon City, Ore. “Every parking lot has looked different to me from that day forward.”
Phillips grew up in Vancouver, Wash., graduated from Columbia River High School, played college football at Oregon State and Southern Methodist and enjoyed all but one of his 14 seasons in the NFL. It is that one, 1990, that he remembered when he heard about Ken Hamlin lying in intensive care.
Phillips spent three days in intensive care. He endured four surgeries to reconstruct his face. He carries the remnants from those surgeries with him today — a left eye socket made out of titanium and more titanium in his forehead.
Not to mention the memories of that night. Memories that linger every time Phillips walks toward his car in a parking lot. Memories that taught him where not to go, what kind of situations to avoid. Memories that flooded back this week.
“At first, I spent a lot of time wondering, 'Why did this all happen?'.” Phillips said of his beating and recovery. “It was a random thing, but I didn't know what the motivation was. I wondered if I'd be able to see out of my eye, if I would live. Then I wondered if I could come back and play.”
Phillips missed the rest of the 1990 season, then played in 16 games in 1991. To ease the apprehension before he returned to football, Phillips asked his wife - they later divorced - to hit his head, covered by a helmet, with a baseball bat.
“Notice I said ex-wife,” Phillips said. “I think she might have enjoyed it.”
The apprehension went away after Phillips was “hit in the head a couple times during games.” He went on to play for Kansas City, St. Louis and Minnesota, and he wrapped up a 14-year career in 1999.
Phillips, 42, was 27 years old when he was attacked. Other than the fourth surgery in 1996 to remove part of the facial reconstruction that moved, there are no lasting physical effects.
Phillips' thoughts are with Hamlin this week.
“It's tragic,” Phillips said. “It's just a waste of humanity that people have to do that to one another. Fortunately, I've been able to move forward with my life. I hope that he can do the same.”

[Corso]

Glad Big Joe is doing OK now. That was such a scary story.