Best Read of the Day:We find out how “Earl Gets Up”(This one will get your day going/Check it Out/Good Stuff!!!)

This is the “Best Read of the Day”, right here…I can tell it is for sure, because I read this in its entirety, and with me being a huge fan of the power running back, from the state of Texas, and that great running back would be, “The Yellow Rose of Texas” Earl Campbell, I tell you friends and foes, as far as it goes, this one right here, will be your “Best Read of the Day”…

CLICK HERE to read the full article, from Dave Wilson, at ESPN.com….I think you will Love it….

There are loads of stories of the great running backs and other football players from back in the day, but maybe none of them ring home, quite like this one does….

A human bowling ball/“The Human Wrecking Ball”, when he ran over people….A true bulldozer when he hit those holes….The pounding and the hits took their toll on Earl Campbell, the former University of Texas, and Houston Oilers’ running back, but his real malady may have been his spinal stenosis…

Stenosis is what was killing Earl Campbell…Problems with his spine, and when you add in his stenosis to the hits he took, then that is a recipe for disaster..

Earl took the hits, and he had rods and screws inserted into his back during multiple surgeries, and then after all of the hits and the surgeries came the pain…Then with the onset of the pain, came the painkillers, the alcohol, and the drugs…

As you may have heard, Earl ended up in a wheelchair, and couldn’t walk after his pro football career was over…

These days Earl can walk again, and “Earl can Get Up”

from ESPN.com:
In the late 1990s, at a benefit 30 miles away from his East Texas hometown of Tyler, Earl Campbell sat at a table while the party’s host, a colorful businessman and one of Campbell’s best friends, summoned sheepish onlookers to come say hello to the legend.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get on over here,” he said. “Earl don’t get up.”

“Earl don’t get up” because he couldn’t.

Things have gotten better for Earl, because these days, here in 2020, Earl can Get Up…At the University of Texas, they have named the football field for Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams…

In July, the University of Texas announced it would immediately change the name of the football field at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium to Campbell-Williams Field to honor Campbell, who won the 1977 Heisman Trophy, and the Longhorns’ other Heisman winner, Ricky Williams (1998).

With the help of his doctors and after going sober and leaving the painkillers, drugs and alcohol behind, Earl Campbell has been able to move forward and now “Earl can Get Up”….

We found a lot of interesting notes on Earl Campbell inside the ESPN article…
Earl Campbell was declared an official State Hero in 1981 by the Texas legislature, an honor previously only bestowed upon Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston and Davy Crockett.

In 1980, Houston Oilers’ equipment manufacturer Byron Donzis, who invented the quarterback “flak” jacket, spoke of the challenges of outfitting Campbell’s massive 34½-inch thighs.

“We make four sizes of thigh pads,” he said. “Small, medium, large and Earl Campbell.”

In 1979 Earl Campbell met Jack Tatum, the defensive back assassin, from the Oakland Raiders…
Tatum and Campbell met in the Astrodome in the first quarter of a November game between the Oilers and the Raiders. With Houston at the 1-yard-line, the entire building knew Campbell would get the ball. He took a handoff on the 1-yard line and veered off tackle to the right.

Campbell never saw Tatum, who was obscured by his linemen and arrived at full speed, meeting him at the goal line with the crown of his helmet delivering a brutal blow right under Campbell’s chin. The big running back won the battle, an oft-cited, celebrated moment of Campbell’s superhuman strength. He absorbed the blow, stumbled backward and fell into the endzone, rolling over to see Tatum left in his wake.

“The lick I took from Jack Tatum, that’s the only time I ever felt somebody hit me,” Campbell said. “A shock went down to the heels on my feet. And it burned. When I was standing on my head in my end zone, nobody knew this, but I was thinking, ‘Something’s wrong.'”

That was the only time Earl Campbell felt somebody hit him, and that hit came from, “The Assassin”, Jack Tatum
(The hit came on Campbell’s fourth carry of the game. He finished with 32 rushes for 107 yards.)

Campbell now speaks openly about the dangers of painkillers and his addiction. He is a proud member of Alcoholics Anonymous, even going to meetings in Times Square during his trip for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. Big Earl isn’t the center of attention at parties or holding court at country music shows in Austin anymore. The family that helped pull him back from the brink got a new man in return.

“At least Earl Campbell can walk,” he says, although his balance is a problem from the surgeries. He still prefers to be careful and use a scooter or golf cart, “but I still drive a car. I go places. I travel. There’s no problem with me.”

After all these years, Earl got up.

CLICK HERE to read the full article/post, from Dave Wilson, at ESPN.com…We do think you will LOVE this one…