In the months before his death in 2005, former NFL lineman Steve Courson wrote a 5,000-word letter expressing disappointment that more players weren't open about their steroid use and saying the league's enormous popularity relies on a "myth" of its players as drug-free heroes.
"I believe the NFL is a prisoner to their own public relations myth," Courson said in the letter, which was found on the computer of his western Pennsylvania home after he was crushed to death at age 50 by a tree he was cutting down.
"The level of deception and exploitation that the NFL requires to do business still amazes me."
Frank, personal and philosophical, the letter amounts to a treatise from the grave.
"Steve deserves this chance to continue to speak and it was a godsend in a way to get this," said friend and author Matt Chaney, who says he plans to quote from the document in a book titled "Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football," due out next year.
Courson, who became one of professional sports' first steroids whistle blowers by detailing his use in a 1985 Sports Illustrated interview, wrote the letter to a former Pittsburgh Steelers teammate he played with on Super Bowl-winning teams in 1978 and 1979. Chaney believes Courson never sent it because it was unfinished.
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