Imagine you receive a much coveted invitation to the combine, but when you get there suddenly things change, and not for the better….a hamstring tear in the 40 yard dash, a knee or ankle issue, or even the dreaded ACL injury; Fagg is no longer imagining these scenarios as he is now living one. During a simple pass-catching drill, Fagg fell to the turf grabbing his left knee. He was led off the field on a stretcher with what appeared to be every athletes worst nightmare, a torn ACL.

Now what? It is too early to tell the extent of his injuries or if Fagg will be able to fully recover and play at the level he has spent his entire life striving for. In an instant, his life has become a big question mark.

As unfortunate as injuries at the Combine are, they are still a main concern for players, agents, and families. Ryan Clady, a left tackle from Boise State suffered a pectoral injury during the bench press exercise this year that ended his Combine early, but is expected to recover in time for Boise State’s Pro-Day workout. In 2005, Nebraska offensive lineman Richie Incognito suffered a knee injury but recovered to become the Ram’s third round draft choice that same year. Fagg might not be so fortunate.

What can be done to alleviate these concerns? Career ending injuries are rare, but not out of the question. How do you protect yourself against them? How do you cover yourself from these “what if” scenarios that could take place? When your career, means of life, and income can all disappear in flash, what can be done to ensure a successful and comfortable life after football? More specifically, what does this mean for Fagg?

Players invited to the Combine are covered by a primary health insurance policy, which will pay for his medical expenses. But there’s no NFL-provided insurance for lost playing wages; it’s the responsibility of the player to buy his own policy. Did Fagg have one of these policies? Can he sue? If so, who? The league? The drill instructor? Does he get workers’ compensation? What measures could he have had in place, or put in place to protect his future?

Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado, a former player himself and current Entertainment and Sports Insurance Agent, knows the answers to those questions and more.
Salgado, President and CEO of Coastal Advisors, LLC makes sure all his clients are protected and are not taken advantage of. His insurance consulting firm specializes in disability insurance for professional athletes and entertainers. He also handles life insurance and estate planning needs. Salgado is more than just a trusted advisor; he is a friend, a mentor, and lifestyle coach ensuring that his clients have stable, protected, and bright futures ahead of them. Salgado was just profiled by Newsday, in a full page profile in Sunday’s paper.

Coastal currently has over 200 professional athletes as clients, including Michael Strahan and Jeremy Shockey of the NFC Champion New York Giants, Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints, Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals and Randy Moss of the AFC Champion New England Patriots along with numerous clients in the entertainment industry, whose names cannot be disclosed at this time due to confidentiality agreements.

Salgado spent the last few days in Indianapolis at the Combine, where he was the lone insurance agent talking to players about the importance of insurance and disability coverage. As a former player, Salgado knows the demands and inherent risks of the job, but also the importance of this business decision and it’s impact on the player’s long term future.

Salgado has seen it all and can offer insight into these life-altering experiences. It is his job to protect these players from the worst. Although he can’t stop the worst from happening, he does everything he can to protect his clients from it.

For this year’s draft Salgado is working with Chris Long (Virginia), Chevis Jackson and Ali Highsmith (LSU) as well as Simeon Castille (Alabama). They were covered had something happened to them.

Salgado has also signed on to represent the brand new United Football League and co-hosted a Fox Business Channel Special from the Super Bowl on February 3rd.

Don’t worry, though. He’s covered.

Bush, this year’s Heisman Trophy winner and projected No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, holds insurance policies that cover him for up to $6 million. So he has financial protection against an injury, not only in the Rose Bowl, but also on a 24-hour basis until he signs a professional contract or Aug. 1, whichever comes first.

Some of his teammates at Southern Cal also are heavily insured. Quarterback Matt Leinart came back for his senior season in possession of an insurance policy for untold millions, while running back LenDale White ($2 million policy) and wide receiver Steve Smith ($1 million) both played this year with insurance protection in place.

Should any of these players suffer injuries that are deemed by doctors to be career-ending, they will receive the amount for which they are insured, tax free.

At the beginning of the season, Bush filled out the paperwork on a $3 million policy purchased through an NCAA loan. That’s the maximum allowed by the NCAA for a potential first-round NFL draft pick. But one source close to Bush said the document that would execute the policy wasn’t sent to the organization’s office until at least halfway though the Trojans’ 2005 season, which means a career-ending injury would have yielded Bush no financial compensation.

When Bush became aware of the situation, he made sure the documentation was completed and then sought additional insurance.

Before USC’s game against Stanford on Nov. 5, he took out another $3 million policy with insurance agent Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado. Every $1 million in insurance costs approximately $10,000.

“A guy like Reggie is worth at least $30 million,” said Salgado, president of Coastal Advisors, which has insured more than 15 potential first-round draft picks over the years, including former University of Pittsburgh wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. “After taxes, he’d initially be worth about $15 million to $17 million. Insurance companies won’t expose themselves to that much money, but if you can get 20 to 35 percent of what you are worth, you can feel good that you protected yourself if, God forbid, you got hurt.”

Bush’s policy, like most policies for amateur players, comes with no exclusions, meaning that Bush can be injured in any manner — ranging from a pro workout day to riding a motorcycle — and still collect … as long as he never plays football again.

It is rare to find potential top draft picks without million-dollar policies. Tim Couch, the first overall pick of the 1999 NFL draft, came back for his junior season at the University of Kentucky after taking out a $3 million insurance policy, which at the time was the largest of its kind. These days, with signing bonuses clearing $10 million for the top five NFL draft picks, a select few seek more than $3 million to feel comfortable about going back to school to play for free for another season.

If he is the first overall pick, Bush — who is only a junior — could sign a contract that could exceed the six-year, $49.5 million contract signed by his former high school teammate Alex Smith, who was drafted first overall by the San Francisco 49ers last year.

For many of today’s top collegiate athletes, the risk of injury is a wake-up call. Three years ago, University of Miami running back Willis McGahee, a top pro prospect, tore two ligaments in his left knee in the fourth quarter of the BCS national championship game against Ohio State. Many lamented McGahee’s plight until they found out that he’d protected himself by taking out a $2.5 million policy just days before the game. McGahee underwent surgery, became a first-round draft pick for Buffalo and rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first two NFL seasons and thus eschewed collecting on his policy. But the shrewdness of McGahee’s insurance move was a lesson to others.

Keith Lerner, president of the insurance company Total Planning, said he offered four current college football players, whom he won’t name, as much as $10 million in coverage this year. One of the reasons the numbers continue to go up is that very few players collect. The last high-profile player to collect on a policy is believed to be former University of Florida defensive tackle Ed Chester, who collected a tax-free $1 million in 1998 after a career-ending injury. Injuries such as those sustained by Wisconsin offensive lineman Joe Thomas (torn ACL) and Penn State linebacker Paul Posluszny (unspecified knee injury) in their teams’ bowl games earlier this week could keep the juniors from declaring for the NFL draft this year.

Assuming they had insurance and were drafted in a later round than they’d anticipated pre-injury, they would not be covered for loss of value. They’d just have to make the difference up on their own, as Adewale Ogunleye did. In 1999, the Indiana University defensive end came back for his senior season despite being projected to be among the top defensive linemen in the ‘99 NFL draft. Ogunleye subsequently tore up his knee, went undrafted and was forced to sign a free agent contract. But after he led the AFC in sacks in 2003, Ogunleye signed a six-year, $33.4 million contract with the Chicago Bears that included a $15 million signing bonus.

College officials, who used to be oblivious to insurance policies, now have to pay attention, as these policies can be the school’s greatest tool in the effort to keep a star player for another year. In 2001, after hearing that Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick would not be back for his senior season, officials in the athletic department told Vick he could take out a loan that would yield him $7 million in coverage.

“I’ve been in this business for 18 years, and this year was the first time that a head coach of a major university ever called me,” said Lerner, whose company wrote McGahee’s policy. “He said to me, ‘We have a junior who says he’s not coming back, and I wanted to be able to tell him that he could at least get a significant amount of insurance if he considered returning.’”

Although the NFL doesn’t allow players who are less than three years removed from high school to enter the draft, that hasn’t stopped underclassmen from taking out insurance. Lerner says he wouldn’t be surprised if a highly coveted freshman takes out an insurance policy upon entering college.

If and when it goes that far, it isn’t difficult to imagine a recruiting war that includes coaches’ guaranteeing a high school kid and his parents the best loan on an insurance policy in the college game.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at darren.rovell@espn3.com.

Yonkers has the best cafeteria around and sometimes I drop by just for the blue plate special. Yesterday on my way out I passed a kid with a mangled knee that would scare Michal Handzus and all I could think of was ‘hope he called Big Daddy first.’

Rich Salgado, a.k.a. Big Daddy, is one of the foremost insurance brokers in pro sports, drawing clients largely from the NFL and NHL. He and Scott Gomez toured the Stanley Cup around Alaska’s military bases and Salgado also flew with the chalice on a seaplane from Brad Lukowich’s place to Darryl Sydor’s backyard, which is a lake. With the kid in mind, I catch Big Daddy on his cell phone en route to Giants Stadium.

Insurance is an essential part of being a pro athlete, but companies certainly don’t bend over backwards for every hoser in a helmet.

“If Mario (Lemieux) wants a $10-million policy, I can get it for him,” Salgado said.

Young guys? Not so much. Insurance is all about risk assessment and let’s face it; hockey is a bit more physically risky than say, chess.

“Insurance companies don’t want to cover fighters,” he added. “They don’t make enough.”

And in a month where Steve Ott and Todd Fedoruk – not to mention Ethan Moreau and Ryan Malone – were seriously hurt in stand-offs, you kinda understand why.

When players do land a policy, they have two main choices: 24-hour or off-ice.

For a guy on the last year of a contract, 24-hour is the way to go. It’s round-the-clock and covers everything from a slash to the forearm to a trip down a flight of stairs. If you’re a free agent at the end of the season, you want to make sure a debilitating injury doesn’t mean the end of your earnings, which, in the case of insurance payouts, comes in the form of a tax-free lump sum (there is a waiting period, of course).

Off-ice insurance makes more sense for a player in the middle of a long-term deal. It covers the aforementioned stair incident, but not the slash – after all, if you’re guaranteed $3 million each year for the next three years, the team depending on that slapshot of yours is going to make sure you’re well taken care of before throwing you back over the boards.

As for the famous cases of athletes and those notoriously fickle motorcycles, anything from a chopper to parachuting can be included in the coverage for a price. “As long as you’re not robbing a bank,” Salgado likes to tell his clients.

Of course, the insurance companies aren’t stupid – they have their own clauses. Wreck your ACL more than once and you’ll find an exclusion on your policy.

“Everything is case by case,” Salgado said.

In the end, the hardest pill to swallow may be the price – players can expect to pay between $9,000-$15,000 for coverage. “It’s a pretty steep check to write,” Salgado noted.

But one that every player needs to cut.

Making the Rounds: Atlanta defender Garnet Exelby is out until at least mid-December with a case of mononucleosis…Peter Forsberg is testing out an orthotic in his skate to help remedy his much-publicized ankle problems.

Ryan Kennedy’s Trauma Unit appears regularly only on The Hockey News.com. Want to talk hockey injuries with Ryan? Email him at rkennedy@thehockeynews.com.

The 300 draft-eligible players at the scouting combine in Indianapolis this weekend are dreaming of the start of long and lucrative NFL careers.

Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado? He’d like them to at least consider what might happen if things don’t work out because of an injury. Or worse.

“There’s the disability side of things, and there’s the life side,” he said. “You can build up this financial empire, and what happens if you die early and don’t leave anything behind for your family?”

Not quite what 21-year-old kids worried about their times in the 40-yard dash would care to think about. But for Salgado, 42, a former player himself, it’s his mission to make sure the players are prepared for life - or death - after football. One of the top insurance agents for NFL players, Salgado has a mission to educate players about how to protect themselves.

And he does it in rather unique style. While the insurance business can be a largely impersonal and bureaucratic experience, Salgado’s ability to connect to his clients as an insurance agent and a former player has its benefits.

Among his clients: Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck and Jeremy Shockey of the Giants, Reggie Bush of the Saints and Bryant McKinnie of the Vikings. Soon-to-be NFL rookies Chris Long, Ali Highsmith and Chevis Jackson also are in the fold.

“[Salgado] is a guy who values his relationship and his friendship with you moreso than the fact that you’re a client of his,” Strahan said. “If I need anything, I call him, and if he needs anything, he calls me. He’s one of my best friends, a guy I lean on for a lot of things.”

Strahan said he talks to Salgado “just about every day. It’s more than just, ‘OK, here’s your policy, sign this and I won’t talk to you until it’s time to do it again.’ That’s why me and the other players he works with feel strongly about him.”

Had things worked out differently, Salgado might have been an NFL player himself. A former lineman at New Hyde Park Memorial High, Salgado went on to play guard at the University of Maryland and was a teammate and roommate of Neil O’Donnell. It was there that he got his nickname “Big Daddy,” given to him by a former teammate. The name has stuck.

“If I go somewhere and say I’m Rich Salgado, people might not know who I am,” said Salgado, whose company, Coastal Advisors, is based in Jericho. “But when I say I’m ‘Big Daddy,’ they all know.”

Salgado never did hook on with an NFL club but was invited by O’Donnell to hang out with him shortly after being drafted by the Steelers in 1990.

“He came out for a long weekend and ended up staying three years,” O’Donnell quipped. “He was my biggest fan and No. 1 supporter.”

O’Donnell had reason to feel close to Salgado. After O’Donnell’s father, Jack, suffered a stroke in 1992, Salgado wound up spending seven months caring for him at the O’Donnells’ home in Madison, N.J.

“Big Daddy was there when I needed him,” said Neil O’Donnell, who grew emotional discussing his family’s situation. “He would call my parents ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ and he took over my role. Anyone who has been around stroke victims knows it’s an uphill battle. It wasn’t an easy job, and there were days he’d call me crying that he couldn’t do it. But he hung tough. I’ll never forget him for that. He’s a teddy bear with a huge heart.”

O’Donnell’s father died two years later, before he could watch O’Donnell lead the Steelers to the Super Bowl after the 1995 season.

Salgado had returned to Pittsburgh and eventually befriended prominent NFL player agent Ralph Cindrich, who taught him the ropes about representing and recruiting players. At the same time, Salgado started to learn the insurance business and began covering NHL players; he was a close associate of former Penguins star Mario Lemieux. He eventually moved back to New York and continued to build his NHL clientele, and through his contacts in pro sports started insuring NFL players. He still represents NHL players - including Scott Gomez of the Rangers, John Madden of the Devils and Bill Guerin of the Islanders.

He also built up an impressive stable of NFL clients, and he regularly meets with players after games at Giants Stadium.

It doesn’t stop there. Among Salgado’s other clients are Jerry Sbarro of Lloyd’s Neck, a son of the founder of Sbarro Restaurants who owns Salute restaurant in Manhattan, and Tom Petters, CEO of Petters Group Worldwide, which operates Polaroid.

Salgado also has been tabbed to provide insurance for the United Football League, which is slated to begin play in 2009.

“There’s a lot more to what I do than sell insurance,” Salgado said. “You just don’t want to just sell a guy a life insurance policy and then you’re done. I try to guide the players through a lot of things that people don’t want to do. With us, our clients are clients for life.”

Nobody should have to go through what the Washington Redskins are going through this week. But the Denver Broncos already have, losing cornerback Darrent Williams on New Year’s Day a mere 11 months ago, the first of two young talented defensive backs to die way too young. Both were 24.

It is why on Tuesday, shortly before Sean Taylor passed away, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder called Broncos owner Pat Bowlen to see how to handle the worst situation imaginable.

“I could only tell him what we did, I can’t tell him what to do,” Bowlen recounted. “They’re different circumstances at different times, but they both boil down to the same thing. We each had a player murdered. And in a case like this, you have to do the right thing.”

The right thing means honoring Taylor’s memory in ways the Redskins will.
The right thing means transporting the entire team to Taylor’s on Monday, as the Broncos did with their team when Williams died.

The right thing means afixing Taylor’s number 21 to the team’s helmets, as Denver did with Williams’ No. 27.

Each team has battled an inordinate amount of grief over the past season. Almost two months after losing Williams, Denver running back Damien Nash suffered a heart attack and died, forcing the Broncos to attend yet another funeral.

Washington has endured its own horrific year. In January, Redskins coach Joe Gibbs revealed that his 2-year-old grandson Taylor contracted leukemia. Former Redskins linebacker Kevin Mitchell, 36, went into cardiac arrest in April and died. And then, in June, the team’s nutritionist, Ann Litt, suffered a ruptured bowel and passed away.
Eventually the sadness will subside, but only in time.

“We’ve dealt with it as an organization and we’ve done our best to put it behind us,” Bowlen said. “Darrent and Damien are on everybody’s mind, but after a while you have to let that go. You can’t keep carrying the grief. But with this situation, you just hate to see it happen.”

Tears for the U

Two of the saddest stories of the season, with two different outcomes, have an eerie connection.

At the University of Miami, Taylor was teammates with tight end Kevin Everett. Those were happier days than these.

On opening day, Everett sustained a life-threatening injury, fracturing and dislocating his cervical spine. Everett eventually regained movement in his arms and legs, giving doctors and others hope that the former tight end will walk again.

Now, even eerier, as Washington attempts to play its first game since this week’s murder, Taylor’s former Redskins team plays Everett’s former Bills team.

The cost of life

There is no way to measure the value of human life. But after Taylor’s murder, some players are doing what they can to try.

Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado, president and CEO of the Long-Island based company Coastal Advisors LLC, said that after Taylor was killed, about 30 NFL players contacted him to write and review life insurance policies, and make sure they were protected and up to date on their insurance needs.

Player reaction was immediate. Salgado is scheduled to fly Thursday to the Bay Area to write policies for 49ers tight end Vernon Davis and Raiders safety Michael Huff, two former first-round picks.

“Players are saying, ‘I’m O.K., and I want to make sure my families are O.K.,’ ” Salgado said. “This is a tragic event that has gotten the attention of players.”

Extra points

» File this under the Sliding Doors of Life theory. If Taylor hadn’t hurt his knee, he would not have missed Sunday’s game against Tampa. And if Taylor hadn’t missed Sunday’s game at Tampa, he wouldn’t have been at his house in the Miami area. And if Taylor hadn’t been at his house, he still would be here today. So sad.

» Sliding Doors II: Not long ago, Taylor used to have pit bulls at his Miami residence. But after the Michael Vick saga, Taylor -– along with many other players -– got rid of the pit bulls that some used for protection. Without protection from his pets, Taylor was left more vulnerable.

» Speaking of Vick, his attorneys will be representing him in the same Minneapolis courthouse in which NFL players were granted free agency. Vick is appealing the ruling from University of Pennsylvania law professor Stephen Burbank that he must pay back $20 million of bonuses the Falcons have paid him. The appeal will be held Friday.