Hall of Fame RB Marshall Faulk Says He Has Parkinson's Disease

Marshall Faulk found out the way a lot of people find out something is wrong: doing something ordinary. He was playing golf when his hand did not feel right. “The rigidity in my hand, just sometimes after I play a lot or I practice a lot,” he said on the October 21 episode of “The Caring Neurologist” with Dr. Sandeep Thakkar. “I just thought it was, you know, normal nerves when putting and stuff like that.” The podcast was where the 53-year-old revealed he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a disclosure first reported by The Advocate’s Toyloy Brown III and carried Wednesday by USA Today and Saturday Down South.

How did he find out?

In stages, which is part of the story he is telling. The rigidity appeared when he was golfing, and he wrote it off. Then it kept appearing when he was not golfing. Faulk raised it at one of his two physicals a year, and his doctor told him to get it checked, just to be safe. That check became a Parkinson’s diagnosis, which he has now been living with for roughly 18 months, per both outlets.

Faulk credits a specific group for the early catch: other former NFL players. He said conversations with players whose symptoms got dismissed as football-related issues pushed him to take his own seriously, and USA Today reports that his advocacy push is tied to former Titans star Chris Johnson’s ALS diagnosis. The detection sequence, golf swing to routine physical to referral, is the part of this story most worth remembering, because it is the part anyone can copy.

Why is he going public now?

Because he thinks the early catch is the whole story. Faulk called himself “one of the lucky ones” for getting the diagnosis when he did, and his message on the podcast was blunt: “Just start on the medication. Don’t wait for it to get worse.”

He is framing the disclosure as awareness work. “What you want to do with that information is pass it on to the next generation to make sure that they have it better, that they know more,” he said. “And you’re doing the leave this world a better place than it was, when I got here.” The ex-player angle gives the message its audience: he wants people to get checked instead of ignoring warning signs, and he wants more affordable care and education around the disease.

What has the last 18 months actually looked like?

Normal, by his account. Faulk said his life has stayed the same since the diagnosis, and that he is more active now than before. “Since I’ve started on the medication, I don’t really have a lot of issues,” he said. The condition has not worsened. He pays attention to the small things: “The little tremors that I get, you know, they are what they are. I just pay attention to my gait, while I walk, when I’m working out, my ability to balance. It’s still where it is.”

He compared managing Parkinson’s to managing injuries during his playing career. “I didn’t look at it like if I got a diagnosis, it was something bad that I was, you know, life was going to end,” he said. “Now, if you don’t take care of it, there’s an opportunity for that to be, but you have to take care of it.”

One detail deserves plain reporting: he has not told his friends and family yet. “I haven’t really had the conversation with them about it,” Faulk said. “If it comes a time to where my lifestyle changes, then I will. Then that conversation could be had. I’m functioning. I’m good. You know, I just think I caught it early. I’m in a good place.” That is his stated position, and it stays his.

Where does coaching fit in?

Faulk is the head coach at Southern University, a job he took this year after starting his coaching career as the running backs coach on Deion Sanders’ staff at Colorado, per Rams Wire. He gave no indication the diagnosis changes his coaching plans, and everything he said about his daily function points the other way. Saturday Down South identifies him in the present tense as “the Southern football coach,” which is the answer to the question most fans will ask first: yes, he is still coaching.

Why does this keep happening to former NFL players?

It keeps being disclosed, which is not the same thing. Brett Favre disclosed a Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2024, Ahman Green did the same this year, and Chris Johnson’s ALS disclosure came in June, per the reporting around Faulk’s announcement. No source in this story links Parkinson’s to football, and Faulk himself does not claim that: the only football connection he draws is that other players’ experiences got him to a doctor sooner. The wider pattern of athletes disclosing neurodegenerative diagnoses after the career is one this site has tracked, including Fred Lorenzen’s Stage 3 CTE diagnosis, the first confirmed case in a NASCAR driver. Faulk’s version adds a wrinkle the others did not: he caught his early, on purpose.

What happens next?

The disclosure is the whole of the news for now. The open questions are the practical ones: any statement from Southern University on his coaching status, any disclosed change in his condition, and the advocacy work he says he wants to do. His career record needs no updating, but the record books remain where they are: his place in the touchdown record books and his standing among the game’s rushing greats are part of the resume now sitting beside the disclosure, and his place among the most important athletes of the modern era is the frame the wider football world will use for him. This page updates when Faulk, his family, or Southern says something new.