Oakland Raiders former center Jim Otto reacts during a halftime ceremony to honor the late owner Al Davis. (Kirby Lee/US Presswire)
Jim Otto, seen here at a ceremony for late Raiders owner Al Davis, has endured 73 surgeries including the amputation of his right leg.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Jim Otto keeps a running tally of the number of surgeries he has had.
Earlier this year, when the Pro Football Hall of Famer had a hip replaced, the number at his Auburn, Calif., home was updated.
"I almost bled to death," Otto said. "I had an infection after that operation. I turned 73 in January, and it was my 73rd surgery."
Otto has had 48 knee surgeries as well as procedures on his back and elbow. He had prostate cancer in 2002, and his right leg was amputated in 2007.
But there was Otto, who played center and linebacker at the University of Miami from 1957-59 before starring at center with the Oakland Raiders from 1960-74, serving as honorary captain Saturday for the Hurricanes' 49-14 homecoming win over Duke at Sun Life Stadium.
He addressed the team after practice on Friday.
"It was great," Miami coach Al Golden said. "To say to the team, 'This guy was the best center that ever played the game.' I think that's special, and he shared some great words with them."
Otto's message to the team was enjoy the journey, Golden said. Don't dwell on the past or worry about the future.
Otto has tried to live that way. Despite his body having been beaten up so badly, Otto said he wouldn't change anything about his football career because, "I had fun, and I did what I wanted to."
Otto starred with the Raiders when they played in the AFL from 1960-69 and in their first five NFL seasons. He said he had knee surgery at least once a year until he retired in 1974.
Otto credits Raiders owner Al Davis, who died last month at the age of 82, for giving him the will to live after he retired and his health problems became more severe.
"He was a fighter and he despised death. And he fought it," Otto said. "So that's what I got from him. I got that fight he used to encourage me to have. The last 10 years, I've had some bad times. But I'm doing pretty good now.
"(Davis) would encourage me to fight and never give up as a player and as a friend later."
When Otto stopped playing football, Davis provided him with a seat next to him in his game suite and later hired him for the front office, where he continues to work.
"The last game after his funeral when he was not there, it was unusual," Otto said. "It was just a different, strange feeling. In 1975, when I retired, he said, 'Jim, you sit right here in the box,' and I've sat there ever since."
Tragedy hit the Otto family in 1997 when his daughter died of a pulmonary embolism at 39. She left behind four children.
"It broke my heart," Otto said. "It took a long time for me to get over it… Basically, my system just stopped. I didn't do anything on purpose. I went into such severe depression that my doctor said, 'You don't want to live any more.' In doing that, the body's immune system wants to shut down. Everything wants to shut down.
Otto was still grieving when his artificial right knee became infected five times between 1997 and 2007. One incident result in him being bedridden for eight months.
He was on vacation in Hawaii in 2007 when he became sick. He was rushed to Salt Lake City, where his doctors decided to amputate his right leg.
"My wife was with me," Otto said. "I just asked her, 'Would you love a guy with one leg?' She said, 'I don't love your leg, I love you.' I said, 'Take it off. It's the best thing.' I wouldn't have lived it they had left it on."
Otto said he started taking Prozac in 2008.
"I still take it. I'm doing fine," he said. "I still think of my daughter, but I don't cry every night. I'm not upset like I was. My wife (Sally) just told me, 'You've got to snap out of this."'
These days Otto is happy to show off what is under his right pant leg. He rolls it up to reveal a stump between his upper leg and knee adorned with Raiders logos. Attached to his knee is an $80,000 state-of-the-art prosthesis he brags is "computerized."
Otto, who has traveled to Alaska to hunt caribou on his artificial limb, says he's "happy as heck" to be alive. But every day still is a bit of an ordeal.
"When I wake up, I hurt here, I hurt there," Otto said. "But, yeah, I'm here."
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