John Bilbija is only 65, but he doesn’t have long to live.
“Frankly, I’m surprised he is still with us today,” his wife of 43 years, Michelle, tells Wide World of Sports.
“He is just a shell of the lovely man he was… the lights are on but no one is home.”
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The former Balmain, Wests Magpies and South Sydney forward is yet another victim of early onset dementia – the horrible disease brought on by repeated head knocks during his rugby league career.
“We knew as he grew older he’d have arthritis and knee replacements – but we never expected this,” Michelle says.
“It’s got to the stage where he can’t feed himself, can’t talk, can’t dress himself… he needs fulltime care.
“I met with a lawyer and explained to him what the doctors said – that the head knocks have left him like this.
“I said to him that John, Ian Roberts and Mario Fenech packed into the same scrums… now they all have brain problems… do they think it’s just co-incidence?”
The Bilbijas survive on meagre pensions and some help from NDIS, recently moving out to Penrith to escape the costs of the big city.
Despite the high financial price of caring for John, who has recently also developed Parkinson’s disease, they have declined joining a growing class action lawsuit against the NRL.
“Winning a court case won’t bring him back to the guy he was… I don’t want their money,” Michelle says.
“I don’t see the point in it.”
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John was diagnosed with early onset dementia at age 56 and while he was still able to understand his plight, donated his brain to science after his death.
“He said, ‘They can have it – it’s no use to me’,” Michelle said.
“Hopefully some good will come out of the research they use it for.
“If he’d have known the dangers, he would never have played the game.
“There’s not enough awareness among players today. And they are bigger and stronger than the players who were around in John’s era in the 1980s, the game is faster and players take harder knocks. If only they knew the dangers.”
The NRL has made several rule and protocol changes in recent years designed to protect players from the impacts of concussion.
Wide World of Sports contacted the NRL for comment.
The Bilbijas met world renowned brain expert Dr. Bennet Omalu, whose life story was told in the hit movie ‘Concussion’, with Will Smith playing the lead role.
“He was great – he explained to us it’s not the actual knock-outs that cause the problem – it’s the continual hits that make the brain rattle,” Michelle says.
“Look at NFL players – they have helmets and don’t get KO’d – but they smash each other and their brains suffer as a result.”
The couple’s sons used to be massive league fans – until their father began going downhill.
“They won’t even watch the game now… the other day one of my boys said to me ‘I hate rugby league because of what it has done to dad’.”
John Bilbija’s parents were Serbian refugees who moved to Australia before he was born.
He grew up in Sydney’s west and ironically, his parents banned him from league, believing the game to be too rough.
But at age 18, mates talked him into having a run at league with them.
“My parents thought I was playing soccer, a game they knew and loved from Serbia,” he told this reporter at the time.
“But I was really playing league and got picked in first grade for my debut by Balmain in 1980.
“My parents were at home – I still didn’t tell them – and happened to be watching the game on TV.
“When I ran onto the field, you can imagine their reaction. I got in some trouble that night, let me tell you.”
