clarinews@clarinet.com (01/17/90)
PORTLAND, Ore. (UPI) -- Phoenix Cardinals quarterback Neil Lomax, who was sidelined during the 1989 season with a degenerative hip condition, says he is retiring from professional football. ``I'm done playing and I want to get on with my life,'' Lomax, a native of Lake Oswego, Ore., said in an airport interview Monday with the The Oregonian newspaper. He was returning to Phoenix to make an official announcement Tuesday. Lomax missed the 1989 season due to an arthritic hip, but had been undergoing therapy and hoped to return in 1990. But the 30-year-old former Portland State University player said his hip condition had not improved enough during the year off to allow him to return to professional football. ``I decided in the last three or four months that I can't play and I don't want to be lying around praying for a miracle,'' Lomax said. Lomax, an eight-year veteran, signed a four-year year contract in 1988 for $6 million. It called for salaries of $1.4 million in 1990 and $1.5 million in 1991 and was guaranteed in case of a career-ending injury. Lomax agent, Leigh Steinberg, said the player will receive the full $2.9 million. Steinberg also said Lomax will require a hip replacement and the Cardinals are obligated to pay for care of the hip for the rest of his life. ``Neil's contract is one of probably only 10 in the entire NFL guaranteed for skill and injury,'' the agent said in an interview by telephone from his office in Berkeley, Calif. ``It has just become clear now that the hip will not allow him to ... be able to play NFL football.'' Steinberg said the Cardinals had been ``very classy'' about it, never suggesting they would try to ``escape their responsibility.'' Lomax became a starter for the then St. Louis Cardinals midway through his rookie season in 1981. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 1984 and 1987 and finished with a career 22,771 yards and a 57.7 percent pass completion record.