Former Colts RB Marshall Faulk reveals he has Parkinson's: 'It's something you live with'
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INDIANAPOLIS — The first symptom Marshall Faulk noticed was a bit of stiffness in his hands as he played golf, a "rigidity" as he tried to wrap his fingers around the club. Then came the tiny tremors. Faulk thought it might be arthritis, which led to a trip to the doctor.
Then came the diagnosis.
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Faulk, an NFL Hall of Famer widely considered one of the greatest running backs of all time and who played his first five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts from 1994 to 1998, revealed this week he has Parkinson's disease.
He spoke with his doctor The Caring Neurologist host Dr. Sandeep Thakkar on his podcast Wednesday, saying he has started medication and has a positive outlook.
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic neurologic condition that slowly damages or destroys nerve cells, often leading patients to lose control of body movements, according to the Parkinson Foundation. Its cause remains unknown and there is no cure.Faulk, 53, who was diagnosed in the spring of 2025, says he has experienced few new symptoms, though he is sleeping a little more.
"I don't look at it as something that's terminal. It's like, 'Hey, you know, you get to live with this," Faulk said on the podcast. "There's far worse things out there. You just move on, and you do what you need to do, and you continue to live your life."
Faulk, in his second season as the head football coach at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after a longtime career as an analyst for the NFL Network, says Parkinson's wasn't on his radar.
"I'm not gonna lie. I didn't know much about it. I really didn't have much," Faulk said. "I think Michael J. Fox, that's the only person that I really knew ... and Muhammad Ali."
And Ali's journey with the disease has inspired Faulk. Before Ali died in 2016, the two were sitting next to one another at a big gala when Ali leaned over to Faulk and whispered, "You're a bad boy."
"And I was like, 'He's all there.' So, knowing that, I didn't look at it like it was something bad that, you know, life was going to end," Faulk said. "It's something you live with."
Faulk said he feels lucky, because the minute he noticed symptoms, he immediately went to the doctor.
"I think I caught it early, and I'm in a good place. I didn't look at it like .... life was going to end," he says. "If you don't take care of it, there's an opportunity for that to be. But you have to take care of it."
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Hunsinger on X @danahunsinger33. Reach her via email [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Former Colts RB Marshall Faulk reveals he has Parkinson's: 'It's something you live with'