The Green Bay Packers' all-time leading rusher Ahman Green is facing a new kind of battle. Green was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in early 2025.
Green says his body had been giving him signs that something was wrong for years.
"I'll say from 2010 on till then until when I got diagnosed in 2025 in the early part of that year because between you sleeping jerking memory, you know my short term sometimes not on point in a way off or misplacing things and my neck really sore in rigidity some spots like my Achilles, my ankles, and finding out those you know once I got to a doctor that could examine me and go to multiple visits to figure you know once they got all the notes and watch me walk watch me sit watch me stand up and do physical movements. That's when, you know, once they look at what I," Green said.
When he heard the diagnosis, Green said one name immediately came to mind.
"Initially, what went through my mind was that I know someone who has it, and that's Michael J. Fox. I don't know him personally, but I'm a fan and he's still living, and that crossed my mind, so that says to me that I can fight this for a long time," Green said.
Green also reflected on whether the physical toll of his football career may have contributed to his diagnosis.
"Potentially 100% because our bodies are flesh and bone tissue, and we do sometimes we decide as people to do certain things that our bodies are not supposed to be in you know, but I fell in love with a game that was a violent game and but I did plan it from the time I was a kid," Green said.
Green said he is determined not to let Parkinson's control his life, drawing on the same mindset that carried him through injuries during his playing days with the Packers, Seattle Seahawks, Houston Texans, and at Nebraska.
"Just not being fearful of what it can't take me to. Eventually, I can wake up one day, maybe one part of my arm doesn't know I can't raise it right, or I can't get out of the chair, and if that day happens, it comes, you know what I'm just gonna do what I've always done. I found it. I found a way you know like when we get injured in when I was playing being in Green Bay or Seattle or even with the Texans or Nebraska I would find just a little win every day to get me out fact that if I was an ankle injury or it was MCL spray if it just felt one tick better than the other day, then I'm getting better you know so I just I look for that you know if that would ever pop up where I'm feeling something that totally is not what I used to feel like so we haven't had those moments yet but that's I said I want to stay in and then we'll be in through that time," Green said.
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