Marshall Faulk Reveals Parkinson’s Diagnosis: “I Caught It Early — I’m in a Good Place”

The sign he almost ignored

The most decorated runner of his generation found the first warning sign holding a putter, not a football.

Per HBCU Gameday’s account of the conversation, Faulk first noticed stiffness in his hand while playing golf. He associated it with putting nerves, maybe arthritis — the kind of thing a 53-year-old former running back, whose body absorbed 12 NFL seasons, files under wear and tear. But the stiffness kept showing up away from competition, in casual rounds, when there were no nerves to blame. During a routine physical, he raised it with his doctor, who pushed him toward further evaluation. That evaluation produced the diagnosis. CBS Sports reported he has been managing it for approximately 18 months.

The detail matters because it is the whole argument of the story. Nothing about the symptom announced itself as serious. It looked like golf. If Faulk had kept treating it as golf, the early window — the one he keeps crediting for where he is now — would have closed quietly.

“I caught it early”

Faulk’s own account of where things stand is strikingly calm for the news it carries.

“I just think I caught it early,” he said, in remarks carried by NBC News and HBCU Gameday. “I’m in a good place.”

Per his telling, treatment has done what early treatment is supposed to do. The symptoms he names are specific and limited: rigidity in his hand and, in his words to the podcast, carried by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the little tremors that I get — they are what they are.” He monitors his balance, his walking and his hand, and says the condition has not worsened in the 18 months he has been dealing with it. Since starting medication, he said — per Sports Illustrated — “I don’t really have a lot of issues” — and his advice to anyone hearing the same diagnosis was blunt, per the Post-Dispatch: “Just start on the medication. Don’t wait for it to get worse.”

He framed the diagnosis as one more thing a body carries, not an ending. “I didn’t look at it like I got a diagnosis, it was something bad, life was going to end,” he said, per Sports Illustrated. “Now, if you don’t take care of it, there’s an opportunity for that — but you have to take care of it.” He pointed, too, to having once sat at a dinner with Muhammad Ali, who lived with Parkinson’s for decades (Sportsnet carried the exchange): knowing that, he said, kept him from reading the diagnosis as a finish line. “It’s something you live with. It’s not to where it’s a detriment to your livelihood.”

By his account, his daily routine as Southern’s head coach has held. He has stayed active, is sleeping better, and told Thakkar — in remarks carried by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — that he has not yet had the conversation with friends and family: the podcast, remarkably, was the disclosure. “If it comes a time to where my lifestyle changes, then I will,” he said. “I’m functioning. I’m good.”

Why a neurology podcast, and why now

Faulk did not announce this at a Southern press conference or through a statement. He chose a neurologist’s podcast and an audience of patients — a deliberate piece of targeting from a man whose stated purpose was practical.

“What you want to do with that information is pass it on to the next generation to make sure that they have it better, that they know more,” he said, in remarks reported by NBC News. “I want to help as many people as I can” — the line the Associated Press led its story with.

He added a sharper point, relayed through his conversations with other former players: some of them had symptoms they dismissed as football-related leftovers, and learned late what those symptoms actually were. They told him, he said, that if they had known a little earlier, they might be in better shape. That is the gap his announcement is aimed at. The stiffness, the tremor, the thing that feels like nerves — get it evaluated while it is still small. He also urged listeners, per Sports Illustrated, to “go beyond your resources” when looking for care, rather than assuming a specialist is out of reach.

The Parkinson’s Foundation’s helpline — 1-800-4PD-INFO (1-800-473-4636) — exists for exactly the questions his story raises, which is the kind of utility this announcement was built to deliver.

The season he is coaching through

All of this lands in the middle of a first season. Faulk, a New Orleans native, was introduced as Southern’s head coach on December 1, 2025, per Sports Illustrated, after a season as running backs coach at Colorado under Deion Sanders. He inherited a Jaguars program that went 2-10 in 2025; Southern stands 3-4 overall and 1-2 in the SWAC this fall — competitive, mid-build, unremarkable on paper. What is no longer unremarkable is the context: the man running the rebuild has been managing a progressive neurological condition the entire time, and by his account it has not taken a day of the job from him.

The career he is protecting the end of is one of the fullest in football history — 12,279 rushing yards, 6,875 receiving yards, 136 touchdowns, an MVP award, a Super Bowl ring with the Greatest Show on Turf, and a gold jacket in 2011. Faulk spent a career being the player who saw the field earlier than everyone else. The through-line of this week is that he did it again — this time with his own body, on a golf course, in time for it to matter.

By the Numbers

53 — Faulk’s age

~18 months — how long he has been living with the diagnosis

1 — symptom that started it: hand stiffness, first noticed playing golf

12 — NFL seasons, with Indianapolis and St. Louis

12,279 / 6,875 — career rushing / receiving yards

136 — career touchdowns

2011 — Pro Football Hall of Fame class

3-4 — Southern’s record in his first season as head coach