Tim Shaw

The fight

ALS takes the body in an order nobody chooses. Tim has lost the ability to walk, to use his arms, to eat without help, and to speak. He now communicates through an eye-gaze computer, a screen that reads where he is looking and turns it into words. His first interview conducted that way, with WKRN in Nashville, opened with a line that tells you most of what you need to know about him:

“This is my first interview using ‘eye gaze,’ I’m not nervous, but it is.” Tim Shaw, WKRN News 2

He has kept working the whole time. In March 2015 he stood at the Tennessee State Capitol and asked the General Assembly to declare May ALS Awareness Month in Tennessee. They gave him a standing ovation. In 2017 he wrote Blitz Your Life, a phrase that was his long before it was a book title, and which the foundation still uses as his line; later came On Turf as It Is in Heaven, a devotional for athletes. He went to Brazil after his diagnosis to help an Amazon village build a freshwater well. In 2019 he was part of a documentary on Google’s Project Euphonia, which trains AI to understand impaired speech.

And he never left the Titans. On August 3, 2016, the team signed him to a one-day contract and made him a Titan for Life, an initiative created by then-general manager Jon Robinson. It was not ceremonial. Ten years on he still keeps a locker at the facility, still comes to special teams meetings, still gives players coaching tips, and still writes post-game reports for them.

“We do celebrate Timmy Shaw. And Timmy Shaw is a huge part of what we do on special teams.” John Fassell, Titans special teams coordinator, tennesseetitans.com, December 2025

In December 2025, when James Williams Sr. blocked a punt in Cleveland, the first Titans blocked punt since Tim’s in 2012, Williams said it out loud afterward: “That was for Tim.”

On June 2, 2026, Lou Gehrig Day, six Major League Baseball players and managers wore Tim Shaw jerseys on the field.

What he actually says about it

Tim is not interested in being an inspirational poster. When he writes about ALS, he is precise about what it is: not only a physical fight but, in his words, “a psychological battle.” In his 2019 Letter to My Younger Self for The Players’ Tribune, he wrote about the guitar he can no longer play, and about the arithmetic of grief:

“Every second spent grieving those losses will be time stolen from what you still do have.” Tim Shaw, The Players’ Tribune, January 2019

The sentence from that letter that TShaw Strong has put at the front of its own materials ever since is the plainest one in it:

“No matter how much you hope, wish and pray, you won’t be able to control what’s happening to your body. But you can always control your attitude.” Tim Shaw, The Players’ Tribune, January 2019

He is open about his faith (“my faith is my foundation and the thing that I can always count on”) and open about fear. Before heart surgery unrelated to his ALS, he wrote that he had never experienced fear like it, and then that the fear passed.

And he is clear about why any of this involves you:

“I want to remind people that now is the time to take action. We don’t need an ice bucket challenge to get involved. Take that step to get involved with something bigger than yourself.” Tim Shaw, WKRN News 2

Which is where TShaw Strong comes in

In November 2016, 140-plus golfers turned up at the Hideaway at Arrington for the first TShaw Strong Golf Invitational. It raised $25,000, and every dollar went to Team Gleason, the foundation started by former Saints safety Steve Gleason, who has ALS too. The next year’s tournament raised more than $100,000.

TShawStrong, Inc. received its 501(c)(3) determination in March 2023. Today it runs two annual events, funds ALS research, and works to keep this disease in front of people with the means to end it.