Tony Dorsett Is Losing His Mind [View all]

[KamaAina]

http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/february/dallas-cowboys-tony-dorsett-is-losing-his-mind/

But even if you were inclined to lazily resort to cliche and say he remembers this play from 30 years ago like it was yesterday, you can’t. Because Dorsett doesn’t remember what he did yesterday. He has days where he wonders how he got here, from a steel town outside of Pittsburgh to a spot in the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor. On the worst days, he literally wonders: How did I get here?...

That is part of the reason there was such a strong reaction to news reports in early November that Dorsett’s brain was damaged. But it’s not just that he looks relatively youthful and healthy. He looks the same as he did when he was the charismatic leader of one of the most popular teams in NFL history, the version of the Cowboys first branded America’s Team. That’s why Dorsett rose straight to the top of the 24-hour news cycle, somber present-day clips juxtaposed with some of the brutal hits he took during his playing days, including the one that knocked him unconscious in a 1984 game against the Philadelphia Eagles....

Dorsett doesn’t know exactly when he began having trouble remembering things. He didn’t think he’d have to keep track, and what does it matter anyway? It started happening, and then it started happening more, and he still didn’t believe it was happening at all until it was unavoidable. “I was in denial”—he hits the word preacher-hard—“for a long time. Because I was just, ‘Nah, this can’t be happening to me at this age.’ ”

His longtime friend and former teammate Tony Hill recalls Dorsett mentioning over the years that he was starting to forget, that he needed to write things down. But Hill didn’t know how serious it was until Dorsett went public in early 2012, joining more than 4,500 retired players and families of deceased players in a class-action lawsuit (a consolidation of several concurrent suits) against the NFL. (The various plantiff’s attorneys and lawyers for the NFL are currently in the process of finalizing a $765 million settlement.)

A couple of years have passed. Gotta wonder how he's doing.