After financial, family struggles, an ex-Buffalo Bill finds hope
From the Baltimore Sun
By Rona Marech
Sun reporter
October 14, 2006
HAGERSTOWN -- Inside the Hagerstown Rescue Mission, up the stairs, into the dormitory, next to a bed with a thin tan coverlet, atop a dark locker -- this is where Donnie Green keeps his memorabilia. He has three tiny plastic helmets, one for each of the National Football League teams he played on: the Buffalo Bills, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions.
Behind those -- he has to groan and stretch to reach it -- is a blue, loose-leaf binder filled with photographs and articles. He turns the pages matter of factly, betraying little. Here he is in his No. 74 Bills jersey, staring out seriously, his fists clenched. Here he is coolly sitting on the bench, helmet pushed back. Here he is at Purdue University, a bright-eyed first-year student with a broad smile. He is watching a game in a fedora, his hands lifted over his head, victorious.
He pulls out a fan letter. "It sure is a pleasure to write to one of the greatest players who always gave 110 percent," it reads.
Green played for the NFL for seven years in the 1970s, most famously as part of the Bills' formidable offensive line that helped O.J. Simpson run a record-breaking 2,000 yards in a season. He and his fellow linemen were dubbed the Electric Company because they "turned the Juice loose."
But that was long ago, before Green's gait slowed and his brawn softened. Before family troubles. Before drugs.
In 2003, financial and emotional woes sent Green from his home in Annapolis to this Western Maryland shelter where men can find temporary housing or join a longer-term, religion-based recovery program. He arrived with little but some suitcases of old clothes. It didn't take long for him to find God -- truly find him and not just in a wishy-washy way, he says. Three years later, he's hopeful. He gets paid to work as a night watchman at the Rescue Mission. He's more peaceful.
And yet he's still here, a lumbering, gentle presence carrying a Bible and talking religion and trying, still, to figure out what to do next.
"I just take it from day to day," he said. "I'm really thankful God gave me another chance."
Green's predicament, some former players bitterly complain, is all too common. Men who played in the NFL prior to the 1980s were paid a pittance compared with current players, and until 1993, they retired without substantial pensions, health insurance or other now-standard benefits. Many suffer from ailments stemming from old injuries and years of play. And they're often too proud or embarrassed -- especially after all the athletic success and reverential treatment -- to seek help when their luck turns. Recent pension increases and changes in care coverage for retired players are inadequate, many who were in the business say.
They often know the saddest stories: Jackie Wallace, who played with the Colts among other teams, was found living under a New Orleans overpass; Mike Webster, once a Pittsburgh Steeler, was frequently unemployed and homeless in the years before his death.
"It goes on and on. There are hundreds of players who are hurting," said Bruce Laird, another former Colt who recently founded The Baltimore Football Club to assist ex-players. "We are working with the union to try to make them understand that these are the players who made the game, and they need help."
Joe DeLamielleure, a Hall of Famer who played right guard alongside Green on the Bills, calls it a "disgrace." "Why does the most lucrative business in the world have the worst pensions?" he said. "You know where Donnie is living? ... And Donnie Green isn't a dumb man, not an ignorant man. He's not a man who's lazy. He's a good man. For him to have to do this is absurd in my book."
At his peak in the NFL, Green said he never made more than $65,000. At 58, his monthly pension payments are a little more than $400.
It was only seven years of pro football, to be sure, but that was what Green had devoted his life to from the time he was a 219-pound eighth-grader in southeastern Virginia. High school coaches were already checking out the mountainous teenager, and he ended up playing football and basketball at Crestwood High School in Chesapeake before heading off to Purdue University on a football scholarship. He left school when he was drafted by Buffalo in 1971.
"God put something in me, to do the best I could," Green said. "I wanted to be the best offensive tackle on the planet."
On a snowy evening in 1973, Simpson -- running behind the Electric Company -- made history by rushing past the New York Jets defense and finishing the season with 2,003 yards.
Afterward, Simpson introduced each of his linesmen by name. Green, who has a gold capped tooth in the middle of his mouth, offers his molasses smile at the memory. "I was in the zone, really. I thought no one could stop me," he said. "I just kind of knew I was bad."
Then his smile fades, and he turns serious again. "I was never no big glamour guy," he said. "It wasn't a big-headed thing. I'm thankful God gave me the opportunity to participate in a sport at that level."
It lasted five years with the Bills and one each with the Eagles and the Lions, and then, suddenly, it was over. Green was hard-working and huge (a mean 6 feet, 8 inches and 272 pounds his rookie year), but that was no longer enough.
For a while he drifted, moving from Virginia to D.C., from job to job. He coached for a year, he was a teaching assistant, he drove a truck, he worked in a hospital supply room.
"My head was different then," he said. "I kind of wanted to chill out, duck out of the public scene for a while."
There were the family struggles, too -- two ex-wives, four kids and alimony problems he now blames on himself. And though he says he never was hooked, he was using drugs, more out of boredom than anything else. At a low point, he sold a gold bracelet inscribed with the words "we did it" that Simpson once gave him.
"People always used to say I was too nice. I used to do things I didn't want to do," he said. He lifts his baseball cap, touches his head. "I don't know what was wrong with me... I lost my motivation."
DeLamielleure saw his old friend around that time at a reunion and was struck by the beaten streak in his face. "To me, it was look of 'Oh, my God, how'd I get here, and what am I going to do about it?'" he said.
Green chose to move. After he lost his lease, he flipped a coin and decided to relocate to the Hagerstown shelter he had visited before with a minister friend.
He was embarrassed that first night, Green said, sleeping on a cot on the first floor with the other transients, but then "something just sparked in me."
He prayed at devotionals every morning and evening. Like everyone else, he was given a work assignment, first in the kitchen and later, for pay, at the front desk. He studied the Bible.
"The Lord lifted me from all that mess," he said.
Green is even bigger than he used to be, and the ferocity he once displayed on the field has been all but vanquished from his sincere, still-unlined face. He walks a little unevenly and is a little hunched. People in Hagerstown figured out his past story anyway -- if nothing else, his size always gives him away.
Yet he's a humble man, said Bruce Shank, the executive director of the Rescue Mission. He believes Green is ready to venture from the simple brick building where he's lived, perhaps to work with young people.
But Green isn't quite ready. He went to Chicago this year after a friend offered him a job managing a restaurant. But he returned to the shelter 18 days later. "I don't feel God is leading me to go now," he said.
Instead, he continues to work as a night monitor. He phones family and old football friends, he lifts weights occasionally, he puts on big, brown glasses and reads the Bible over and over.
Sometimes, he lingers on his regrets. He wishes, he said softly, that he had never tried drugs. Occasionally, he wonders if it would have been better to pursue basketball. Those athletes were paid more back then, and it's a "prettier sport," he said. "I got tired of all the banging."
He still likes to catch games on the weekends, though. Not to root for a favorite team, but more for the satisfaction of watching the machine hum. "I just like seeing the guys do their jobs," he said.
"Football was just a phase in my life," he said. "It was great, I know. Now it's over."
He puts away the notebook filled with pictures of that younger, trimmer man; the stranger with the pads and the hard squint. He doesn't leaf through it much any more.
"I don't know, it's kind of in the past," he says. "I'm kind of dealing with things now." He shakes his huge head a little, eyes soft, and shrugs one shoulder.
"Yeah," he says for emphasis, before falling silent.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.green14oct14,0,7857402.story
Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun
From the Baltimore Sun
By Rona Marech
Sun reporter
October 14, 2006
HAGERSTOWN -- Inside the Hagerstown Rescue Mission, up the stairs, into the dormitory, next to a bed with a thin tan coverlet, atop a dark locker -- this is where Donnie Green keeps his memorabilia. He has three tiny plastic helmets, one for each of the National Football League teams he played on: the Buffalo Bills, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions.
Behind those -- he has to groan and stretch to reach it -- is a blue, loose-leaf binder filled with photographs and articles. He turns the pages matter of factly, betraying little. Here he is in his No. 74 Bills jersey, staring out seriously, his fists clenched. Here he is coolly sitting on the bench, helmet pushed back. Here he is at Purdue University, a bright-eyed first-year student with a broad smile. He is watching a game in a fedora, his hands lifted over his head, victorious.
He pulls out a fan letter. "It sure is a pleasure to write to one of the greatest players who always gave 110 percent," it reads.
Green played for the NFL for seven years in the 1970s, most famously as part of the Bills' formidable offensive line that helped O.J. Simpson run a record-breaking 2,000 yards in a season. He and his fellow linemen were dubbed the Electric Company because they "turned the Juice loose."
But that was long ago, before Green's gait slowed and his brawn softened. Before family troubles. Before drugs.
In 2003, financial and emotional woes sent Green from his home in Annapolis to this Western Maryland shelter where men can find temporary housing or join a longer-term, religion-based recovery program. He arrived with little but some suitcases of old clothes. It didn't take long for him to find God -- truly find him and not just in a wishy-washy way, he says. Three years later, he's hopeful. He gets paid to work as a night watchman at the Rescue Mission. He's more peaceful.
And yet he's still here, a lumbering, gentle presence carrying a Bible and talking religion and trying, still, to figure out what to do next.
"I just take it from day to day," he said. "I'm really thankful God gave me another chance."
Green's predicament, some former players bitterly complain, is all too common. Men who played in the NFL prior to the 1980s were paid a pittance compared with current players, and until 1993, they retired without substantial pensions, health insurance or other now-standard benefits. Many suffer from ailments stemming from old injuries and years of play. And they're often too proud or embarrassed -- especially after all the athletic success and reverential treatment -- to seek help when their luck turns. Recent pension increases and changes in care coverage for retired players are inadequate, many who were in the business say.
They often know the saddest stories: Jackie Wallace, who played with the Colts among other teams, was found living under a New Orleans overpass; Mike Webster, once a Pittsburgh Steeler, was frequently unemployed and homeless in the years before his death.
"It goes on and on. There are hundreds of players who are hurting," said Bruce Laird, another former Colt who recently founded The Baltimore Football Club to assist ex-players. "We are working with the union to try to make them understand that these are the players who made the game, and they need help."
Joe DeLamielleure, a Hall of Famer who played right guard alongside Green on the Bills, calls it a "disgrace." "Why does the most lucrative business in the world have the worst pensions?" he said. "You know where Donnie is living? ... And Donnie Green isn't a dumb man, not an ignorant man. He's not a man who's lazy. He's a good man. For him to have to do this is absurd in my book."
At his peak in the NFL, Green said he never made more than $65,000. At 58, his monthly pension payments are a little more than $400.
It was only seven years of pro football, to be sure, but that was what Green had devoted his life to from the time he was a 219-pound eighth-grader in southeastern Virginia. High school coaches were already checking out the mountainous teenager, and he ended up playing football and basketball at Crestwood High School in Chesapeake before heading off to Purdue University on a football scholarship. He left school when he was drafted by Buffalo in 1971.
"God put something in me, to do the best I could," Green said. "I wanted to be the best offensive tackle on the planet."
On a snowy evening in 1973, Simpson -- running behind the Electric Company -- made history by rushing past the New York Jets defense and finishing the season with 2,003 yards.
Afterward, Simpson introduced each of his linesmen by name. Green, who has a gold capped tooth in the middle of his mouth, offers his molasses smile at the memory. "I was in the zone, really. I thought no one could stop me," he said. "I just kind of knew I was bad."
Then his smile fades, and he turns serious again. "I was never no big glamour guy," he said. "It wasn't a big-headed thing. I'm thankful God gave me the opportunity to participate in a sport at that level."
It lasted five years with the Bills and one each with the Eagles and the Lions, and then, suddenly, it was over. Green was hard-working and huge (a mean 6 feet, 8 inches and 272 pounds his rookie year), but that was no longer enough.
For a while he drifted, moving from Virginia to D.C., from job to job. He coached for a year, he was a teaching assistant, he drove a truck, he worked in a hospital supply room.
"My head was different then," he said. "I kind of wanted to chill out, duck out of the public scene for a while."
There were the family struggles, too -- two ex-wives, four kids and alimony problems he now blames on himself. And though he says he never was hooked, he was using drugs, more out of boredom than anything else. At a low point, he sold a gold bracelet inscribed with the words "we did it" that Simpson once gave him.
"People always used to say I was too nice. I used to do things I didn't want to do," he said. He lifts his baseball cap, touches his head. "I don't know what was wrong with me... I lost my motivation."
DeLamielleure saw his old friend around that time at a reunion and was struck by the beaten streak in his face. "To me, it was look of 'Oh, my God, how'd I get here, and what am I going to do about it?'" he said.
Green chose to move. After he lost his lease, he flipped a coin and decided to relocate to the Hagerstown shelter he had visited before with a minister friend.
He was embarrassed that first night, Green said, sleeping on a cot on the first floor with the other transients, but then "something just sparked in me."
He prayed at devotionals every morning and evening. Like everyone else, he was given a work assignment, first in the kitchen and later, for pay, at the front desk. He studied the Bible.
"The Lord lifted me from all that mess," he said.
Green is even bigger than he used to be, and the ferocity he once displayed on the field has been all but vanquished from his sincere, still-unlined face. He walks a little unevenly and is a little hunched. People in Hagerstown figured out his past story anyway -- if nothing else, his size always gives him away.
Yet he's a humble man, said Bruce Shank, the executive director of the Rescue Mission. He believes Green is ready to venture from the simple brick building where he's lived, perhaps to work with young people.
But Green isn't quite ready. He went to Chicago this year after a friend offered him a job managing a restaurant. But he returned to the shelter 18 days later. "I don't feel God is leading me to go now," he said.
Instead, he continues to work as a night monitor. He phones family and old football friends, he lifts weights occasionally, he puts on big, brown glasses and reads the Bible over and over.
Sometimes, he lingers on his regrets. He wishes, he said softly, that he had never tried drugs. Occasionally, he wonders if it would have been better to pursue basketball. Those athletes were paid more back then, and it's a "prettier sport," he said. "I got tired of all the banging."
He still likes to catch games on the weekends, though. Not to root for a favorite team, but more for the satisfaction of watching the machine hum. "I just like seeing the guys do their jobs," he said.
"Football was just a phase in my life," he said. "It was great, I know. Now it's over."
He puts away the notebook filled with pictures of that younger, trimmer man; the stranger with the pads and the hard squint. He doesn't leaf through it much any more.
"I don't know, it's kind of in the past," he says. "I'm kind of dealing with things now." He shakes his huge head a little, eyes soft, and shrugs one shoulder.
"Yeah," he says for emphasis, before falling silent.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.green14oct14,0,7857402.story
Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun
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