Ex-football star Bernie Kosar continues to fight through the pain
A star in sports and business, the ex-quarterback is now struggling with bankruptcy, a broken marriage and a broken-down body.
The IRS and the creditors and an angry ex-wife and an avalanche of attorneys are circling the chaos that used to be Bernie Kosar's glamorous life, but that's not the source of his anxiety at the moment. He is doing a labored lap inside his Weston mansion, the one on the lake near the equestrian playpen for horses, because he wants to be sure there are no teenage boys hiding, attempting to get too close to his three daughters. He shattered a Kid Rock-autographed guitar the other day while chasing one teenager out of his house because he doesn't mind all of the other boys within the area code thinking the Kosar girls have an unhinged Dad.
''There are a million doors in this place,'' he says. ``Too many ways to get in.''
So up and down the spiral staircases he goes, a rumpled mess wearing a wrinkled golf shirt, disheveled graying hair, and the scars and weariness from a lifetime's worth of beatings. He has no shoes on, just white socks with the NFL logo stitched on because he's never really been able to let go of who he used to be. He is coughing up phlegm from a sickness he is certain arrived with all the recent stress of divorce and debt, and now he doesn't walk so much as wobble his way into one of the closets upstairs, where he happens upon some painful, wonderful memories he keeps sealed in a plastic cup.
His teeth are in there. So is the surgical screw that finally broke through the skin in his ankle because of how crooked he walked for years. He broke that ankle in the first quarter of a game against the Dolphins in 1992; he threw two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter anyway. Don Shula called him the following day to salute him on being so tough, but Kosar is paying for it with every step he takes today on uneven footing. The old quarterback shakes the rattling cup, then grins. There are about as many real teeth in the cup as there are in what remains of his smile.
''I never wore a mouthpiece,'' he says. ``I had to live and die with my audibles. We played on pavement/AstroTurf back then. Getting hit by Lawrence Taylor was only the beginning of the problem.''
So much pain in his life. He heads back downstairs gingerly.
''I need hip replacement,'' he says.
He pulls his jeans down a bit to reveal the scar from the surgery to repair his broken back.
''Disks fused together,'' he says.
Concussions?
''A lot,'' he says. ``I don't know how many.''
He holds out all 10 gnarled fingers. ''All of these have been broken at least once,'' he says. ``Most of them twice.''
Broke both wrists, too.
The game was fast and muscled. He was neither. He was always the giraffe trying to survive among lions. Still is, really. He has merely traded one cutthroat arena in which people compete for big dollars for another, and today's is a hell of a lot less fun than the one that made him famous. More painful, too, oddly enough.
Kosar holds up his left arm and points to the scar on his elbow.
''Have a cadaver's ligament in there,'' he says.
And that's the good arm. He bends over and lets both arms hang in front of him. His throwing arm is as crooked as a boomerang.
''I can't straighten it,'' he says. ``I started breaking at 30 years old. Once you start breaking, you keep breaking.''
The doorbell rings. It's his assistant with the papers he needs to autograph. She puts all the legalese from four folders in front of him on a coffee table that is low to the ground. A groaning Kosar, 45, gets down very slowly onto the rug until he is symbolically on his hands and knees at the center of what used to be his glamorous life. And then he signs the documents that begin the process of filing for bankruptcy.
THE PANGS OF LOSS
It is hard to believe he filed a bankruptcy petition on Friday, but a bad economy, bad advice, a bad divorce and a bad habit of not being able to say ''no'' have ravaged him. He says financial advisors he loved and trusted mismanaged his funds, doing things like losing $15 million in one quick burst. There's a $4.2 million judgment against him from one bank. A failed real-estate project in Tampa involving multi-family properties. A steakhouse collapsing with a lawsuit. Tax trouble.
His finances have never been something he controlled. He graduated on July 14, 1985, was at two-a-day NFL workouts six days later, and immediately got on the learning treadmill at full speed, always feeling like he was catching up because his team wasn't very good; and his receivers were worse than the ones he had at UM, and everyone on the other side of the ball was very fast, and he was very slow, and the only advantage he would have was being smarter. Dad would handle the bills; the son had to handle the Bills.
And he was always rewarded for being consumed that way. That's how the weakest and least physically gifted guy on the field once threw for 489 yards in an NFL playoff game. But that huddle eventually breaks, and the men who formed it break, too. Depression. Drugs. Drinking. Divorce. You'll find it all as retired football players cope with the kinds of losses teammates can't help you with -- a loss of identity, self-worth, youth, relevance.
A star in sports and business, the ex-quarterback is now struggling with bankruptcy, a broken marriage and a broken-down body.
The IRS and the creditors and an angry ex-wife and an avalanche of attorneys are circling the chaos that used to be Bernie Kosar's glamorous life, but that's not the source of his anxiety at the moment. He is doing a labored lap inside his Weston mansion, the one on the lake near the equestrian playpen for horses, because he wants to be sure there are no teenage boys hiding, attempting to get too close to his three daughters. He shattered a Kid Rock-autographed guitar the other day while chasing one teenager out of his house because he doesn't mind all of the other boys within the area code thinking the Kosar girls have an unhinged Dad.
''There are a million doors in this place,'' he says. ``Too many ways to get in.''
So up and down the spiral staircases he goes, a rumpled mess wearing a wrinkled golf shirt, disheveled graying hair, and the scars and weariness from a lifetime's worth of beatings. He has no shoes on, just white socks with the NFL logo stitched on because he's never really been able to let go of who he used to be. He is coughing up phlegm from a sickness he is certain arrived with all the recent stress of divorce and debt, and now he doesn't walk so much as wobble his way into one of the closets upstairs, where he happens upon some painful, wonderful memories he keeps sealed in a plastic cup.
His teeth are in there. So is the surgical screw that finally broke through the skin in his ankle because of how crooked he walked for years. He broke that ankle in the first quarter of a game against the Dolphins in 1992; he threw two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter anyway. Don Shula called him the following day to salute him on being so tough, but Kosar is paying for it with every step he takes today on uneven footing. The old quarterback shakes the rattling cup, then grins. There are about as many real teeth in the cup as there are in what remains of his smile.
''I never wore a mouthpiece,'' he says. ``I had to live and die with my audibles. We played on pavement/AstroTurf back then. Getting hit by Lawrence Taylor was only the beginning of the problem.''
So much pain in his life. He heads back downstairs gingerly.
''I need hip replacement,'' he says.
He pulls his jeans down a bit to reveal the scar from the surgery to repair his broken back.
''Disks fused together,'' he says.
Concussions?
''A lot,'' he says. ``I don't know how many.''
He holds out all 10 gnarled fingers. ''All of these have been broken at least once,'' he says. ``Most of them twice.''
Broke both wrists, too.
The game was fast and muscled. He was neither. He was always the giraffe trying to survive among lions. Still is, really. He has merely traded one cutthroat arena in which people compete for big dollars for another, and today's is a hell of a lot less fun than the one that made him famous. More painful, too, oddly enough.
Kosar holds up his left arm and points to the scar on his elbow.
''Have a cadaver's ligament in there,'' he says.
And that's the good arm. He bends over and lets both arms hang in front of him. His throwing arm is as crooked as a boomerang.
''I can't straighten it,'' he says. ``I started breaking at 30 years old. Once you start breaking, you keep breaking.''
The doorbell rings. It's his assistant with the papers he needs to autograph. She puts all the legalese from four folders in front of him on a coffee table that is low to the ground. A groaning Kosar, 45, gets down very slowly onto the rug until he is symbolically on his hands and knees at the center of what used to be his glamorous life. And then he signs the documents that begin the process of filing for bankruptcy.
THE PANGS OF LOSS
It is hard to believe he filed a bankruptcy petition on Friday, but a bad economy, bad advice, a bad divorce and a bad habit of not being able to say ''no'' have ravaged him. He says financial advisors he loved and trusted mismanaged his funds, doing things like losing $15 million in one quick burst. There's a $4.2 million judgment against him from one bank. A failed real-estate project in Tampa involving multi-family properties. A steakhouse collapsing with a lawsuit. Tax trouble.
His finances have never been something he controlled. He graduated on July 14, 1985, was at two-a-day NFL workouts six days later, and immediately got on the learning treadmill at full speed, always feeling like he was catching up because his team wasn't very good; and his receivers were worse than the ones he had at UM, and everyone on the other side of the ball was very fast, and he was very slow, and the only advantage he would have was being smarter. Dad would handle the bills; the son had to handle the Bills.
And he was always rewarded for being consumed that way. That's how the weakest and least physically gifted guy on the field once threw for 489 yards in an NFL playoff game. But that huddle eventually breaks, and the men who formed it break, too. Depression. Drugs. Drinking. Divorce. You'll find it all as retired football players cope with the kinds of losses teammates can't help you with -- a loss of identity, self-worth, youth, relevance.
