Our society treats sports with the same and often more seriousness and passion than that of religious people in relation to religion [!!!!!!]. Look at our enthusiasm at mincha vs. the enthusiasm of 60 thousand people when someone crosses a white line or throws a ball in a net.
Sports is far more than just a game but a way of life, a reason to live - much like we relate to Torah. כי הם חיינו!!! Li-haaaavdilll!!!
The fact that football causes so much physical pain does not stop people from playing and following this incredibly violent sport. It is life itself and we must sacrifice in order to have the meaning of football in our lives.
I remember Charles White when he was winning the Heisman at USC. How sad to read about him now.
Here is his story.
--------------
The Heisman Trophy winner wanders the halls of nowhere in the house of nothing.
“Fight,” he says.
The man who runs for more yards than anyone in USC history, aimlessly with one thing on his dwindling mind, the walkers of his fellow residents at the South Orange County assisted-living facility’s Memory Care Unit and Wheelchair moves around.
advertisement
“I love USC,” he says.
He wears what he wears almost every day, Trojan gear, from head to toe, from cardinal caps to gold shirts, from cardinal sweatpants to cardinal-and-gold watches. He’s never recognized, but that’s okay, because for now, he still identifies himself.
He knows he is Charles White, and he knows what he achieved for his beloved university.
“I know I once did something cool, something great, something great for USC,” he says.
He knows he won the Heisman, was twice named the Rose Bowl’s Most Valuable Player, and was a member of the 1978 national champions.
“I know it’s great because I did it,” he says.
He knows he played for the Rams for a while, even leading the NFL race in 1987, but it’s not his team.
“Everything I did in football was USC,” he says.
USC overtook Charles White’s gesture after being named the Heisman Trophy winner in December 1979.
He learns that he lost the trust of the Trojan family after years of drug and alcohol abuse, which caused him to sell his Heisman, withdraw from the program and become a virtual outcast.
“Sometimes I went to the devil,” he says.
Then, 10 years ago, he was diagnosed with dementia, probably because of all those football clashes that resulted in a traumatic brain injury perhaps contributing to his life of addiction.
This dementia has moved 64-year-old White to this wonderfully sterile setting, which was requested by his family to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. It is here that he has been living almost invisible and unknown for two years, living behind closed doors, only going for beach walks and lunch with his family three times a week.
He doesn’t really understand his situation. He doesn’t know for sure whether this dementia diagnosis will change the legend of his Trojan legacy.
But he still knows he’s Charles the White, and he knows he likes Cardinals and gold, and when he tucks himself under the Trojan bed spread every night, he’s convinced that his school was once Then he will welcome him in the house.
“USC forever,” he says.
The USC football program recently welcomed former stars to campus for the annual “Salute to Troy” festival.
Charles White was not invited.
White’s ex-wife Judy White-Bash, who manages his care, recently sent an email to new coach Lincoln Riley about her ex-husband’s condition.
She hasn’t heard back.
It’s been six years since White was on campus. The family said that it is forever since someone from the school reached out. Over the years, when it comes to White, the football program also seems to have lost its memory.
“Looks like USC is a brother who isn’t there anymore,” said White’s daughter, Tara. “Such a big part of our lives and now… nothing.”
His family knows what USC must be thinking. They know how USC generously hired White for nearly 20 years after the end of his career, before his addictions made him stop showing up for work. They understand USC’s reluctance to rejoin. They have no ill-will. They’re just hoping that once USC finds out and understands what an army of doctors has confirmed, perhaps the school will reconsider the relationship.
“I’m just trying to tell them what really happened to Charles,” White-Bash says. “It seems like a great time to open those doors back. He’ll love being invited back to say hi at the Heritage Hall.”
What really happened to Charles…
To understand the magnitude of his downfall, one must first understand his multitude of hits, which began as a 12-year-old with the youth team of the Valley Chargers in San Fernando. White scored six touchdowns, and spent the next two decades leading football into a quagmire of violence.
“From that day forward, they took a lot of hits, all those years rock running took a toll,” said longtime friend Bill Settle.
The pounding really intensified when he left San Fernando High for USC, where in four years he hauled 215 times more balls than anyone else in school history, while hitting a school-record 6,245 yards, second-place Marcus Allen. 1,435 more than
White was arguably the biggest Trojan running back. He was unquestionably the most battered one too.
“Pound for pound, he was one of the toughest guys to play in the program,” said Paul McDonald, one of White’s quarterbacks during his four years there. “He wasn’t super fast, but he got stronger as the game progressed. He would make things happen. Tough as nails, not silky smooth but so hard to bring down.”
McDonald recalled playing White with a broken nose, panning a defense against Notre Dame, leaving behind the conservative, swiftly retreating great Trojan.
USC overtook Charles White (12) on the back of the Michigan defense during the Trojans’ victory at the 1979 Rose Bowl. White earned co-MVP honors in the game.
(The Associated Press)
“OJ [Simpson] and Marcus [Allen] There were slashers, while Charles wasn’t afraid to run through anyone,” McDonald said. “He was belted several times in his head, but he’d just go and go.”
White also dealt with reckless abandon from the field, beginning a pattern of drug and alcohol addiction that plagued him throughout his playing career.
He began smoking marijuana in high school, smoked throughout his career at USC, and did his first line of cocaine shortly before the 1977 Rose Bowl. When he was with his first pro team in Cleveland, he attended drug counseling sessions with a bottle of clear urine in his pants. While he was with the rams, there is an infamous story that a rift-inspired White rescued the police with a trash can lid in an empty space.
It remains a miracle how White remained clean enough to win the title swiftly in 1987. He played just one more season before dropping out of the NFL and getting back into addiction, which affected his ensuing years as a running back coach and office worker at USC.
Observers in the days following his game with the Trojans felt that he was simply “off”. He will sleep in the locker room. He used to borrow money from the players. He will neglect his office duties and spend the day roaming around the campus on his bike.
About a year later when the Trojans ended all ties with White, he was found on a curb in their apartment building. He was distracted. He didn’t know how to get home. His family and friends thought it was alcohol. It was 2012 and it was a turning point.
“I saw him in the hospital and said, ‘Yo, man, you can’t do this, we’ve got to figure it out,'” Settle said.
Charles White stands in front of a pool at the assisted-living facility in Orange County where he lives.
(Alan J. Cockroach /Great name!! )
It painstakingly reached the moment they finally figured it out. But the answer was very different than anyone could have imagined.
White-Bash brought him home to live with him in Orange County, where he realized that he had somehow become a child. He began to disappear, went out the door, stayed one night in a nearby forest, then later stayed in a neighbor’s house and dressed in a neighbor’s clothes.
“It was suddenly like living in a Whac-A-Mole,” White-Bash said. “We will handle one issue and another will come to the fore.”
Because he was the great Charles White, people trusted him and wanted to connect with him. He showed up at the grocery store without a purse and someone bought him a car full of alcohol. He even bought the car without showing his driving license. He approached realtors with the promise of buying a house which he could not afford.
Charles White still gives glimpses of the man he was in his glory days. “If you still get a hearty laugh from him when you say the right words, you can still see the greatness,” says longtime friend Bill Settle.
(Alan J. Cockroach / )
“Everybody loved him, everybody wanted to be around him, but nobody knew,” White-Bash said. “It had become unbearable.”
He could not be left alone any time soon. He used to take away his phone. That will take apart the TV remote control. He would leave the iron. He will eat raw meat out of the fridge. He would go to his room to clap and sing and talk to himself.
“It was the daily trauma; It was destroying our lives,” said White-Bash, who soon realized that it was much more than the effects of a lifelong addiction.
After several doctor visits, he was diagnosed with dementia associated with a traumatic brain injury, a disease common among former football players in White’s age group.
The family was devastated, but relieved that it finally had an answer that could help explain years of erratic behavior. Studies have shown that more than 60% of traumatic brain injury patients have a history of drug and alcohol addiction, with abuse often escalating after the initial injury.
“While we all thought his problems were strictly drug-related, we now know it may be directly related to traumatic brain injury,” White-Bash said. “It had no meaning for so many years; Now it makes sense.”
