Pros endure private pain on public stage

George Diaz
Sentinel Staff Writer

January 12, 2006

The time for grieving has passed. Professional sports rarely allow moments of unfiltered sadness, where grown men can dab tears from their cheeks.

Tony Dungy buried his son in Tampa on Dec. 27. Nineteen days after draping his right arm around his wife's shoulder and standing in front of a cherrywood casket for a final goodbye to his son James, Dungy's nurturing touch turns to his football team.

Dungy's Indianapolis Colts are chasing the city's first Super Bowl title. The Colts will leave the tunnel on their home field accompanied by the booming soundtrack of nearly 60,000 fans when they play the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.

Screams will trump sorrow that afternoon.

"Tony Dungy's tragedy is probably one of the coldest aspects of what life is really about," said Richard Lustberg, a sports psychologist based in New York. "You had a whole entire operation gearing itself up for this moment and in no way, shape or form is this organization going to allow one person to let that unravel. This organization has to go on; it's part of life."

If Dungy has any insight into the demons that caused his 18-year-old son to commit suicide, he likely will keep those thoughts to himself. Emotional pain historically has been an unspoken burden for athletes and coaches, and we rarely are privy to the burden of grief and depression that can consume anyone touched by tragedy or chemical imbalances.

Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers had an inspiring moment the day after he lost his father, Irvin Favre, who had groomed his son to become a quarterback.

After his father's death Dec. 21, 2003, Favre -- with his father unburied before his funeral -- threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns in a Monday night game against the Oakland Raiders. Regardless, the emotional fallout was devastating.

"I do not wish this on anyone," Favre said. "My dad has been to every game from fifth grade, and he coached me in high school. You never expect it to happen like that. I'm going to miss him. He was so instrumental not only in football, but in life."

Michael Jordan's 1996 NBA title with the Chicago Bulls is framed by the poignant snapshot of Jordan's laying face down on the carpet in the locker room, hugging the game ball and sobbing as he remembers the man he once called "my best friend." It was Father's Day, and Jordan was overwhelmed with sadness with memories of his father, who had been murdered in 1993.

Another superstar dealing with coping issues is hockey's Wayne Gretzky, mourning the death of his grandmother three weeks after his mother, who died of lung cancer Dec. 19. Gretzky took a leave of absence from coaching the Phoenix Coyotes to be with his mother. Betty Hockin, his grandmother, died Saturday at 84 after complications from a heart attack in a hospital in Brantford, Ontario.

"It's a sad day, a sad week, a sad month for the family,'' Wayne Gretzky told The Ottawa Citizen Monday.

Grieving -- encompassing a wide range of emotions from shock, numbness, sadness, anger, guilt, anxiety and fear -- can escalate into depression over time.

"Grief is typically something that is resolved with time and is related to a specific incident," said John Murray, a sports psychologist based in Palm Beach.

"It looks like depression, so a psychologist will have to make that distinction. There could also be a genetic predisposition to depression."

Repairing a broken soul is far more complicated than stitching a bloody knee.

Those stories run the gamut of poignant to absurd, confusing to compassionate, among athletes touched by emotional problems played out in locker rooms where testosterone flows freely.

Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams -- once so intimidated by the proximity of reporters that he wore a helmet during interviews -- took a year off football on a soul-searching journey that took him across several continents.

New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez admitted last spring that he was seeing therapists to deal with issues of abandonment by his biological father when he was 9 years old. "Why let the train wreck come before you fix it?" he said at the time.

Former Minnesota Twins reliever Jeff Reardon was arrested the day after Christmas for allegedly walking into a jewelry store in Palm Beach Gardens and handing an employee a note saying he had a gun and was robbing the store. He later would blame the situation on his failure to take medication for depression.

In a comprehensive report released by the surgeon general in 2001, the annual prevalence of mental disorders is about 21 percent of adults and children in the United States, cutting across all racial and ethnic groups. More than 20 million Americans will suffer from depression in their lifetimes. More than twice as many women as men suffer from depression.

That net obviously includes athletes, though the stigma of mental illness historically has discouraged honesty in the locker room.

"It was terrible," Lustberg said. "We were in the stone age."

True confessions have been scarce. Baseball player Jimmy Piersall suffered a catatonic breakdown shortly after joining the Boston Red Sox in 1952 and did not return until the following season. Opponents would try to unravel Piersall by blowing sirens. He responded by giving them the finger after hitting home runs.

Since then, most athletes have suffered in silence until the recent wave of admissions from Williams, former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw and Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street, among others.

"When it's a broken bone, teams will do everything in their power to make sure it's OK," Williams once said. "When it's a broken soul, it's like a weakness."

There may be a few broken souls among the Colts on Sunday, though it is much more probable that the only man capable of becoming overwhelmed with grief is Dungy.

Do the Colts break down emotional ly, or will they gather strength from sadness?

"That is a wonderful inquiry," Murray said. "If I had to guess, I would have to say that the team would rally behind their coach. Obviously this will affect the coach more so than the players. Tony is going to be living with this the rest of his life. It may fire his players up to a fever pitch in terms of competing for their general."

Dungy has been an exemplary leader, showing great strength and resolve since rejoining his team shortly before the final regular-season game Jan. 1.

He was greeted with embraces and condolences when he walked into the team complex Dec. 29, a day after spending a day with his family at the Tampa Zoo. He left with the blessings of his wife, Lauren, to begin prep work for the Arizona Cardinals.

"The game, I think, from talking to people who have gone through this kind of thing before, will be easy, but I've never gone through this path," he said at the time. "For me, I have some very good memories that bring hurt. When you do things that were very special and joyful, that's hard. But every day gets a little easier."

After a dramatic goal-line stand to beat Arizona, Dungy hoisted the game ball delivered by safety Mike Doss in the air, acknowledging the crowd at the RCA Dome.

Much more significant work remains, starting Sunday.

"You're talking about an organization and guys who have only so many years to play," Lustberg said. "Fans, trainers, people scrubbing the floors, all the way down to Peyton Manning, who can't allow this tragedy to get in their way. That's the way of the world."

George Diaz can be reached at gdiaz@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5668.