Henry Still Mourning Death Of His Former Coach

[Don Toro]

Everyone should read this. I feel for our fellow Bull. Hope he can understand that there was little he could have probably done to avoid this.

Nick Eatman - Email

DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer

November 30, 2006 6:46 PM

IRVING, Texas - For this Cowboys football team, things have changed dramatically since Nov. 19.

Since handing the Colts their first loss, perceptions, outlooks and expectations have all changed for the Cowboys, who have won three straight games heading into Sunday's showdown with the Giants.

But for one Cowboys player, his life also changed that day, though he didn't exactly know it until the next morning.

Cornerback Anthony Henry was told after the Colts game that he should probably give his former college coach and good friend Andre Waters a call later that night. Henry agreed, though he said in the aftermath of the Cowboys' biggest win of the season, he simply forgot to give Waters a call.

The next morning, Henry got a text message saying Waters was dead, at the age of 44, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to authorities.

"The thing that was tough for me, is that the relationship we had, and what he instilled in us, not only as players, but as young men," said Henry, a cornerback at the University of South Florida when Waters was the USF's defensive backs coach. "And the relationship he had in God, and that's what is puzzling about the whole situation and that's what has hurt me so much. It's just tough."

Waters, who was in his first season coaching at Fort Valley State in Georgia, was found dead by his girlfriend.

Henry said he had meaning to call Waters "for days" before he found out the devastating news.

"In situations like that, sometimes you put some blame on yourself about what happened," said Henry, who said still doesn't know exactly why Waters reportedly decided to take his own life. "I haven't been able to sleep real well because I've been thinking in my mind, what happened, just going back and forth. It's been tough. I'm still dealing with it."

Henry, who attended Waters' funeral in Belle Glade, Fla., last Saturday, said getting through the week that included another game with Tampa Bay on Thanksgiving was much tougher than he expected.

"I remember one time on the sideline, I started thinking and I even got a little emotional about it," Henry said of the Cowboys' 38-10 win over the Buccaneers, just four days after Waters' tragic death. "But I couldn't let that happen because we were in the middle of the game. I kind of put it behind me and I talked to (secondary coach Todd) Bowles at halftime and he already understood the situation. Coach (Bill) Parcells knew about it, he talked to me at practice. So he understood what was going on. But I understood that I had a game to play. Once I got past that, I was fine."

Fine to get through the game, maybe. But Henry is definitely struggling with the loss of Waters, once considered one of the toughest and meanest safeties in the NFL. Waters played 12 seasons, including 10 with the Eagles, and two more with the Cardinals.

Needless to say, Waters was huge rival for the Cowboys and was often labeled a dirty player for some of his aggressive tackles that would sometimes warrant fines from the league.

But that's not the Andre Waters that Henry recalls.

Sure, he's seen the tapes. In fact, when he played for Waters at USF, the coach would often show the defensive backs some of his old footage.

"Yeah, we've seen a few games of the Cowboys in there," Henry said.

But whatever label Waters received for his play on the field, Henry said he was a much different person when it came to coaching.

"He was totally opposite of what he was on the field," Henry said. "That was the thing we loved about him the most. He definitely instilled in us to be aggressive and stuff like that on the field. But he definitely was a lot different when it came to coaching us."

In fact, Henry said had not been for Waters' belief in him, he never would have made it to the NFL, at least not as a player.

"I wasn't thinking about the NFL. Of course you dream about it, but at South Florida, we hadn't had any names come out of there," Henry said. "But (Waters) would always tell me, 'I've seen a lot of talent, I think you should really focus on making that happen.'"

Henry, who had graduated in four years at South Florida, still had a year of eligibility left, but was leaning towards finding a job to start making some money.

"Actually I had an interview with the Bucs for a player relations job and I got called in for a second interview but I didn't take it because we had workouts," Henry said, referring to two-a-days at South Florida. "I said, 'Thanks, but I'm going to try to see what the NFL does.' So it ended up working out. So without him saying I know what it takes . . . who knows what would've happened."

In that senior season, Henry moved from safety, where he started three years, to cornerback with the hopes of becoming a more versatile defender and possibly bolstering his draft status.

As it turned out, Henry was a fourth-round pick (97th overall) by the Browns in the 2001 draft, and played four years in Cleveland before signing with the Cowboys in March of 2005.

Before suffering a groin injury last season, Henry was considered by many as the biggest reason for the Cowboys' defensive success. Teaming up with Terence Newman, the Cowboys certainly have one of, if not the best, starting cornerback tandems in the NFL.

But despite all of his professional success, Henry is always looking back.

While it might be a cliché for today's athletes to say they don't forget "where they come from," Henry takes it a step further.

He formed close friendships with Waters and his high school coach Joe Hampton, who coached Henry and Deion Sanders in Fort Myers, Fla. Henry and Hampton are so close, the cornerback flies his former coach to the first home game of every season. This year, Hampton came to Dallas to watch the Cowboys beat the Redskins on a Sunday Night Football.

Henry said he gets his respectful nature from his mother, but said growing up without his father always around made it easy to gravitate toward his football coaches, something that didn't change when he got to college.

"I went to church with my coaches and I could always talk to them about certain things that I didn't necessarily have time to talk to my parents about," he said. "You spend more time in school and practice football than you do at home, sometimes."

Now in the NFL, Henry said he tries to stay in contact with former coaches and friends, but sometimes his schedule makes it difficult.

And that's what happened this season with Waters, who was coaching at Fort Valley State. Henry said he hadn't been in contact with his former coach since training camp.

After the Colts game on Nov. 19, Henry said he ran into Colts assistant coach Leslie Frazier, who had played for the Bears from 1981-86 but also coached in Philadelphia and became friends with Waters.

"He asked me if I had talked to Andre and I told him it had been a while," said Henry, who met Frazier once in Philadelphia when he visited with Waters. "He said he was missing. I told I would call him that night, but that night, it just slipped my mind. I forgot to call him and I woke up that morning, and that's when I got the message that that happened."

While it's been more than a week, it hasn't gotten any easier for Henry, who was thankful the Cowboys' schedule allowed him to attend the funeral last Saturday. Had it been just a regular Sunday game, Henry said he would've at least tried to make the funeral anyway.

"I definitely would've wanted to. I would've asked (Parcells)," Henry said. "I don't know what he would've said. But definitely would've asked because he was a great mentor to me in both football and as a young man."

Without him now, Henry said he gets constant reminders of Waters throughout the day and night.

"It can be the smaller things that you think about it," Henry said. "He used to tell us how important it was to stretch before we go to bed. I've been doing that since I was in college and now that I'm in the league. So here I am last night stretching and I start thinking about it."

But more than that, Henry said the guilt of not calling Waters earlier continues to weigh on him. Whether or not it would've changed anything, he said he'll never know. But he said he definitely can learn from it.

"It makes you understand how important relationships are," Henry said. "You might be in a hurry and get a call form somebody and you say 'I've got to go' but it just makes you think, are you really too busy to give that person a call? You think about things like that, because you just never know when it's going to be the last time you talk to someone."

For Henry, that's a lesson he just learned the hard way.

[flsportsfan83]

sad story

[BullDoug]

A Thanksgiving Day Story to Remember that Involves Anthony Henry

Before I moved to the Tampa area I was a Dallas Cowboy fan from the Landry era.  Well I've always wanted to go to the Thanksgiving Day Cowboy game since the Cowboys are building a new stadium.  So this yr. thinking it was the final yr Texas Stadium would be having the turkey day game, some mega Dallas fans I work with & I decided to go before we knew the Bucs were going to be in that game.  I was lucky enuff to buy tickets at Ticketmaster.com b/c I was privy to a prepublic NFL ticket sale and was able to get 4 nose bleed tickets @ $83 each.

Now, I have a friend that has a friend.  You know the deal.  Well, my friend, was going to Dallas and his friend is an upper manager in the Bucs organization.  So we fly out to Dallas and call the Bucs big wig to see whats up.  He tells my friend he has something for us on Wednesday nite.  We drive out to the Bucs hotel and he gives us four pregame press passes.  Only 100 of these were issued.  The Bucs exec called 'em black gold.  Unbelieveable.

Well the original plan was to fly to Dallas and buy a Cowboy Tee or jersey and go as Dallas fans.  Now we can't show up dressed as Dallas fans after our friend was so gracious.  So, I brought my Bucs hat but I own no Bucs gear.  So we go to Walmart and I purchase a red sweat shirt b/c I don't know how chilly the evening will be in the 4th qtr.  So I wear a white USF tee that has a "horned U" on the front.

We get to the game about 11:30.  We watch all the halftime practice.  Kelly Clarkson actually impedes our chance to get a picture standing on the mid-field star.  Cheerleaders and dancers are everywhere.  Caught myself checking out 16 yr olds and then chastising myself mentally that I have a 8.5 yr. old daughter.  The Cowboy cheerleaders has to the worlds greatest collection of female beauty except for the Ms. America and Ms. Universe pageants.

So, about 1:30ish players start coming on the field in warmups not equipment.  Security has banished all pregame none team personnel off the playing field.  So we're standing just outside the endzone opposite the locker room entrances.  Galloway is catching passing 10 feet from where we are standing in the back of our EZ.  Brooks and Clayton jog by a few times.  Mike Alstott actually asked one of my colleagues about the playing surface an hour earlier like we would know.  QBs start warming up.  Bledsoe is tossing balls to WRs.  Some of the C'boy DBs are doing 20s & 40s and stretching.  The "Player" TO doesn't come out 'til later.

We see Roy Williams and then I see Henry.  He's standing on the goalline warming up and I'm about 25 yards behind him.  He seems to be about 6'-2".  Kinda surprized me.  After about 20 mins, he's doing a sprint toward my group and he notices my USF t-shirt.  He points at me.  I shake my pumpkin head 'yes" and give him the thumps up with my left hand and the Bull symbol w/my right and say, "Go Bulls!".  He smiles and goes back to warming up.  It was a killer moment for a Bulls fan being a dream game you've wanted to be at for 25 yrs.  Plus on the way to the restroom during the second qtr some fan recognized the tee again and we exchanged "Go Bulls!"

And the gravy, is my birthday in on Nov. 22 which happens to be the same day JFK was assasinated.  So on Wednesday the 22nd, we stood in Dealy Plaza at the exact location and time of day JFK was shot almost two yrs to the hour before I was born, 43 yrs later.  Then we ate killer barbeque down the street.  The dessert was Sat. when the Bulls won which I was supposed to fly from Dallas to Charlotte and my Dad who's from WV was gonna pick me up and drive up to Morgantown.  He chickened out though.  He was worried about the weather.  He got cold feet in early Oct. so I had to eat the flight change fee to back to Tampa.  Now, how's that for a Thanksgiving Day weekend?  I'll post some pics as soon as I download from my camera.

[BullDoug]

And on another note, my wife has this sense about calling people.  She will start thinking about someone and feel she needs to call this person and low and behold the person needed cheering up or was having some kind of crisis.  Think I'm nuts if you will but it happens so often I believe it's tied to a higher power.  So if someone gets on my mind now I try to call but our worlds' are so rush rush, things fall between the cracks sometimes.

[E.T.]

Sad story and glad you posted the read.

Sadly I lost a friend due to suicide also over the weekend, she had been going off the "deep end" for a while and never got out . . . it's sad to see somebody you love and try to help.

Every day is a good day to tell your friends and family you love them ... no matter the situation. You never know when the last time will be.

And crasy thing about 22 November BullDoug, I was robbed and shot at an ATM on that day in 1988.

[bulls96go]

[Markeymark]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/sports/football/18waters.html?ex=1326776400&en=92b6c7938365593e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Since the former National Football League player Andre Waters killed himself in November, an explanation for his suicide has remained a mystery. But after examining remains of Mr. Waters’s brain, a neuropathologist in Pittsburgh is claiming that Mr. Waters had sustained brain damage from playing football and he says that led to his depression and ultimate death.

The neuropathologist, Dr. Bennet Omalu of the University of Pittsburgh, a leading expert in forensic pathology, determined that Mr. Waters’s brain tissue had degenerated into that of an 85-year-old man with similar characteristics as those of early-stage Alzheimer’s victims. Dr. Omalu said he believed that the damage was either caused or drastically expedited by successive concussions Mr. Waters, 44, had sustained playing football.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Omalu said that brain trauma “is the significant contributory factor†to Mr. Waters’s brain damage, “no matter how you look at it, distort it, bend it. It’s the significant forensic factor given the global scenario.â€Â

He added that although he planned further investigation, the depression that family members recalled Mr. Waters exhibiting in his final years was almost certainly exacerbated, if not caused, by the state of his brain  and that if he had lived, within 10 or 15 years “Andre Waters would have been fully incapacitated.â€Â

Dr. Omalu’s claims of Mr. Waters’s brain deterioration  which have not been corroborated or reviewed  add to the mounting scientific debate over whether victims of multiple concussions, and specifically longtime N.F.L. players who may or may not know their full history of brain trauma, are at heightened risk of depression, dementia and suicide as early as midlife.

The N.F.L. declined to comment on Mr. Waters’s case specifically. A member of the league’s mild traumatic brain injury committee, Dr. Andrew Tucker, said that the N.F.L. was beginning a study of retired players later this year to examine the more general issue of football concussions and subsequent depression.

“The picture is not really complete until we have the opportunity to look at the same group of people over time,†said Dr. Tucker, also team physician of the Baltimore Ravens.

The Waters discovery began solely on the hunch of Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler whose repeated concussions ended his career, left him with severe migraines and depression, and compelled him to expose the effects of contact-sport brain trauma. After hearing of the suicide, Mr. Nowinski phoned Mr. Waters’s sister Sandra Pinkney with a ghoulish request: to borrow the remains of her brother’s brain.

The condition that Mr. Nowinski suspected might be found in Mr. Waters’s brain cannot be revealed by a scan of a living person; brain tissue must be examined under a microscope. “You don’t usually get brains to examine of 44-year-old ex-football players who likely had depression and who have committed suicide,†Mr. Nowinski said. “It’s extremely rare.â€Â

As Ms. Pinkney listened to Mr. Nowinski explain his rationale, she realized that the request was less creepy than credible. Her family wondered why Mr. Waters, a hard-hitting N.F.L. safety from 1984 to 1995 known as a generally gregarious and giving man, spiraled down to the point of killing himself.

Ms. Pinkney signed the release forms in mid-December, allowing Mr. Nowinski to have four pieces of Mr. Waters’s brain shipped overnight in formaldehyde from the Hillsborough County, Fla., medical examiner’s office to Dr. Omalu in Pittsburgh for examination.

He chose Dr. Omalu both for his expertise in the field of neuropathology and for his rare experience in the football industry. Because he was coincidentally situated in Pittsburgh, he had examined the brains of two former Pittsburgh Steelers players who were discovered to have had postconcussive brain dysfunction: Mike Webster, who became homeless and cognitively impaired before dying of heart failure in 2002; and Terry Long, who committed suicide in 2005.

Mr. Nowinski, a former World Wrestling Entertainment star working in Boston as a pharmaceutical consultant, and the Waters family have spent the last six weeks becoming unlikely friends and allies. Each wants to sound an alarm to athletes and their families that repeated concussions can, some 20 years after the fact, have devastating consequences if left unrecognized and untreated  a stance already taken in some scientific journals.

“The young kids need to understand; the parents need to be taught,†said Kwana Pittman, 31, Mr. Waters’s niece and an administrator at the water company near her home in Pahokee, Fla. “I just want there to be more teaching and for them to take the proper steps as far as treating them.

“Don’t send them back out on these fields. They boost it up in their heads that, you know, ‘You tough, you tough.’ â€Â

Mr. Nowinski was one of those tough kids. As an all-Ivy League defensive tackle at Harvard in the late 1990s, he sustained two concussions, though like many athletes he did not report them to his coaches because he neither understood their severity nor wanted to appear weak. As a professional wrestler he sustained four more, forcing him to retire in 2004. After he developed severe migraines and depression, he wanted to learn more about concussions and their effects.

That research resulted in a book published last year, “Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis,†in which he detailed both public misunderstanding of concussions as well as what he called “the N.F.L.’s tobacco-industry-like refusal to acknowledge the depths of the problem.â€Â

Football’s machismo has long euphemized concussions as bell-ringers or dings, but what also alarmed Mr. Nowinski, 28, was that studies conducted by the N.F.L. on the effects of concussions in players “went against just about every study on sports concussions published in the last 20 years.â€Â

Studies of more than 2,500 former N.F.L. players by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, based at the University of North Carolina, found that cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s-like symptoms and depression rose proportionately with the number of concussions they had sustained. That information, combined with the revelations that Mr. Webster and Mr. Long suffered from mental impairment before their deaths, compelled Mr. Nowinski to promote awareness of brain trauma’s latent effects.

Then, while at work on Nov. 20, he read on Sports Illustrated’s Web site, si.com, that Mr. Waters had shot himself in the head in his home in Tampa, Fla., early that morning. He read appraisals that Mr. Waters, who retired in 1995 and had spent many years as an assistant coach at several small colleges  including Fort Valley (Ga.) State last fall  had been an outwardly happy person despite his disappointment at not landing a coaching job in the N.F.L.

Remembering Mr. Waters’s reputation as one of football’s hardest-hitting defensive players while with the Philadelphia Eagles, and knowing what he did about the psychological effects of concussions, Mr. Nowinski searched the Internet for any such history Mr. Waters might have had.

It was striking, Mr. Nowinski said. Asked in 1994 by The Philadelphia Inquirer to count his career concussions, Mr. Waters replied, “I think I lost count at 15.†He later added: “I just wouldn’t say anything. I’d sniff some smelling salts, then go back in there.â€Â

Mr. Nowinski also found a note in the Inquirer in 1991 about how Mr. Waters had been hospitalized after sustaining a concussion in a game against Tampa Bay and experiencing a seizure-like episode on the team plane that was later diagnosed as body cramps; Mr. Waters played the next week.

Because of Dr. Omalu’s experience on the Webster and Long cases, Mr. Nowinski wanted him to examine the remaining pieces of Mr. Waters’s brain  each about the size of a small plum  for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the tangled threads of abnormal proteins that have been found to cause cognitive and intellectual dysfunction, including major depression. Mr. Nowinski tracked down the local medical examiner responsible for Mr. Waters’s body, Dr. Leszek Chrostowski, who via e-mail initially doubted that concussions and suicide could be related.

Mr. Nowinski forwarded the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes’ studies and other materials, and after several weeks of back-and-forth was told that the few remains of Mr. Waters’s brain  which because Waters had committed suicide had been preserved for procedural forensic purposes before the burial  would be released only with his family’s permission.

Mr. Nowinski said his call to Mr. Waters’s mother, Willie Ola Perry, was “the most difficult cold-call I’ve ever been a part of.â€Â

When Mr. Waters’s sister Tracy Lane returned Mr. Nowinski’s message, he told her, “I think there’s an outside chance that there might be more to the story.â€Â

“I explained who I was, what I’ve been doing, and told her about Terry Long  and said there’s a long shot that this is a similar case,†Mr. Nowinski said.

Ms. Lane and another sister, Sandra Pinkney, researched Mr. Nowinski’s background, his expertise and experience with concussions, and decided to trust his desire to help other players.

“I said, ‘You know what, the only reason I’m doing this is because you were a victim,’ †said Ms. Pittman, Mr. Waters’s niece. “I feel like when people have been through things that similar or same as another person, they can relate and their heart is in it more. Because they can feel what this other person is going through.â€Â

Three weeks later, on Jan. 4, Dr. Omalu’s tests revealed that Mr. Waters’s brain resembled that of an octogenarian Alzheimer’s patient. Nowinski said he felt a dual rush  of sadness and success.

“Certainly a very large part of me was saddened,†he said. “I can only imagine with that much physical damage in your brain, what that must have felt like for him.†Then again, Mr. Nowinski does have an inkling.

“I have maybe a small window of understanding that other people don’t, just because I have certain bad days that when I know my brain doesn’t work as well as it does on other days  and I can tell,†he said. “But I know and I understand, and that helps me deal with it because I know it’ll probably be fine tomorrow. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t know.â€Â

When informed of the Waters findings, Dr. Julian Bailes, medical director for the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, said, “Unfortunately, I’m not shocked.â€Â

In a survey of more than 2,500 former players, the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes found that those who had sustained three or more concussions were three times more likely to experience “significant memory problems†and five times more likely to develop earlier onset of Alzheimer’s disease. A new study, to be published later this year, finds a similar relationship between sustaining three or more concussions and clinical depression.

Dr. Bailes and other experts have claimed the N.F.L. has minimized the risks of brain trauma at all levels of football by allowing players who sustain a concussion in games  like Jets wide receiver Laveranues Coles last month  to return to play the same day if they appear to have recovered. The N.F.L.’s mild traumatic brain injury committee has published several papers in the journal Neurosurgery defending that practice and unveiling its research that players from 1996 through 2001 who sustained three or more concussions “did not demonstrate evidence of neurocognitive decline.â€Â

A primary criticism of these papers has been that the N.F.L. studied only active players, not retirees who had reached middle age. Dr. Mark Lovell, another member of the league’s committee, responded that a study using long-term testing and monitoring of the same players from relative youth to adulthood was necessary to properly assess the issue.

“We want to apply scientific rigor to this issue to make sure that we’re really getting at the underlying cause of what’s happening,†Dr. Lovell said. “You cannot tell that from a survey.â€Â

Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz is the director of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes and a member of U.N.C.’s department of exercise and sport science. He defended his organization’s research: “I think that some of the folks within the N.F.L. have chosen to ignore some of these earlier findings, and I question how many more, be it a large study like ours, or single-case studies like Terry Long, Mike Webster, whomever it may be, it will take for them to wake up.â€Â

The N.F.L. players’ association, which helps finance the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, did not return a phone call seeking comment on the Waters findings. But Merril Hoge, a former Pittsburgh Steelers running back and current ESPN analyst whose career was ended by severe concussions, said that all players  from retirees to active players to those in youth leagues  need better education about the risks of brain trauma.

“We understand, as players, the ramifications and dangers of paralysis for one reason  we see a person in a wheelchair and can identify with that visually,†said Mr. Hoge, 41, who played on the Steelers with Mr. Webster and Mr. Long. “When somebody has had brain trauma to a level that they do not function normally, we don’t see that. We don’t witness a person walking around lost or drooling or confused, because they can’t be out in society.â€Â

Clearly, not all players with long concussion histories have met gruesome ends  the star quarterbacks Steve Young and Troy Aikman, for example, were forced to retire early after successive brain trauma and have not publicly acknowledged any problems. But the experiences of Mr. Hoge, Al Toon (the former Jets receiver who considered suicide after repeated concussions) and the unnamed retired players interviewed by the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes suggest that others have not sidestepped a collision with football’s less glorified legacy.

“We always had the question of why  why did my uncle do this?†said Ms. Pittman, Mr. Waters’s niece. “Chris told me to trust him with all these tests on the brain, that we could find out more and help other people. And he kept his word.â€Â

[Matt]

reading the topic of this thread kinda shocked me.....

i didnt hear about Waters but reading this thread first thing that came to mind was Ant's high school coach.  I went to the same high school as Anthony and the coach that was there was Joe Hampton and he was one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet.  well anyways, sorry to hear about Coach waters but i am relieved to know it wasnt Smokin Joe.

[The Sheriff]

Make sure you take Keeley and Patrick under your helm coach Waters and give them some good coaching tips. I'm sure they play football somewhere in heaven.

[amie_abull]

I'm sure they play football somewhere in heaven.

Sheriff, with all the sadness the past few days surrounding Dorsey and Waters, that comment really made me smile.  I hope you're right. [smiley=dankk2.gif]

R.I.P. Keely & Coach Waters

--amie_abull