Misfortune sometimes a blessing in disguise

By Adam Schefter
Denver Post Columist
Sunday, March 03, 2002

Indianapolis - Star quarterbacks are supposed to have the golden looks and golden arms, the charmed luck and charmed existences.

So who inserted special-needs children into this script?

Look around the league and grab a wad of Kleenex. The poem of joy and woe has come to life. Former Bills quarterback Jim Kelly has a 5-year-old son, Hunter, who is trying to recover from his pneumonia and collapsed lung but who won't ever recover from his Krabbe Leukodystrophy, a rare genetic disorder that leads to the deterioration of myelin and the central nervous system.

Former Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino has a 13-year-old son, Michael, with autism that does not allow him to hear the cheers his father once received.

Chargers quarterback Doug Flutie has a 10-year-old son, Dougie, with a more severe case of autism.

Colts quarterback Mark Rypien lost his 3-year-old son, Andrew, in August 1998, to a malignant brain tumor that made his child scream in pain before he died.

Former Jets quarterback Boomer Esiason has a 10-year-old son, Gunnar, with cystic fibrosis that leaves the child's lung walls clogged with mucus.

Upon realizing this collection of tarnished golden lives, Boomer's wife, Cheryl, dubbed it "the quarterback's curse."

They carry it around like a shared burden.

"Not a game or situation goes by in which they don't flash in our brains," Esiason said this weekend, speaking not only for himself but for his class of quarterbacks. "Whenever the going gets tough, I look at a picture of Gunnar and ask myself, 'What the hell am I thinking about?' "

Better yet, what were these diseases thinking about? They made a real dumb decision. They messed with the wrong people.

They would have been better off taking on somebody in some other field, not one that is so used to the weekly battles these quarterbacks have waged. These quarterbacks have exploited their own names for fights that do not stop.

Through the charitable foundation Hunter's Hope that he created in 1997, Kelly has awarded $2.5 million toward scientific research to find a cure for his son's silent enemy.

Marino's biggest victories have come in the eyes and spirits of those who needed him most, those who benefited from the creation of the Dan Marino foundation as well as The Dan Marino Child NETT, a stand-alone facility for pediatric specialists in neurology, psychology, rehabilitative services and comprehensive diagnostic and testing services.

Flutie has lent his name to cereals, musical records, the fight on Capitol Hill and his own Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism, all aimed at boosting funding for the mental disability. And Esiason has made it his mission to combat cystic fibrosis and become the MVP of all the quarterbacks who face tougher challenges now than the ones they did on the field.

The Boomer Esiason Foundation has directly raised nearly $10 million, and this is before Saturday night's big soiree, the ninth annual "Booming Celebration" at The Plaza hotel in New York City that is expected to generate an additional $1.75 million. "

I have grandiose plans, and they are not going to be finished until the day we cure the disease," vowed Esiason, who also has set up his website, Esiason.org, to further educate the public and accept their donations.

Odd how this works. But over time, it is the quarterbacks who have been educated. They have surrendered their familiar roles as role models to their sons, the biggest fighters in their families. The boys have inspired in different ways than their fathers once did.

By now, the quarterback's curse that Cheryl once alluded to has faded. After speaking to his fellow quarterbacks, Esiason has concluded they feel more blessed than cursed. And not long ago, as he and his wife waited to dedicate another hospital to Gunnar, Cheryl needed to come up with the proper words to tell the audience. Speak from the heart, Esiason told her. Say what you feel.

When Cheryl stepped to the podium and peered out into the audience, she delivered words Esiason later would compare to "a Ronald Reagan rip-the-wall-down line."

Cheryl told the audience: "Children like Gunnar are not cursed. They are selected by God to show us life's frailties and contingencies. And they are here to inspire us."