That was all Mosley needed to hear. “Okay, then you need to leave.”
I called for the car service, and Digger walked me out of the Gardens, then waited with me at the curb to make sure I got safely inside the car. Slumped in the backseat, my head pounding, my stomach churning, I felt sick as a dog—and defeated. I’d done far tougher stretches than that in my career, countless times, but now four consecutive days were enough to overwhelm me. I thought I was ready, but clearly I wasn’t close.
ESPN didn’t wait for Dr. Choudhri’s orders to force me to take more time off, cutting everything except The Sports Reporters.
It was another reminder of the damage done, and how far I had to go.
PART FOUR
Collision Course
CHAPTER 31
The Damage of Doctor Dangerous Revealed
MY TEAM OF DOCTORS FOCUSED ON MY SEVERE BRAIN injury, which was clearly the most urgent concern. They knew that if they followed the proper rehabilitation protocols, I would be able to overcome the effects of the brain trauma over time. But most of them missed the bigger problem, depression, which would prove to be a far more stubborn foe.
The first person to recognize my underlying problem was not a doctor or a therapist but Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson, Wanda’s uncle. He had long since become a close friend, a trusted ally, and a welcome visitor in our home. When Reggie was recovering from shoulder surgery at Columbia University in December 2011, he stayed with us in “the Reggie Room” of our house.
During this visit, just a few months after my fall, he could see that my problems went deeper than the brain injury and might still be there after I recovered from it. He could tell that I was “off.” He first mentioned this to Wanda, who suggested he talk to me about it.
The next day he asked me to join him for lunch, then get some appliances. That’s right, Mr. October needed a gas range, a refrigerator, and an oven, just like the rest of us. In the process I got a taste of what it’s like to be Reggie Jackson. At a popular deli in Westchester Reggie walked quickly through the door and to our table before the patrons could fuss over him, but the owner grabbed his arm to pose for a picture. Reg loves to tease folks, so he asked if the photo was good for a free lunch and pretended to back out when the owner said no, so Reggie joked that the owner couldn’t display the photo until he was properly compensated with a free sandwich.
When we stopped to buy his appliances people seemed to come out of nowhere to ask for his autograph. When Reggie asked one lady where she had come from, she said the place next door.
“Wait—you came in here, and you don’t work here?”
She said, “Yes!”
“That’s it!” Reggie said. “Lock the store!”
I couldn’t resist. “You should have only hit two homers that night against the Dodgers.” That got a Hall of Fame laugh.
But before we left the parking lot he asked me, “Are you okay?”
I said, “I’m great!”
Instead of nodding or arguing, Reggie started asking specific questions about my treatment. What types of therapy was I getting? Had my doctors told me to slow down my schedule? How long before I thought I’d be 100 percent? How long before my doctors thought I’d be 100 percent?
Trust me when I tell you: there is no bullshitting Reggie Jackson.
After I gave him real answers, he told me he had a friend at Columbia University who could recommend someone who could help me, and gave me her number. As soon as we returned home I called her for an appointment. Reggie’s friend got me in two days later, and after running some tests she asked me several questions that made it clear that she believed my head trauma was making my depression worse. She put me in touch with a psychiatrist, Dr. Carolyn Douglas.
At my first appointment with Dr. Douglas about a week later I met a tall, attractive, precise, and caring woman, whom I liked immediately. She started by asking about my medications. I ran down the list, which was pretty long. When I mentioned Klonopin, which Dr. Dangerous had increased every few weeks, she asked, “How much?”
“Four milligrams a day,” I said.
She looked up. I could tell she was trying to hide her alarm.
“Why are you on such a high dosage of Klonopin?”
I didn’t even know it was such a high dosage. “I don’t know.”
“You realize that’s the maximum dosage? Do you get panic attacks?”
“No.”
“Did you get them before you started taking Klonopin?”
“No.”
She said, “We may want to talk about that at a later date.”
A few weeks later I met with a neurologist named Dr. Martin Goldstein, who deals with the complications that often follow head injuries, from being physically off-balance to suffering depression. When Wanda and I told Dr. Goldstein about my medications, including 4 milligrams of Klonopin every day, he was clearly alarmed too.
“John, do you realize that’s the equivalent of taking 20 to 40 milligrams of Valium a day?”
Of course, I had no idea what Dr. Dangerous was prescribing, or why. I would soon learn that Klonopin is five to ten times more powerful than Valium, which means I was taking roughly ten to twenty 2-milligram Valium tablets a day.
It was also potentially dangerous because Klonopin is a powerful sedative, which can make you fall asleep when you’re just sitting on the couch. It can also affect cognition and balance, particularly in someone who’s suffered traumatic brain injuries. And for those with severe depression—which is what I came to Dr. Dangerous to address—it can also adversely affect their mood, although I didn’t know it then. Throw in Klonopin’s reaction to even moderate drinking, which can lead to respiratory arrest and even death—which they tell you right on the label—and you’d have to conclude this was the perfect drug for me not to take.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“Do you fall asleep a lot during the day?”
Wanda interjected. “All the time now. Watching games, trying to read.”
“I never used to,” I said.
“I’m amazed you can function at all, let alone do your job,” Dr. Goldstein said. “We’re going to have to adjust this to a more sensible regimen to enable you to function closer to your full potential.”
The problem is that Klonopin is so potent that getting me down from 4 milligrams a day wasn’t going to be simple or fast. It could take months, even years. And in case I didn’t believe them, I recalled the day I ran out of Klonopin, which quickly became one of the worst days I’ve ever had. I was totally disoriented, with blurred vision and uncontrollable shakiness. They were right: it was going to be hard to bring me down, and we’d have to do it slowly and carefully.
The first baby step was simply to change the timing of the dosage. Instead of taking 2 milligrams in the morning and two at night, Dr. Goldstein had me take 1 milligram in the morning and 3 milligrams at night. We did that for three weeks, and I immediately noticed a difference in my ability to stay alert. We then shifted all 4 milligrams to night, with none in the morning—a big help.
Then we started bringing the dosage down, very slowly, to 3.95 milligrams—literally just chipping off pieces of each pill, which the doctors showed me how to do with a pill cutter—and then by another 0.10 mg every month or two. It would be a very slow climb down, indeed.
My doctors felt that the high dosage of Klonopin contributed significantly to my depression. I was always medicated, always tired. It was like going to bat every game with the metal donut still on the barrel.
And there’s a lesson in this too: always know who’s giving you the prescriptions and what the pills are supposed to do. Ask questions and get answers before you take any medication. I didn’t, and I paid a price.
CHAPTER 32
Let the Bad Times Roll
NEW YEAR’S EVE 2011.
Wanda, the girls, and I went out with Uncle Reggie to Sylvia’s, a famous restaurant in Harlem. But at 11:30 I wanted to dash home in time to see t
he ball drop.
“Why do you want to leave, Daddy?” my daughters asked me. “You don’t care about that.”
It was true. I usually spent New Year’s Eve at a bowl game somewhere warm. It had never been a big deal to me. But this time, I explained, “I don’t want to see 2012 start. I want to see 2011 end.”
It felt good to see that ball drop and get 2011 officially behind me. I didn’t know what the New Year would hold, but I was certain it couldn’t be worse than 2011.
Four hours later I was getting up to do The Sports Reporters. The car came at 4:30, but the roads were icy. The driver was going slowly and carefully to Bristol when my phone rang. It was Joe Valerio, already worried about the show starting on time.
“How close are you?” he asked.
“Very,” I said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
But no sooner had these words left my lips than the car started spinning on the ice. Still on the phone, I told Joe, “I don’t know if I’m going to make it.” I meant that in two ways: not to the show, and maybe not make it at all.
We smashed into the concrete divider. My head hit the window as a car smashed into us, sending us spinning again. Then a second car hit us, propelling us hard against the guardrail. The smashed front of our car was now pointing toward the traffic coming toward us, the corner sticking out into the right lane.
Then I blacked out. The next thing I knew I was lying in a hospital bed with another concussion.
I was supposed to host the Fiesta Bowl on January 2, and needless to say, I missed that. But I felt good enough—or desperate enough, take your pick—to travel to New Orleans on January 3rd to take part in our lead-up coverage for the national championship game that year, between Alabama and LSU. I stayed for the game too. I did all of this against the strong advice of my doctors, Wanda, and Uncle Reggie.
ESPN installed our temporary set in the French Quarter, with an office on the other side of Canal Street, about a five-minute walk. Between shows we headed to the office, where they’d created a makeshift green room so we could relax and get a soda.
Now this is usually one of my favorite weeks of the year. I spend a few days working and hanging out with my friends, then top it off by handing out that championship trophy to the winning coach—often a friend of mine, like Texas’s Mack Brown. I never ask Wanda to watch me on TV, with that one exception: after the title game I always ask her, “Did you see me?!” as giddy as a cub reporter starting out in Espanola, Ontario.
But not this time. The day after I arrived in New Orleans I made six appearances on the set. After all six shows I walked across Canal Street toward the office—and I got lost, every time. I couldn’t find it by myself, even though everyone else could. I required an escort, one more sign that I still wasn’t right.
During the first of our lead-up shows I was on the air with Jesse Palmer and Lou Holtz. When we came back from a break I couldn’t remember their names—I just blanked. I had enough presence of mind to dance around for a bit until their names came back to me. I could tell Jesse noticed, but the viewers couldn’t, and I got through the broadcast without any major gaffes.
That night, after we all went back to our hotel rooms to change, Jesse called to invite me to dinner with the whole crew: Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Fowler, Rece Davis, and Erin Andrews. I’ve always enjoyed these guys, so it was good to get together again.
From there we walked to an ESPN party for the entire staff, the unsung heroes who put the shows together, then on to Pat O’Brien’s on Bourbon Street. The place was rocking: lights and loud music and a big crowd going crazy, mostly Michigan fans still celebrating their 23–20 upset over Virginia Tech the night before. I hadn’t had a drink in almost a year, so I was happy to abstain, but when we went to another club with live music, my head felt like it was about to explode, just like it did at Madison Square Garden when Bob Knight told me to go home.
This time I didn’t need the General to know I’d reached my limit. I shouted to Jesse, “I have to go!” and started walking back to our hotel—my first smart decision in some time.
On my walk back I started getting depressed. Block by block I was dropping from functioning to almost incapacitated, like someone had injected me with poison and it was starting to take effect. I wasn’t getting depressed about anything in particular, but by the time I got back to my room I was crying.
I felt like hell, physically and emotionally. I didn’t want to go outside because everything I saw just made me feel worse: people drinking, joking, having a good time. So I spent the weekend lying there on my hotel bed, missing my wife and kids, and wondering why so much shit had happened to me in my life.
During my self-imposed “house arrest” I started emailing back and forth with my brother. When I brought up my shoulder injuries and how I felt it impeded my hockey career, Bernie pointed out that I’d made some bad decisions too, but it didn’t matter anymore, anyway. He kept telling me to leave the past behind and live in the present. Good advice, but I had a hard time following it.
But his bigger point was this: “Forget about hockey. Look at your broadcasting career and how successful you are, and your daughters, and your family. Be happy for what you have, not what you don’t have.”
To reinforce this Bernie tried to get me to do an exercise he’d read about in a self-help book recently, but I couldn’t get into it.
Even when I’m depressed, I’m still grateful for my wife, my kids, my career, and my home. I can usually still appreciate life’s little pleasures, whether it’s enjoying dinner with Mack Brown every Friday night before our Saturday college football broadcast, flying to Toronto with Chris Berman to witness the closing of Maple Leaf Gardens, or just watching a movie with my family at home.
But sometimes my depression is so bad that I’m reduced to a point where happiness is nonexistent. Nothing can cheer me up. The good things in life can’t reach me because I’m too far down. It’s like the world used to be in color, and now it’s black and white. Everything still looks the same, but nothing feels the same. There’s no color, no joy. That’s why even rich and famous people suffer from depression and sometimes attempt suicide. When that happens it always surprises people who aren’t depressed, but not those who are. We get it.
And this is why “cheerleading” doesn’t work. So when my brother wrote, “You just need to get up in the morning and tell yourself you’re going to have a great day,” despite his good intentions, it didn’t help.
After Bernie and I finished emailing I called Wanda looking for sympathy, but she said, “Well, your brother’s right. That’s what you need to do. You just need to talk yourself out of it. You know you have a family who loves you, you’ve got great friends who care about you, and you’ve got a great career.”
Unfortunately it’s not simply a matter of bucking up. You’re not just “bummed out.” Again, it’s like you’ve been poisoned, and you want someone to give you the antidote. Everything else that people tell you just feels like—pardon me—happy horseshit. And then I feel guilty on top of the depression because no one loves me more than my wife and brother.
I stayed in bed the entire weekend. No more Bourbon Street for me. I got my act together enough to get out of my room that Monday for the BCS title game between top-ranked LSU and second-ranked Alabama. That’s what’s great about my particular line of work: you have to get up enough to do it, because who wants to see a grown man cry on national TV?
After the Tide swamped the Tigers, 21–0, I stepped up to our temporary stage on the field to hand out the national championship trophy to Alabama’s Nick Saban, one of the plums of my work. I got a booster shot just from being up there, but that night it gave me only temporary energy, very temporary. Once the lights went off and I stepped down from the stage, I was right back to where I was before.
After having a Diet Coke at the hotel bar with Jesse, I went back to my room, packed, and got on the plane.
The next day I went to see Dr. Goldstein and related t
he conversations with my brother and my wife.
“They love me so much and mean so well that I felt bad about rejecting their advice,” I told him. “They’re telling me to get up and just say, ‘I’m going to have a great day.’”
“If it were that easy,” he said, “I wouldn’t have a job. Everyone could just talk themselves out of it. There is scientific evidence that depressed people are actually wired differently, so telling a depressed person to talk themselves out if it is like trying to persuade yourself to be taller. This is why healthy people sometimes have a hard time understanding depressed people.”
That was helpful to hear, something I’ve gone back to more than once. But it still didn’t answer my bigger question: What did work? What would help?
CHAPTER 33
Stumbling Toward Unhappiness
AFTER MY TRYING WEEK IN NEW ORLEANS, IT WAS GOOD to get back to our nice, quiet, comfortable home and get some rest. But things took a downturn when I started doing college basketball games again.
Given the speed of the sport and its many substitutions, I prepare for these games like no other. I get DVDs from each team, record recent games at home to study, and get still more from ESPN’s library or from the ESPN app. Then I take about three hours to prepare a board that I’ll have in front of me on game day, with each player’s name, stats, and anecdotes attached, color coded by team. By game day I feel as prepared as anyone possibly could be. As the coaches all love to say, confidence comes from preparation.
My homework complete, on January 19, 2012, I traveled to Blacksburg, Virginia, to cover an ACC clash the next night between the University of North Carolina and Virginia Tech. I’d be working with Jay Bilas, a close friend and one of the best in the business. As is our custom, we met that day with UNC’s Hall of Fame coach, Roy Williams, and Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg, who’s now an ESPN analyst.
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