Deaths of Former Teammates Hit Home for Webster Successor

Dermontti Dawson did not know much about the Steelers when they took him in the second round of the 1988 NFL draft. He had followed Miami more than any other NFL team because his quickness and strength had drawn comparisons to Dolphins center Dwight Stephenson. Dawson even wore No. 57 as a guard at Kentucky because of Stephenson, though he started emulating another all-time great center shortly after he arrived in Pittsburgh.

Webster was nearing the end of his storied career with the Steelers by the time Dawson joined the team. He was a big reason why Dawson was ready when the latter became a starter at guard in the fourth game of his rookie season—and the next season when Dawson took over at center for Webster.

“He was in there early looking at film, getting his weights out of the way. He was first in line of every drill, I don’t care how hot,” Dawson recalled of Webster. “I saw the way he prepared and took notes throughout the course of the season even though he knew the offense probably as well as the offensive coordinator, Tom Moore. I would always ask, ‘Mike, why are you taking so many notes?’ He said, ‘Well, I just want it ingrained in my brain so it becomes second nature.’ I started to do the same thing and I took as many notes as I could. Anything the coach would emphasize I was writing it down. I give a lot of praise to Mike for my success. He was a consummate pro and that’s what he taught me.”

Dawson more than upheld the Steelers’ legacy at center, and in 2012 he joined his former mentor in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. By then Webster had been gone for a decade but the tragic end to his life led to Omalu’s groundbreaking diagnosis of CTE and kept Webster at the forefront of the concussion issue.

Webster’s story made the link between concussions and mental illness later in life more personal to Dawson. So did the fact that he had also been teammates with Long and Strzelcyzk.

Dawson wouldn’t be human, given such context, if he didn’t worry about suffering serious consequences from an NFL career that spanned 13 seasons and included a streak of 170 consecutive games played, third-most in Steelers history.

“I’m 50 years old and I know I have some short-term memory issues but I still try to play crossword puzzles and do things to offset them,” Dawson said in January 2016. “I play brain games, I read newspapers, magazines, books. I’m always doing something cognitively and also a big thing for me is just getting outside to walk.”

At least one former Steelers player is already experiencing trouble with walking, and Antwaan Randle-El entered the NFL two seasons after Dawson retired.

Randle-El told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in January 2016 that he has trouble making it up and down stairs because of the physical abuse from football and that he is already having issues with memory loss.

Randle-El said he would pursue a career in baseball if he had to do it over again and his admission came when Concussion, the story of Omalu’s CTE breakthrough and his fight to be heard by the NFL, was still playing in movie theaters around the country.

The two shined an uncomfortable light on football and reinforced that the specter of concussions hangs over the NFL even while it is as popular and lucrative as ever.

Players, former and current ones, seem more willing to talk about the long-term danger of repeated concussions—or at least acknowledge it—and Dawson said that is a positive step toward changing the culture of the sport, though only a step.

“They’ve got new programs and protocol in place but unless a player decides to tell someone what’s going on in his life and what struggles he’s having it’s not going to do any good,” Dawson said. “I think we just have to keep preaching to the guys that pride comes before the fall. We’ve got to quit being so prideful and hiding things, especially when it comes to your mental and physical health. People can’t help you unless you tell them what’s going on.”