A ‘fairy tale’ football career took a toll on his brain. Will the NFL concussion settlement program pay him?

Decades ago, a writer likened Donald Frank’s life to an NFL fairy tale.

In 1990, he was a little-known strong safety from a Division II school, North Carolina’s Winston-Salem State University. That spring, the San Diego Chargers signed Frank as an undrafted free agent, football’s version of a scratch-off lottery ticket.

“We figured we’d sign him,” a Chargers official told the Los Angeles Times at the time, “give him some reps in training camp … and then send him back to Tarboro in three weeks.”

Frank had a bodybuilder’s frame, though, and he could run a 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds.

He made the team and showed a prowess for game-changing interceptions and big hits, recording 11 solo tackles in a single game against the New York Jets. By 1993, he was a starting cornerback on a tough Chargers defense that included a future NFL Hall of Famer, linebacker Junior Seau.

Fairy tale stuff, for sure. The heroes of such stories, however, are often made to suffer for their pursuits.

Frank was involved in countless brain-rattling collisions, many of which left him seeing stars or needing smelling salts to regain focus — telltale signs of a concussion. “My attitude, coming from where I came from, was basically, ‘You got to do everything you can to stay here,’” said Frank, 59. “And I was a physical player.”

By the time his career neared its end, Frank noticed that he sometimes couldn’t remember the details of defensive play calls.

Those initial memory cracks have since deepened. For much of the last decade, multiple neurologists have determined that Frank is suffering from a neurocognitive illness, according to medical records that he shared with The Inquirer.

He is no longer able to drive or manage his finances, and mixes up household tasks, the records show. Sometimes he places dirty dishes in the cabinets of his Wake Forest, N.C., home, and relies on his girlfriend, Deirdre Brown, to help care for him.

His words arrive haltingly, like a ship struggling to reach shore.

“I know [that] what I’m going through,” Frank said, “was caused by my time in the NFL.”

In 2011, dozens of ex-players sued the NFL in California and Pennsylvania, accusing the league of downplaying the risks of repeated brain injuries. The number of plaintiffs climbed into the thousands, and the cases were consolidated in Philadelphia federal court.

Three years later, the NFL settled the case. The league admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to fund, for 65 years, a program that would pay retired players who developed neurocognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

As of Dec. 16, the settlement program has paid out more than $1.4 billion. Yet not every former athlete who applies for a payment is compensated, and some have faced long delays and demoralizing denials, an Inquirer investigation, The Final Penalty, found earlier this year.

In October, Frank received a notice from the settlement fund: His application for a payment had been denied — for a fourth time.

A neurologist had written that Frank had “significant deficits” in his memory and executive function and diagnosed him with a level 2.0 cognitive impairment, which, according to the settlement program’s classification system, represents severe cognitive decline.

But in denying Frank’s claim, a member of an Appeals Advisory Panel cited a lack of recent neuropsychological testing and questioned the severity of Frank’s impairment, and whether some of his symptoms might be the result of depression.

His situation, The Inquirer found, is an extreme outlier.

BrownGreer PLC, the third-party company that was appointed by the court to administer the settlement program, told the newspaper that just three ex-players have had four claims each that end with a denial. More than 4,100 players have submitted claims.

In an email, the company wrote that it is required to follow the settlement agreement’s intricate rules, which determine whether an ex-player qualifies for payment and dictate the medical proof the ex-player must provide to substantiate a claim.

Jason Luckasevic, the Pittsburgh lawyer who filed the first concussion lawsuits on behalf of former players against the NFL, has represented Frank for more than a decade.

“He has declined. He used to live independently,” Luckasevic said. “[The settlement program] is a keep-away game. Donald is a prime example of that.”

Each rejection has devastated Frank.

“It’s really frustrating for me,” he said. “And I just can’t understand why they’re saying that I don’t qualify, when clearly it shows in my actions, my speaking, my thought process.”

After he received his fourth rejection letter from the settlement program, Frank was faced with a wrenching choice. According to the program’s rules, he could file another claim, but there was no guarantee that he would find a different result.

Was it time, he wondered, to abandon his quest to be paid for the brain injuries that he sustained while playing in the NFL?

Frank’s football journey might resonate with any athlete who has dreamed of earning even a long-shot chance of playing in the NFL.

In college, he tried to mimic the punishing playing style of Ronnie Lott, who starred as a fearsome defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s.

Bill Devaney, a director of personnel for the Chargers, watched film of Frank in advance of the 1990 NFL draft — and wasn’t impressed. Then Devaney visited Frank in North Carolina, and was intrigued by his speed and imposing physique.

“And in my infinite wisdom, I go back and say, ‘Shoot, he might be a decent free agent, but I don’t think he’s worth a draft choice,’” Devaney told the Los Angeles Times that year.

The Chargers signed Frank, then moved him to cornerback, almost as an afterthought. The team was more invested in the future of its No. 1 draft pick: Seau, who would go on to become a 12-time Pro Bowler.

But Frank turned heads during his first training camp.

“No one has experienced a more stunning rise,” the Escondido Times-Advocate wrote, “than this rookie free agent from little-known Winston-Salem State.”

A year later, in the fourth round of the 1991 NFL draft, the Chargers selected Frank’s former college teammate and close friend, wide receiver Yancey Thigpen.

“That particular team was just a hard-nosed group of guys,” Thigpen said during a recent interview. “They all played the same way: Kill or be killed.”

Frank and Thigpen, like so many players from prior generations, didn’t realize that the violent collisions they experienced each year — during practices and in training camp, throughout the regular season and playoffs — could cause long-term neurological harm.

“It was not even something that was discussed,” Thigpen said. “And at that time in the league, you didn’t want to take yourself out of the game. You didn’t want to not be considered a tough guy.”

In the early 1990s, Paul Tagliabue, then the NFL’s commissioner, claimed that the number of players who sustained concussions was relatively small and blamed journalists for making the issue seem larger. Years later, he would express regret for those comments.

“When you got knocked out, or got your bell rung, they would put smelling salts to your nose to wake you up,” Frank said. “I don’t even remember there being an attempt to evaluate you. It was always, ‘OK, just let him sit on the bench for a minute to clear his head.’”

During his first three seasons with the Chargers, despite starting just three games, Frank recorded seven interceptions. His production argued for a bigger opportunity.

In 1993, Frank started all 16 games at cornerback.

Another fairy tale moment arrived that Halloween. The Chargers were locked in an early evening battle against the Los Angeles Raiders at historic L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

Late in the third quarter, with the score tied at 17, Raiders quarterback Jeff Hostetler led his team to the Chargers’ 3-yard line. Hostetler then fired a short pass toward the end zone … and into Frank’s hands.

The Raiders’ offense seemed momentarily paralyzed as Frank bolted in the opposite direction, down the sideline, his white No. 27 jersey untouched as he high-stepped into their end zone for a momentum-shifting touchdown. The Chargers won, 30-23.

Writing about the pick-six, Los Angeles Times columnist Mike Downey referred to Frank as “a man with two first names and two fast legs.”

For Frank, the 102-yard run was a taste of football immortality; in the entire history of the NFL, there have been only seven interception returns for more yards.

That exhilarating play, and Frank’s steady rise, could have been a springboard for a new chapter in his career, Pro Bowls and hefty contracts.

Instead, his time in the league was almost finished.

Frank played for the Raiders in 1994, and then moved on to the Minnesota Vikings in 1995, appearing in 12 games. He was hindered physically by a back injury, but had also grown wary of hitting his head.

“Towards the end of my career, my physicality kind of slowed up, because I was so afraid to hit the ground on some hits, and it showed,” he said.

“I had a problem with simple plays, busted coverages. I didn’t understand it then, but I knew something was happening, because my memory was just not that sharp any more.”

More than a decade ago, while the NFL was in the midst of the concussion litigation saga, Frank met Deirdre Brown, a financial analyst in North Carolina.

The forgetfulness that he began experiencing in the mid-1990s had grown worse and was now joined by other symptoms — depression, mood swings, irritability — that strained the relationship that he and Brown began to form.

“It took me a while to truly understand what he was going through,” Brown said.

In 2012, Junior Seau, Frank’s old Chargers teammate, died by suicide at age 43. Researchers discovered that he had the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which has been found in the brains of hundreds of former football players, including former Philadelphia Eagles Andre Waters, Max Runager, Frank LeMaster, Guy Morriss, and Maxie Baughan.

Four years later, in 2016, the chair of Duke University’s Department of Neurology evaluated Frank and determined that he had a “major neurocognitive disorder,” according to his medical records.

The NFL awarded Frank a benefit through the league’s 88 Plan, which provides financial reimbursements for medical care for players who have dementia, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s. (The league spends more than $20 million a year on such reimbursements.)

Frank grew withdrawn and avoided activities he once enjoyed, like visiting high schools to talk to young athletes about football.

“I hyperventilate just at the thought of doing that,” he said. “It’s something that haunts me right now, because I feel like I can’t. I feel like they’re definitely going to be able to tell that something is wrong with me.”

Thigpen, who went on to become a star with the Pittsburgh Steelers, said he and Frank stayed in close contact through their time in the NFL, even when they played for different teams.

“Over the last 10 to 15 years, I just haven’t heard from him as much,” Thigpen said. “Some guys struggle in silence.”

In 2018, Frank was denied a payment from the concussion settlement program for the first time.

A neurologist had diagnosed Frank with Alzheimer’s, but the settlement program’s Appeals Advisory Panel determined that Frank’s neuropsychological test results weren’t consistent with the disease.

The appeals panel rejected Frank’s claim again in 2021 and 2023, writing that while some of his symptoms met a clinical definition of Alzheimer’s — like cognitive deficits that interfere with independent activities — it was not clear that his decline had steadily worsened. A brain scan for amyloid beta plaque, a sign of Alzheimer’s, was negative.

Brown puzzled over what seemed, to her, to be a frustrating contradiction: If the NFL agreed to provide Frank with an 88 Plan benefit for his neurocognitive impairments, then why was he still being denied a concussion settlement payment?

In an email to The Inquirer earlier this year, Brad S. Karp, the NFL’s lead outside attorney, wrote that a “diagnosis from the 88 Plan is not sufficient on its own” to determine whether a former player will receive a payment from the concussion settlement program.

“It does not make any sense to me,” Brown said. “I think [the settlement program] hopes that the players either die or give up.”

Numerous ex-players, exasperated by their deteriorating health and the settlement program’s rules, have made similar comments in recent years.

It is an accusation that both Karp and BrownGreer have strenuously denied.

Karp noted that the NFL “does not decide who receives an award or the amount or the timing of any award.”

“We do not have incentive to deny claims,” BrownGreer previously told The Inquirer, “we have only an obligation to faithfully implement the Settlement Agreement.”

The settlement program has had some notable flaws.

A 2020 lawsuit, filed by two former NFL players, revealed that the settlement program’s doctors had been using “race-norming” in neuropsychological screenings. The controversial evaluation tool, used in a variety of medical settings, presumed that Black players had lower preexisting cognitive abilities, making their declines seem less pronounced than those of their white peers.

The practice was ended in 2021, and 308 ex-players qualified for additional benefits.

And court-appointed special masters have disqualified 11 doctors contracted by BrownGreer after a review panel raised questions about the accuracy of their diagnoses, leaving those doctors’ patients in limbo.

In a November status update that the company filed to the court, BrownGreer shared data that suggest the program is becoming more efficient.

The company wrote that it approved 83% of claims in 2024 that had reached a determination, compared with 66% in 2023.

And BrownGreer claimed that it now takes an average of 83 days to issue a payment to an ex-player, a 64% reduction from 2023, and 95 days for a final denial, which represents a 36% decrease. (In the past, some players waited more than two years to receive a final denial notice.)

BrownGreer also said that the number of doctors in the settlement program’s monetary award fund (MAF) — whose evaluations help determine whether a retired player will be paid — has dropped from 149, in 2018, to 58 in 2024.

“One major concern for our MAF physicians, and a reason we have lost some of them, has been the failure of players to attend scheduled appointments … ” reads one passage of the status report.

The company’s figures mean little to Frank and his family.

“His symptoms have progressed,” Brown said. “I’ll be honest with you: Most days I’m just a caregiver.”

Every now and then, Frank is reminded of his glory days, when he was in full command of his body and mind, unafraid to go toe-to-toe with the NFL’s best receivers.

On the rare occasions when he ventures to a store, someone might recognize his face, and ask: Didn’t you used to play football?

When he tries to respond, his current reality intrudes.

“My brain tells me what’s happening,” he said, “but when it’s time to spit it out, it makes no sense.”

The concussion settlement program has three tiers of cognitive impairment: level 1.0 for moderate decline; level 1.5 for early dementia; level 2.0 for severe cognitive decline. Independent neurologists have criticized this classification system as being outside the norm of traditional neurological care.

In a June letter to the Appeals Advisory Panel, Frank’s neurologist wrote that the ex-cornerback’s “cognitive impairment is profound” and has gradually declined since 2008. Subjecting Frank to additional neuropsychological testing — which can take up to eight hours — was unnecessary, the neurologist concluded.

“I’m not a doctor,” said Luckasevic, Frank’s attorney, “but he appears more impaired than other players that I may get paid. The settlement process has not been fair to him.”

After receiving the October denial, Frank confided to Brown that he wasn’t sure if he could go through the settlement process again.

“You got to keep fighting for this,” she told him. “Don’t just give up because they sent you a denial.”

Frank decided he wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.

On Nov. 5, Luckasevic filed an appeal, arguing that the advisory board’s latest denial — and the reasons it cited for denying Frank a payment — represented “malicious violations” of the settlement program’s rules.

Frank, he wrote, has met the program’s threshold for neurocognitive impairment since 2016.

So now the former Charger waits again, as this medical debate about the damage that football inflicted on his brain lurches into overtime.

During a recent phone call, he started to discuss the disappointment of the past denials, the sorrow of not being able to stop his thoughts and memories from slipping through his grasp.

Then he paused.

“Just that quickly, I knew what I was going to say,” he said, “but I can’t remember now.”