Below is a reprint from today's Orlando Sentinel. It's a column written by George Diaz on ESPN's Lee Corso. Lee and I worked toegther at ESPN in 1987, first with the inagural season of Arena Football and later that fall on college football. He is one of my favorite people on the planet and one of the most loyal friends and partners that I've been lucky enough to work with. So happy that he is coming back strong!
Lee Corso won't let the stroke he suffered in May slow him down
Lee Corso won't let the stroke he suffered in May slow him down
George Diaz
COMMENTARY
12:34 AM EDT, August 2, 2009
Lee Corso stepped outside his home in Heathrow around 8:30 a.m. on May 16, and disappeared.
Somebody else came back into the house. That person, newspaper in hand, grabbed a glass of orange juice and sat down in the patio. He felt woozy. He then tried to talk.
"Gaaagggh, baaahh." Pure gibberish.
Corso — the loquacious Mad Hatter on ESPN's College GameDay — vanished that day, replaced by a man engulfed in dark silence.
The diagnosis was a mild stroke. The adjective was a life-saver. Corso saw it for himself, as he began his rehabilitation to heal his body and mind. Others in that room, scarred for life, weren't so lucky.
"I read this book that said 'if you survive a stroke,'" Corso said. "Hello — if you survive a stroke. They used the word survive. That scared the crap out of me. You don't read, 'if you survive a broken leg.'"
Corso is surviving. One day, one word, one sentence, one conversation, at a time.
Nearly three months later, Corso is piecing his life together again. He's graduated from physical therapy but remains in occupational and speech therapy. The stroke affected his right side. He is learning to write all over again, just like he's learned to talk all over again.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the stroke, Corso sat down outside a Starbucks in Longwood a few days ago, took a few sips of an iced tea, and told a story etched in transformation.
A man who has reinvented himself once already — going from a struggling football coach to a glib gridiron guru — is plotting another magnificent makeover. He will be back on TV once fall football begins. The ironic twist in the challenge is obvious: A chatterbox got silenced by a stroke. His voice, as he says, is "the ultimate thing for me."
He speaks fine now. There are a few quirky moments when things don't quite connect, like when he's trying to recall precise moments through the fog of recovery. A critical step was passing a swallow test, he says, "inside the hotel (pause), inside the airport (pause), inside the hospital." It took three times, but he finally found the right word.
But don't feel sorry for Corso. He doesn't. He knows he's blessed.
Blessed from the moment he was rushed from Florida Hospital Altamonte after the stroke, and then transferred within hours via helicopter to Florida Hospital Orlando for more extensive tests that revealed a stroke caused by a blockage to a small artery.
The diagnosis was the easy part. The hard work came next. Beyond the struggles with speech and writing, Corso lost comprehension skills. He couldn't remember anything he had just read.
He was in the hospital for a week in critical care, then another five days in the rehab section before his release.
"The brain heals at its own pace," he said. "If I had a shoulder injury I could rehab it 10 hours a day for five days and it would be great, but not the brain."
He's piecing it all together slowly. He works out every day. Gathers strength in his right hand by squeezing Silly Putty. Twice a week, it's speech therapy. "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr," he says, mimicking one of the tongue exercises, then moving his tongue side to side, cheek to cheek. "When I first started I felt my tongue weighed 80 pounds. And I slobbered. I'm getting better at that. I'm trying to get the brain to realize that you can do this."
The blessed part? Like most people who suffer trauma, he's gathered perspective and appreciation for life. Blessed by a family, including his wife, three sons and a daughter. Blessed by his "day job" if you will, as director of business development for Dixon Ticonderoga. It's the company's No. 2 pencils you see when Corso waves them at Kirk Herbstreit to make a point on GameDay. Blessed by getting to know people who cared from him unconditionally. Doctors, nurses, and the orderlies who bathed him during the first days of his hospital stay.
"The people who used to bring me my food and ask how I was," Corso says, tearing up for the only time during our conversation. " ... They got your back and they do a good job. They care about you and they want you to get better. They didn't care who I was."
They likely know Corso for his ESPN gig, which began in 1987. They might not recall a few other significant details: He was Burt Reynolds' roommate at Florida State. He stumbled for success in three head coaching gigs in college. His résumé read more like P.T. Barnum than Paul "Bear' Bryant, a fair assessment for a man who once rode an elephant to help sell season tickets for the University of Louisville in 1969. He has strong ties to Central Florida. Born in Lake Mary, Corso had a run as coach of the Orlando Renegades of the United States Football League in 1985.
Corso's voice is what matters most now. Part of the soundtrack of college football, it's informative and analytical, glib and gregarious. Putting on a mascot head to pick a weekly winner of the game, live on campus, is his pièce de résistance. It's a shtick that has endeared him to generations of football fans, from the college freshman to the 70-something grandfather who is his peer.
Just five days shy of his 74th birthday, Corso is not about to let no stinkin' stroke spoil the fun.
He's marked Sept. 5 — the Alabama- Virginia Tech game in Atlanta — as his coming out party for 2009. That's his goal. He will be there. Live TV. First stop on ESPN's college football traveling circus.
He's turned down various speaking gigs that would have prepped him for the moment. He won't entertain his buddies at the annual Florida Citrus Sports kickoff dinner. He admits to a bit of fear, afraid he might embarrass himself before he's ready.
Instead, he's heading straight to the big room. National audience. No safety net.
Typical Corso. You gotta love it.
Way back when he was a struggling football coach, Corso once crawled out of a coffin on his local TV show to give his players the ultimate pick-me-up: Don't ever count yourselves out.
Same deal applies today. Lee Corso refuses to be silenced.
Not so fast, my friend: Mr. Corso is popping out of that coffin again on Sept. 5.
George Diaz can be reached at 407-420-5533 and gdiaz@orlandosentinel.com.
