Hall of Fame Center Who Slept in His Truck

Mike Webster was a celebrated centre for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He played 17 NFL seasons, including 177 consecutive games, and helped the team win four Super Bowls in six seasons between 1974 and 1979. He retired after the 1990 season.

His later years were hard. ESPN reported in January 2005 that, after those 17 seasons, he had lost much of his physical control. He had signs of dementia, constant headaches, significant hearing loss and damaged joints and discs, and he took a mix of medications. He was too ill to attend his son Garrett's tenth birthday party in Lodi, Wisconsin, and was bedridden at a motel in Madison.

The family estimated that he lost assets worth roughly two to three million dollars or more between 1991 and 1996. He often slept in his battered black Chevy S-10 pickup, which had a garbage bag taped over a missing window. He also spent nights staring at the Amtrak station in downtown Pittsburgh. A Steelers employee, Joe Gordon, described him as living on potato chips and dry cereal, and he sometimes forgot to eat for days.

Webster's caregiver of his last six years, Sunny Jani, said that sometimes he did not seem to care. He also made phone calls to friends and family when he could not find his way home. He once said that all he saw was trees.

He died in Pittsburgh on September 24, 2002, at the age of 50. The official cause was heart failure. His children were Brooke, Colin, Garrett and Hillary at the time of the article, and the family had sought additional benefits through a lawsuit.