‘I’m thankful’: A decade-long quest to be paid by NFL concussion settlement program ends in million-dollar award

In May, Donald Frank packed a bag and left his home in Wake Forest, N.C. His destination sat about 390 miles to the south, in Georgia, where he was scheduled to undergo a series of grueling medical evaluations.

Doctors spent two days testing his memory, attention span, language comprehension, and visual-spatial perception skills, to gauge the extent of a neurocognitive illness that had gradually eroded the contours of his everyday life.

A separate consultation with a neurologist resulted in a new diagnosis: Frank, a 60-year-old former San Diego Chargers defensive back, had Parkinson’s disease.

Frank believes that his health woes can be traced to the countless brain-rattling collisions that he absorbed during his six-year professional football career. But over the last seven years, the NFL’s controversial concussion settlement program has on four occasions denied Frank’s quest to be paid for the brain trauma that he sustained.

Nevertheless, he decided to make the case once more. Frank included the results of the May neuropsychological tests, and the Parkinson’s diagnosis, in a claim that he submitted to the settlement program.

Then he waited. And worried.

The settlement program has doled out more than $1.6 billion, yet not every former football player who applies for a payment is compensated. Some, including members of the 1980 Philadelphia Eagles, have faced long delays and demoralizing denials.

The Inquirer found that Frank’s case is an extreme outlier. More than 4,400 ex-NFL players have submitted claims with the program, but only two others have received as many as four rejections.

On Nov. 4, Frank’s girlfriend, Deirdre Brown, opened an email from the settlement program’s claims department.

“Notice of monetary award claim determination,” read the first line.

Her eyes traced familiar details about Frank’s case and his medical history, then arrived at something new: an award for $1.4 million.

“It was a breath of fresh air,” Frank said, “considering all the years I’ve gone through this.”

Frank followed an unlikely path to the NFL.

As a strong safety at a Division II college, North Carolina’s Winston-Salem State University, he attracted little attention from scouts. He had a bodybuilder’s physique, though, and could run the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds.

Those attributes persuaded the Chargers to take a flier on Frank in 1990 and sign him as an undrafted free agent. That same year, the team selected linebacker Junior Seau with their No. 1 pick in the NFL draft.

Frank made the team and quickly impressed coaches with his knack for game-changing interceptions, prompting the Los Angeles Times to liken his rise — from relative obscurity to an NFL roster — to a fairy tale.

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

“When you got knocked out, or got your bell rung, they would put smelling salts to your nose to wake you up,” Frank previously told The Inquirer. “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.’”

By 1993, Frank earned a role as a starting cornerback. That season, during a Halloween game against the Los Angeles Raiders, Frank intercepted a pass from Raiders quarterback Jeff Hostetler and returned it 102 yards for a touchdown.

For an undrafted athlete, it was a moment of remarkable personal triumph.

Just two years later, Frank reached the end of his NFL career. He was hindered by a back injury and had grown wary of hitting his head.

But there was another nagging problem that Frank initially kept to himself: On even simple defensive plays, he could no longer remember what he was supposed to do.

Frank’s memory problems began to deepen in 2008, according to medical records previously viewed by The Inquirer, and he grappled with depression and unpredictable mood swings.

He stopped driving and had to rely on Brown to help care for him on a daily basis.

In 2012, 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 Eagles Andre Waters, Max Runager, Frank LeMaster, Guy Morriss, and Maxie Baughan.

Dozens of ex-players had sued the NFL a year earlier in California and Pennsylvania, accusing the league of downplaying the risks of repeated brain injuries. The number of plaintiffs climbed into the thousands — Frank among them — 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).

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

That same year, 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 disease, or Parkinson’s. (The league spends more than $20 million a year on such reimbursements.)

Despite the seemingly widespread agreement that Frank suffered from a serious illness, he found little success navigating the concussion settlement program.

Retired players are required to be evaluated by doctors who belong to a network managed by a third-party company, BrownGreer LLC, and to have a diagnosis that meets the settlement program’s three tiers of cognitive impairment: level 1.0 for moderate decline; level 1.5 for early dementia; level 2.0 for severe cognitive decline.

Frank submitted three claims for a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, but an appeals panel rejected each, noting that his test results were not consistent with the disease.

The denials sank Frank into depressive spirals and made him question whether he should abandon his crusade to be paid by the settlement program.

“It felt like a big confusion,” Frank said. “[The doctors] couldn’t get a grip on what was going on with me.”

Clarity finally arrived earlier this year, when his attorney asked Frank if he had ever experienced any tremors or shakes.

“I said, ‘Yes, I do,’” Frank recalled. “I told Dee a year ago, maybe two years, that I experienced some tremors in my right hand. I just never paid it no mind.”

After a neurologist and a movement disorder specialist each confirmed that Frank had Parkinson’s, he began taking medication meant to alleviate symptoms.

“It felt like an immediate release of pressure off my brain,” he said. “I felt like the tremors weren’t bothering me as much.”

Frank has noticed something else, too: a sense of optimism and gratitude that has pierced the frustration and uncertainty that had clouded his life for so long.

The concussion settlement program is scheduled to deliver its payment to him in January, and his daughter and 6-year-old grandson have moved in with him, filling his house with the welcome sound of busy lives and laughter.

“I’m looking forward to more hours with my grandson. I’m looking forward to the future,” Frank said. “I’m thankful.”