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Want a feel-good story amid all the bad lies swirling around the NFL? Saints owner Tom Benson is opening his wallet—widely—to help Steve Gleason achieve a dream.

By

Peter King

New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson is donating $5 million to help former Saints special-teamer Steve Gleason, who now is wheelchair-bound with ALS, and his Team Gleason foundation build and operate Team Gleason House for Innovative Living. The gift, Gleason said, will be used an endowment for annual operating expenses for the home. The house, in New Orleans, will allow 18 ALS patients to live fairly close to self-sufficient lives in rooms where the operation of everything in the rooms will be controlled by patients’ eyes. The home is scheduled to open in June, and Gleason doesn’t want to stop at just one in New Orleans.

“Call me crazy,’’ Gleason said*Sunday*afternoon, “but I envision a facility like this in every NFL city.”

Gleason actually didn’t “say” this. His ALS has advanced to where he cannot move any extremities, and he “types” by focusing his eyes on a computer screen, arduously recording words letter by letter on the laptop.

“This is more than a philanthropic project between Team Gleason and Mr. Benson.*This has become a friendship between people—people who are looking creatively at a massive problem and seeking solutions. Let me say that I believe this is an example of how players (ex-players in my case) and NFL organizations can unite to proactively address a problem that has not only affected the NFL, but also tens of thousands of families around the country.”

I asked Benson what motivated him to make this gift. “Steve is part of our Saints family,’’ Benson said. “He suffers from a terrible disease but yet his focus and resolve is centered around finding a cure for ALS and helping others who suffer from ALS live full and prosperous lives—and he is doing that right here in his adopted hometown of New Orleans. We could not be more proud of him and [wife] Michel and Team Gleason.”

Gleason has never blamed football—high school, college or pro—for his condition, even though his kamikaze style of play might have contributed to him being diagnosed with ALS. Rather, he has focused on doing something about a cure, appealing to the United Nations two years ago to raise the profile to fight the disease, and going about his daily life as much as possible without limits. His goal is for each NFL franchise to lead the way to building an ALS home in each market. “This gift from Mr. and Mrs. Benson,’’ he said, “… will help ensure that the Team Gleason House for innovative living will fully meet patient needs. Most of what ALS takes away, technology can give back. The Team Gleason House actually allows ALS patients to control their environment—computers, TVs, lights, doors, elevators—using just their eyes. This innovative concept allows patients to live very independently without bankrupting their families. This will allow them to collaborate with peers and colleagues to continue whatever their purpose in life may be.”

I’ll be corny for a moment here. There’s something familial about New Orleans that’s different from most cities—maybe every city. Gleason is from Spokane, Wash. He wasn’t a big football hero in New Orleans—though he did make a signature play, blocking a Falcons punt in the first post-Katrina game that led to a Saints’ upset of Atlanta—but the city loves him like a son. He has made that happen, through the force of his giving nature and because the city feels for him and his family. And because he refuses to be beaten by a disabling malady for which there is no cure. “New Orleans is a unique city,’’ Benson said. “If you love it, it will love you back more than you know.”

Benson has put his wallet behind that love, and he seemed thrilled to do it.

“Steve has this saying: ‘No white flags,’” said Benson. “If someone is going to be behind finding a cure for ALS, it’s going to be Steve Gleason.”

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