Tracking former Lions

[-Deborah-]

[whatever_gong82]

I'm happy for him.

Deb, what do you think about the Lem Barney story I posted up above the other day?

[-Deborah-]

It's sad. I read your post the other day and I just don't know what the best solution is. I guess the court has his best interests at heart but what a mess. His family has failed him.

[whatever_gong82]

It's sad. I read your post the other day and I just don't know what the best solution is. I guess the court has his best interests at heart but what a mess. His family has failed him.

Yeah, the one group of people that should be there for you through thick and thin are only thinking of $$$.

Disgusting.

May they get the same stuff that they're doing to Mr. Barney when their time comes up.

[whatever_gong82]

Week 4 former Lions roundup: Jeff Okudah solid in 1st Falcons start

[whatever_gong82]

Lem Barney's family in foreclosure, may get Dave Bing's financial help to 'bring Dad home'

(An update on the sad situation involving former Lions great Lem Barney- whatever_gong82)

Bill Laytner
Detroit Free Press


The Detroit Lions looked strong and smart on Monday Night Football this week.

But despite fans’ upbeat expectations and despite the lopsided score, pro ball is rarely an easy contest. Nor is a contested guardianship.


You could ask former Lions star Lem Barney — except that Barney, now 78, can’t walk, talk, or understand the legal struggle over who should control his money and where he should live out his days. Family members in Houston have repeatedly sought that control, first abusing it, then losing it.

On Tuesday, appearing in Oakland County Probate Court via Zoom, family members in Texas continued their push — led by Barney’s son, and endorsed by Barney’s lifelong friend Dave Bing, Detroit’s former mayor — to have the former football player moved a few miles from a nursing home in Houston to his ex-wife’s house. Yet, that house was revealed, to the judge’s shock, to be in foreclosure.


“I don’t want to move him only to have him evicted,” said Oakland County Probate Judge Daniel O’Brien. The foreclosure threat was revealed by Barney’s guardian, Clarkston attorney Jon Munger, appointed last year by O’Brien to oversee Barney’s financial affairs. Munger took over after family members violated court orders, and after total balances in Barney’s two bank accounts mysteriously dropped from about $350,000 to zero.

Barney’s case presents a perfect example of how family members can fail in their oversight of vulnerable adults and children. After Tuesday’s hearing, Munger told a reporter, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to take over a situation as guardian and conservator because a family hasn’t been responsible, or even ethical, in handling it.”



No one could’ve predicted the turn of events when Barney's daughter took him from his house in Commerce Township to visit his grandchildren in Houston, where he has remained, in violation of O’Brien’s court orders. That surprising change of venue fed online insinuations that Barney had been “kidnapped by his own family in Texas” against the will of his second wife, Jacci Barney, a Michigander.

Since then, Jacci Barney has dropped from sight after developing delusional fears. A prominent target of her fears was another of Barney’s lifelong friends, ex-Lion and now radio commentator Lomas Brown, who was co-guardian of Lem Barney until Jacci Barney began spouting off about her fears, Brown told the Free Press. Jacci Barney is now doing well in an assisted-living center in Oakland County, but suffering from schizophrenia, according to court records. In the time she lived alone in Commerce Township, while her husband languished in Houston, she equipped their house with steel security screens inside every door and window, and even added a sheet of steel to a closet where she told friends that Brown might enter the house with a troop of midgets to persecute her, Munger said.




Of greater concern to the judge is Barney’s ex-wife in Houston, Martha Barney, in whose house the son she had with Lem Barney lives while he goes through a divorce, according to the son’s testimony — and in whose house Lem Barney would live if Barney's son and Bing have their way. Bing, who lives in Franklin, offered in Tuesday’s hearing to financially assist Barney’s family members “with whatever payment plan” their creditor agrees to, although the former Pistons star did not offer to pay off the debt owed on Martha Barney’s house in Houston. The amount was unstated in court documents but probably is not large, as it is unpaid fees owed to a homeowners association.

Besides that foreclosure threat, Martha Barney has displayed hostility to her ex-husband, said Lem Barney’s sister from Mississippi, who told the judge she was in Houston this week on her seventh recent visit to see her brother. Court records confirm that Martha Barney was hostile to her ex-husband even to the point of being accused of physically abusing him during his star-crossed trip to Texas in 2021, which is when he began his now permanent Southern sojourn. It was that allegation of physical abuse that brought representatives of Texas adult protective services to Martha Barney’s house, resulting in the removal of Lem Barney to the nursing home in Houston where he now resides. Caregivers say he's too frail ever to fly home to Michigan, according to court testimony.




Barney is in the late stages of dementia that began a decade ago, and which the former star cornerback blamed on the innumerable concussions he suffered in pro football. Like hundreds of other players who were plaintiffs in a much-publicized class-action lawsuit against the National Football League, Barney received a settlement about six years ago, said to be at least $500,000. Where that money is now, no one can say, Munger told the Free Press. Barney is expected to receive an additional $5,000 to $10,000 for his share in a separate lawsuit against a football helmet manufacturer whose product was implicated in thousands of concussion injuries in the NFL. These days, the NFL, along with Medicare, is paying for the erstwhile superstar’s care, amid the machinations of family members seeking to regain control of his affairs, including his bank accounts.

“This is a catastrophically dysfunctional family, with a streak of mental illness, diagnosed in some cases, only suspected in others. That runs through many of their problems,” Munger said.




To conclude Tuesday’s hearing, O’Brien ordered family members to “work with Mr. Bing” to resolve the foreclosure crisis and to report their results at a future court date. He also said that family members must show that they won’t interfere with the caregivers coming to visit and oversee Lem Barney’s care.

“I want some ground rules” put in writing, O’Brien said. Only then, the judge said, will he consider moving Lem Barney to where the former Lion could spend the rest of his life.



Contact Bill Laytner: blaitner@freepress.com

[-Deborah-]

Bing shouldn't have withdrawn to begin with. Poor Lem, can't walk or talk now. :(

[whatever_gong82]

Former Lions QB Erik Kramer finds sustainable purpose helping others after suicide attempt



Justin Rogers
The Detroit News



Dearborn — Erik Kramer has made both a career and a life out of overcoming the odds.

He beat them when he was named ACC Player of the Year in 1987 out of North Carolina State, after starting his college playing days at Pierce College in Los Angeles. And he beat them again, repeatedly, when he carved out an NFL career that spanned more than a decade after going undrafted and spending three early years in the CFL, where he threw more than twice as many interceptions as he did touchdowns.


As a third-string quarterback in Detroit, he filled in for injured starter Rodney Peete in 1991, leading the Lions to a 6-2 finish and the franchise's most recent playoff victory, a 38-6 thumping of the Dallas Cowboys. And a few years later, he threw for 3,838 yards and 29 touchdowns as the Chicago Bears starter, both of which remain the team's single-season records nearly three decades later.

But the gridiron adversity pales in comparison to Kramer overcoming a self-inflicted gun shot in 2015, after a series of personal tragedies put him in a deep depression that swallowed him whole.


Kramer's suicide attempt has been well-documented, but here's a brief recounting of the details: He lost his mother to cancer, his son Griffen to a heroin overdose and his marriage to divorce. Nearly four years after Griffen's passing, Kramer checked into a California hotel where he put a 9 mm handgun he'd purchased days earlier under his chin and pulled the trigger.

Former Detroit Lion Erik Kramer.jpg

"I had gotten in such a deep, dark hole that truly, what I did in attempting to take my own life, seemed like the thing to do," Kramer said.

The bullet pierced his chin, went through his tongue and exited the top of his head. Yet Kramer survived.


Unfortunately, an already long road to recovery would be marred by complications that extended beyond his health. While his mental facilities were diminished, he says he was coerced into marriage by a women who repeatedly overdrew his accounts. And when he finally was able to recognize that situation for what it was, requesting a divorce in 2018, the argument escalated to a point where Kramer was arrested for domestic violence, making national headlines.


What made far fewer headlines was those charges being dropped, the marriage being annulled due to an acknowledgement from the state he was incapable of making such a decision in his condition, and the woman at the center of it all being charged with a dozen felonies, including elder abuse, identity theft and forgery. More than three years later, her trial for those crimes is set to begin in January.


Rediscovering purpose


Today, Kramer is in a far better place. It's not perfect, but better. The part of his brain that was damaged by the bullet healed to the point where he started feeling like himself again in 2020. So while the world was shutting down due to a global pandemic, he was waking up. Able to fully process the magnitude of his situation, he has been on a mission to make the most of his most significant second chance.

"I've got renewed purpose," Kramer said.



Sometimes our ability to make a difference is single-serving. But when it comes to mental health, there's no scale too small for Kramer.

When a former college teammate suffered the sudden loss of his mother and brother to cancer, Kramer recognized the similarities to his own life and wanted to provide a level of support he didn't feel like he had when he'd failed to navigate his depression on his own.



"Instead of reaching out, I did the opposite," Kramer said. "Depression robs you of perspective and I was only counseled by me."

So beyond regular phone calls, Kramer would make a four-plus hour drive to see his friend every other weekend, before finally connecting him with a therapist he had met in Detroit during his playing days.



Then there was the high school quarterback Kramer aided in getting a college scholarship. He was struggling with being away from home, while simultaneously dealing with some family issues. First and foremost, Kramer offered himself up, day or night, as a willing ear to listen, but also steered the young man to therapy resources available through the school, something Kramer wished he had access to earlier in life.

Those are the micro examples, but Kramer is also working on ways to help on a macro scale. This month, he published a book, "The Ultimate Comeback," to share his experiences with depression and finding purpose after his failed suicide attempt.



"The No. 1 thing it does, to me, is for people who have dealt with depression or know someone who has, it gives them a little insight that there are ways out of this, ways to deal with this that maybe I did or didn't do," Kramer said. "And I think it also shows just because you know someone who might have it all, do they really?"

Beyond the book, a bigger project he's working on, along with a trio of non-profit partners he's met through his journey, is a mental-health program for youth and parents, which he's aiming to get off the ground by integrating into a local elementary school. The core concept of the program is teaching kids at an early age how to build a support network around them, a "home team," which can help them through life's challenging times.

Barry Sanders and Erik Kramer.jpg

Football still in focus


Through everything, football has remained close to Kramer's heart. He maintains contact with former teammates from his various stops and frequently returns to both Detroit and Chicago for alumni events, including Lomas Brown's recent induction into the "Pride of the Lions."

Kramer is also a season-ticket holder for the Los Angeles Chargers, the final team he suited up for during his NFL career, so he'll be in attendance this weekend, when the Lions come to town.


Watching nearly every game from afar, he's been thrilled by Detroit's recent turnaround and anticipates his claim to being the last quarterback to lead the franchise to a playoff victory will be coming to an end in a few short months.

Beyond his continued interest in the pro game, Kramer is working toward a pair of his own football goals. First, he's progressing toward launching a passing camp for high school players. But his greater ambition, one he calls his lifelong dream, is becoming a head coach for a high school.


After garnering some experience as an assistant, he's eager and ready to run his own program. But even if that opportunity never comes, Kramer no longer has concerns about finding continued fulfillment in his future.

"I don't like being an assistant," Kramer said. "I really don't. The only way to run a real program is to be the guy who is not just calling the shots, but running things your way, introducing the culture and way you're teaching and learning. ... But if I never coach a day of high school football again, I'd still have a lot of purpose."


jdrogers@detroitnews.com

@Justin_Rogers

[whatever_gong82]

Former NFL cornerback D.J. Hayden among 6 dead after car accident in Houston

Mr. Hayden played for Detroit in 2017. RIP, Mr. Hayden.

Scooby Axson
USA TODAY



Former NFL cornerback D.J. Hayden was among six people killed in an automobile accident Saturday morning, the Houston Police Department said.

Hayden was 33 years old.

According to authorities, they received a call around 2 a.m. concerning a traffic accident, with two vehicles involved, a Chrysler 300 and an Acura SUV. The Chrysler was deemed the at-fault vehicle as it went through a red light at a high rate of speed.



Four people were pronounced dead at the scene, and four others were taken to a local hospital, and two died after being transported to the hospital. Police said that five males, including one police said appeared to be homeless and one female were among the fatalities and are investigating to get the exact circumstances of the accident, including who was driving the SUV.

According to the Houston Chronicle, two of Hayden's University of Houston teammates, cornerback Zach McMillan, and offensive lineman Ralph Oragwu, were also killed in the crash.

Hayden was selected in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft by the Oakland Raiders, despite suffering a life-threatening injury to his heart during his 2012 season at Houston after a teammate kneed him in the chest during a practice.


Hayden played eight seasons in the league, also spending one season with the Detroit Lions and three seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

He ended his NFL career with 4.5 sacks, 4 interceptions and 46 pass breakups.
DJ Hayden in 2014.jpg

[edindetroit]

Houston traffic is insane, kill or be killed down there. So sad.

[whatever_gong82]

Houston traffic is insane, kill or be killed down there. So sad.

I've driven through that town, and I've gotten to the point that I say a bunch of prayers that I survived driving in that town.

I used to think that Chicago drivers were awful, but Houston is a whole different level of awful, dangerous driving.

By the way, the female driver that was at fault for the collision and all the deaths died as well.

[whatever_gong82]

[whatever_gong82]

The Detroit News has also posted an article on the late Mr. Hayden, so I'm only going to post the link in this sentence.

Below is a picture from when the recently departed Mr. Hayden played for Detroit in the 2017 season. RIP, Mr. Hayden.

Former Detroit Lion DJ Hayden picks up fumble.jpg

[CGVT]

That must have been a horrific accident. Four dead at the scene and two later. Fucking carnage.

[whatever_gong82]

That must have been a horrific accident. Four dead at the scene and two later. Fucking carnage.

Like I said before, I've driven in Texas before, and especially Houston at times, and I'll tell you this, I say a bunch of prayers and thanks to all spirits that I make it out of Texas and/or Houston alive in one piece with no injuries or death suffered by myself.