[CHRON.com] Dawson sees beyond his bad eyesight

Enjoyable read.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3440441

Dawson sees beyond his bad eyesight

By RICHARD JUSTICE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

CARROLL Dawson doesn't want this column written. He's certain it'll come out all wrong.

"Don't make me sound pitiful," the Rockets' general manager said. "I'm one of the luckiest people on earth."

His friends have heard him use that line for years. As recently as the summer of 2004, there were days he believed he might never see again. Yet, he never shared his fears.

"There are a lot of reasons I admire you," Rudy Tomjanovich once told him. "But none more than the way you've handled your problems. I've never seen you depressed, and you've been through a lot."

At the time, in the early '90s, Dawson was legally blind in his left eye and had limited vision in his right. Even that was an improvement.

He'd been struck by lightning on a golf course in 1989. The force of the strike left imprints of the club burned in his hands for months, and he suffered detached retinas in both eyes.

Horrible thoughts
His vision gradually disappeared. His world became a blur. Simple things became challenges.

He never told others what he was thinking. On the outside, he was the same good old boy from East Texas.

"I had patches on both eyes and had to be led around by the hand," he said. "I had to be taken to the bathroom. I had to be fed. It's all the things you take for granted. It's horrific. I'm wondering how I'm going to live. You think horrible thoughts."

In the years since, he has had six surgical procedures on the left eye, four on the right. These days, his left eye is useless, but his right eye has improved enough that he can drive and live a pretty normal life.

His most recent operation came 15 months ago when vision disappeared in his good eye for a few days. He was remaking the Rockets at that time, having just acquired Tracy McGrady and working 18-hour days to shore up the backcourt.

And then real life knocked. For a few days, he believed he might never see again.

One last look
He asked his wife, Sharon, to drive him back to his hometown of Alba. He wanted to see his brother and sister one last time. He wanted to take a last look around the place where he'd picked cotton and greased cars.

He discusses all of this with an emotional detachment. He has dealt with poor eyesight for so long he doesn't think it's a big deal.

At one point last summer, he walked around holding his right eye open.

"I must have looked pretty funny," he said. "I got a few laughs."

Vision gradually returned, and he watched the Rockets re-emerge as a playoff team on the big-screen television in his office. He ventures courtside on occasion, but prefers to agonize alone in his office.

Sometimes when his Baylor teams would lose, he'd drive for hours to work off the stress. These days when the Rockets lose a tough one, he sometimes gets a call from a former player asking: "How far did you drive last night, coach?"

He's uncomfortable talking about any of this. He always has seen his glass as half-full.

He'll get emotional talking about his years with Tomjanovich and Hakeem Olajuwon, but he believed in Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley, too. He was raised that way.

When someone asks about rookie guard Luther Head, he'll say: "Did you know he cried the night we drafted him? He's one of these kids who cares so much. I mean, you want guys like that on your team."

As for his vision, he gets by.

"The first time I knew I was in trouble was when I saw this look of horror on a doctor's face," Dawson said. "He took me right into surgery."

For weeks that year, he had virtually no sight in either eye. An independent man by nature, Dawson was forced to depend on others for almost everything.

"I just don't feel sorry for myself," he said. "I've had so much."

Indeed. His life story has a Disney quality to it. He grew up in the tiny East Texas town of Alba. He worked in his dad's store, hauled hay, dug up sweet potatoes and did other chores.

He remembers taping the knuckles of his hand for protection against the jagged edges of cotton plants.

"My dad would get me out there and say, 'Son, the first 50 pounds belongs to the family. Everything after that is yours,' " Dawson said. "Then it got to be 100, then 200. I was taking two rows at a time. I was getting to CD's money as quickly as I could."

There were 15 in his high school graduating class. He was the star basketball player.

He attended Paris Junior College, then accepted a scholarship to Kansas. He could have gone almost any place in Texas, but Kansas had Wilt Chamberlain. That sounded interesting.

About two hours after he showed up, Chamberlain left to join the Globetrotters. Dawson left, too, to join an old girlfriend in Waco. Thus began a lifelong love affair with Baylor University.

He played and coached at Baylor. His heart resides there still.

"Baylor isn't like other schools," he said. "There's a closeness among the people. It's more like a family. I don't know where I'd be without Baylor University. I'm just a poor kid from East Texas. Baylor gave me a chance to make something out of myself."

In return, Baylor got the best ambassador any school could have. Carroll Dawson is one of those people who has almost no enemies, who sees the good in almost everyone.

He has gotten smarter, too. He was dumb there for a few years in acquiring Eddie Griffin and other busts.

Now, the Rockets have a terrific coach in Jeff Van Gundy and two of the NBA's best players in Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming. With a little luck, they could be playing deep into May for the first time in a while.

Carroll Dawson would love that. But then again, he already feels lucky.

richard.justice@chron.com

 

I always thought that Dawson's bad eye was caused by a stroke, not by a lightning strike ..............