NEWS FEATURE: Former Football Saint Takes Hit, Bounces Back With Higher Power

c. 2004 Religion News Service NEW ORLEANS _ Danny Abramowicz never does things halfway. As an undersized but furiously competitive end on the football team at Xavier University in Ohio in the mid-1960s, he “worked out like a maniac.” Doing isometric exercises at his mother-in-law’s house one day, he accidentally ripped out several feet of […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

NEW ORLEANS _ Danny Abramowicz never does things halfway.

As an undersized but furiously competitive end on the football team at Xavier University in Ohio in the mid-1960s, he “worked out like a maniac.” Doing isometric exercises at his mother-in-law’s house one day, he accidentally ripped out several feet of molding.


Against all odds, he caught on in professional football _ and became an All-Pro receiver famous for wringing every drop of advantage out of his gifts.

After football, he started drinking _ and became an alcoholic. In 1981, Alcoholics Anonymous and a reawakening of his Christianity saved him. And transformed him. More than 20 years later, Abramowicz is still on his journey.

The path that winds from professional athlete to drunk to recovering drunk now finds Abramowicz as author of a small handbook on spirituality for men: “Spiritual Workout of a Former Saint” (Our Sunday Visitor).

“Workout” is an instruction manual for men, salted with a few of Abramowicz’s own stories of what he believes are clear signs of God’s action in his life.

Chapters on the Holy Spirit as a “personal trainer,” “stretching out” in prayer, “scouting” temptation and others are interspersed with relevant digressions called “time outs.”

It is drenched with Scripture references but also frequently refers to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and such spiritual masters as St. Ignatius Loyola, Thomas Kempis and Thomas Merton.

It has been a long time coming, Abramowicz said. For him there was no quick turnaround and an “I’ve been saved” testimony long before full recovery has taken root. He has seen that before, he said, frequently in other professional athletes who claim to have kicked addiction only weeks or a few months into dealing with their problem.

Abramowicz’s own rock bottom was 23 years ago: Dec. 15, 1981. He awakened at his Metairie home not knowing how he’d gotten there. It was not the first time.


Abramowicz turned to Alcoholics Anonymous. Its famous 12-step program counsels drunks first of all to acknowledge their helplessness over alcohol and then give themselves over to a higher power, however they understand it. Still recovering, Abramowicz went to a Bible study about 1983. He jokes that his Bible creaked from disuse when he opened it in class for the first time; he explained to the others he’d worn out his old one.

After the Bible study, Abramowicz accepted an invitation to attend a Catholic charismatic prayer group. He sat in the back of the room. “Don’t no one touch me, don’t fool with me; don’t ask me questions, don’t ask me to volunteer,” he thought.

But it struck him that the people in the room seemed deeply happy. “I wanted some of that.” He came back. He hung around. He listened. He read. He began to pray, he said.

In the mid-1980s, he had an odd thought out of nowhere _ or straight from God, as Abramowicz believes: Start a men’s prayer group at home.

“You got to be kidding,” he remembers telling God. “Here I am still trying to get my own life together, still in AA …”

He invited 12 men, with no clear idea what they would do. But a format quickly gelled: a half-hour of praise, Scripture and off-key but heartfelt singing. Then sharing and personal support.


A year or so later, 90 men were squeezing into the house two nights a month, scattered through several rooms; many could hear but not see the others. The so-called Monday Night Disciples group endures today, with many of the same men attending as a faithful core. They meet in two groups, in Metairie and Mandeville.

It was pure Abramowicz: everything at full throttle.

To be sure, his 1981 turnaround was not the stuff of fairy tales. Two disastrous investments tied to the 1984 World’s Fair ruined him financially. He was losing his house even as the Monday Night Disciples were gathering in it.

In 1989, he returned to football as the head coach at Jesuit High School. Three years later, he took a job as special teams coach for the Chicago Bears. In 1997, former Bears Coach Mike Ditka, on his way to New Orleans to become the Saints head coach, asked Abramowicz to return to his old team as its offensive coordinator. They all lost their jobs when owner Tom Benson cleaned house after three more losing seasons.

Abramowicz said he had other football offers but decided to leave the game. He accepted an offer from real estate developer Joe Canizaro to run Canizaro’s Donum Dei Foundation, a philanthropy that bestows gifts mostly on Catholic charitable and educational enterprises.

His office 17 floors above downtown New Orleans is bereft of any football memorabilia. There is no sign that Abramowicz was All-Pro in 1969; that he led the Saints in receptions every year of his career and at one time held the NFL record for receptions in consecutive games.

Instead, there are pictures of religious figures _ the pope and Mother Teresa _ and a framed copy of the Serenity Prayer.


The first notions for the book came to him during his Chicago days in visits to a shrine to St. Maximilian Kolbe. He jotted thoughts on a pad; slowly, the idea of a spirituality book for men began to take shape.

It took a couple of years of part-time writing and rewriting to turn it out _ “grueling” work, he said.

But he based it on what worked for him.

“I’m not a guy sitting up here with a bunch of book knowledge,” he said. “I went through this the hard way.

“A lot of guys want to change their lives but don’t know how. Try this for 30 or 40 days. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you your misery back.”

MO/PH END NOLAN

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