How Trump’s New Chief of Staff Helped Former NFL Player Beat Alcoholism
By Movieguide® Contributor
President Donald Trump’s new chief of staff, Susie Wiles, once helped her father, former NFL player Pat Summerall, overcome alcohol addiction.
“Summerall was an NFL champion kicker and the lead color commentator alongside John Madden on CBS for more than two decades,” Fox News reported. “But during his broadcast career, Summerall admittedly became an alcoholic. In his 2006 biography, he recounted an intervention and a difference-making plea from his daughter Susie.”
In his autobiography, “On and Off the Air,” Summerall recalled Wiles telling him, “Dad, the few times we’ve been out in public together recently, I’ve been ashamed we shared the same last name.”
Hearing those words from his daughter was the first step in his recovery journey.
Fox News said that Summerall’s drinking problem “escalated” when he and his counterpart Tom Brookshier would drink heavily the night before they broadcasted games together.
One instance caused Summerall’s body to begin “bleeding to death.”
“I found myself bleeding to death and my life passing before my eyes in strange blurs,” he recalled. “Doctors said if I’d been 15 minutes longer getting to an emergency room, I would have been history.”
“On the final leg, I got sick and three times went to the airplane’s toilet to throw up,” Summerall added. “I’ve been hungover so often I’m an expert on upchucking. But this time was different. I was spitting up blood.”
In addition to alcohol, the former broadcaster admitted he used painkillers to ease his stomach issues from the constant intake of alcohol.
“I figured everybody got up at 10 every morning and had a beer,” he recalled. “I kept putting heavy alcohol into an empty stomach and taking a lot of pain pills for my bum football knees and a back ailment. Many days, I downed eight to 10 Advil, plus other medication.”
However, through his daughter and a newfound faith in God, Summerall was able to receive the help he needed.
“My thirst for alcohol was replaced by a thirst for knowledge about faith and God. I began reading the Bible regularly at the Betty Ford treatment center, and it became a part of my daily life,” he wrote in “On and Off the Air.”
Trump appointed Wiles his chief of staff last Thursday, making her the first woman to ever serve in that role.
