By the end of his rookie year in 1990, Leroy Hoard had already decided who was going to be his hero. To the 22-year-old, Bernie Kosar didn’t look like a typical quarterback. However, what the signal caller lacked in build, he made up for in talent, intelligence, and tenacity. That season, Kosar took 37 sacks, the eighth-highest in the league. However, despite a body many deemed “gangly and awkward”, Kosar took it like a boss, a fact that Hoard still attests to, even 35 years later.

“I’ve never seen the man yell,” the retired running back said on the Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show this week. “I have never met a guy who got beaten up the way he did playing football, and always stayed positive. That’s him, regardless of what’s going on. He is the most positive person I know. That has never changed since the first day I met him.

“If I’m feeling bad, I always call Bernie. He has taken me under his wing. It’s been 35 years. He taught me how to improvise. He was a leader who said, ‘I’m gonna look out for you. I’m gonna always have your back. Let’s go’.”

And Hoard’s not lying. As a hometown hero, Kosar had always lived up to his reputation. As a starter, the quarterback helped lift the team that had gone 5-11 the year before he was drafted to a team that made the playoffs five times in eight years. But the downsides were innumerable, too.

In his 14-year professional career, Kosar was sacked 273 times. He suffered over 100 concussions, 15 seizures, and battled CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by head trauma. At one point in his life, the Super Bowl champ was going 96 hours without sleep, and popping 20 to 30 pills per day to battle “the pain, the pounding, the squeezing of the skull”. His speech slurred over time, which made many think he was drunk during interviews.

One doctor familiar with the situation said Kosar’s brain in CTE scans looked like a blue punching bag. Meanwhile, another doctor opined that the QB’s right frontal lobe was “dead”.

Yet, Bernie Kosar never gave up.

Once he found what worked, he helped spread the word. Kosar contacted NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, aiming to help other players deal with onset dementia, depression or other side-effects of the physicality that the NFL comes with.

“I thought my mission was to play football,” Kosar said in 2023 before embarking on a 5K walk and run for Concussion Legacy Foundation’s Race to End CTE. “Football was the reason why I’m here now to create and show people, not just football players, that there’s a healthy way to come out the other side.”

Unfortunately, the very next year, the 61-year-old’s health started giving out again.

In July 2024, the Pro-Bowler revealed he had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. He was added to the transplant list in late spring and was scheduled for a liver transplant earlier this month. However, the attempt had to be canceled.

Doctors found the original donated liver was infected, which pushed Kosar into a scary stretch of aggressive procedures to stop internal bleeding. So, a second transplant was set for 5 a.m. on November 17.

Bernie Kosar shares update after undergoing liver transplant

Bernie Kosar made sure to keep the Dawg Pound updated, sharing a short clip from the hospital right before he went in.

“Well, it may not be Victory Monday on the football field, but here we are at 4:23 in the morning, University Hospital,” he said. “It’s absolutely Victory Monday for me. So looking forward to literally heading on down right now to get that liver transplant.”

After the surgery, Kosar sent out another message.

“Really excited to be attacking the first day of the rest of my life with the great gifts that I was given yesterday,” he said from his hospital bed, before thanking the donor family. “I will be there for them and that family. I can’t love, thank, and appreciate them enough.”

We’re sure Bernie Kosar’s not lying.