Only 49ers willing to take look at player who has MS

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — “We wouldn’t touch him.”

That was the message agent Joe Linta received from an American Football Conference executive this spring about his client, Khiawatha Downey, one of the better college offensive linemen in the nation last season.

It wasn’t Downey’s size, his 40-yard dash time or his attitude that turned the executive away, Linta said. Rather it was two words in his medical chart.

Following the 2000 season, when he was a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, Downey was being examined for a shoulder injury when doctors discovered he had multiple sclerosis, a disease that attacks the central nervous system.

Though Downey, like many people with MS, had no symptoms and may not until he’s much older, NFL teams treated him as if he had leprosy.

The Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles showed mild interest leading up to last month’s draft, Downey said, but his phone never rang on draft weekend. It stayed silent in subsequent days when teams scramble for warm bodies to fill their spring minicamps.

“It was 100 percent ignorance,” a frustrated Linta said. “There are a lot of misconceptions out there.”

In the end, only the San Francisco 49ers called. Sunday, Downey finished a three-day tryout with the team.

Though he was led to believe he would be drafted — publications listed him as a fifth-round pick — Downey said he holds no grudges.

After all, when doctors first said the words “multiple sclerosis,” he, too, had images of wheelchairs, walkers and worse.

“I thought I was going to die,” recalls Downey, who said he fell into a deep depression following the diagnosis.

But the more Downey, 24, learned about MS, the more he realized it was other people’s expectations, not his health, that would be his biggest obstacle.

He discovered people like talk show host Montel Williams have MS, but lead healthy, normal lives. He learned how to give himself once-a-week injections of Avonex, a drug designed to keep the disease at bay. And he decided instead of yielding to other people’s assumptions, he would try to change how they thought about multiple sclerosis.

“Take Montel. He shows up at work every morning,” Downey said. “He looks like he stays in great shape. So I said. ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ I’d like to be a standard bearer for (MS).”

Dr. Rock Heyman is a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a national expert on MS. He examined Downey before the draft and pronounced him perfectly fit for an NFL career.

While progressive forms of MS can make simple maneuvers like walking or climbing stairs monumental tasks, Heyman said, only a small percentage of patients reach that stage.

Unfortunately, he said, most people, including many doctors, still associate the disease with the worst cases.

He said Downey’s condition was caught early, and that with the proper medication, he should live a very normal life.

“It’s totally unfounded,” he said of concerns about Downey’s health. “I’d certainly love to see him prove everybody wrong.”

Another person with faith in Downey is 49ers running back Kevan Barlow, a former Pittsburgh teammate.

Barlow said he remembered a game against North Carolina four years ago in which Pitt’s senior left tackle was being dominated by North Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers, now with the Carolina Panthers.

So the coaches called in Downey to see if he could offer better protection.

“He shut (Peppers) down,” Barlow recalled. “I used to love running behind that guy. He was good.”

Still, Downey is a longshot to make the 49ers’ final roster. There is no guarantee he will be invited back to the team’s next minicamp in June.

The 6-4, 325-pound Downey also is trying to make the 49ers as a right tackle, a crowded position after the 49ers signed free agent Greg Randall this off-season to back up starter Scott Gragg.