Can This Man Save Football?

Byron Donzis did not start out to save football by intention. Indeed, it was more a chance accident, the result of an offhand comment. The inventor had been talking to the Army in the early Seventies about an air-inflated combat boot, but those discussions had turned to something more practical--an undercushion for a bulletproof flak jacket. "What they had could stop the bullets," explains Donzis, "but not the shock." He came up with a nylon-coated urethane device that looked like black Swiss cheese. Lightweight, it had numerous interlocking spaces for air pockets, it could be filled to a comfortable pressure and, best of all, it absorbed shock and transferred it around the jacket. He named the system Donzis Variable Pressure.

One fall day in 1978, a friend spied one of the flak vests hanging in the garage of Donzis' Houston house. "I'll tell ya," said the friend, "Pastorini sure could of used that last Sunday."

Indeed, Oilers quarterback Dan Pastorini was at that moment lying in a Houston hospital, nursing broken ribs. Most people would have laughed and brushed off the remark, but not Donzis. He approached the Oilers team physician, Dr. Tom Cain, and asked if the team might be interested in the flak jacket for Pastorini. Dr. Cain thought it might have promise and said he'd mention it to the quarterback; but through a mix-up, Donzis headed to see Pastorini before Dan knew he was coming.

Donzis and a friend marched into Pastorini's room. If nurses had spied them carrying a baseball bat and that black gear, they'd have thought for sure he was a Steeler assassin, but no one, fortunately, stopped Donzis. The groggy Pastorini looked up.

"I've got something to show you, Dan," said Donzis. "Just watch." Donzis lifted his arms in the air, his friend choked up on the aluminum bat and swung away, bash, right into Donzis' ribs. Pastorini cringed. Donzis didn't blink. Pastorini didn't know what the hell was going on but was aware enough to mumble, "I got to get me one of those."

"I knew that was stooping to dramatics," Donzis confesses. "But it sure gets your attention." Indeed.

It took a couple of games to work out the bugs, but the jacket seemed to give Pastorini protection without hindering his throwing. After a play-off game, a writer from Sports Illustrated noticed the unusual piece of equipment and asked where Pastorini had gotten it. "Suddenly, from that mention in Sports Illustrated," says Donzis, "I was an interesting story."

And it started Donzis on an interesting line of thought. If the flak jacket worked, why not a whole set of pads made with the stuff: shoulder pads, thigh pads, kidney pads, the works? It would be at least ten pounds lighter than the average N.F.L. gear, offer more mobility and absorb greater shock. If it could cushion a bullet, why not pit it against Jack Lambert?

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"I think this stuff may prevent 85 percent of football injuries," Donzis says. Eighty-five percent? "Yeah, and I see no reason why we can't go for 100. But that would mean going to work on a new helmet. You'd have to have a series of straps and such to hold the helmet in place to the rest of your equipment, so the head couldn't be pulled to a crucial point." Wouldn't that be a bit much? Donzis shrugs. "It's something I've just started on."

Get Donzis warmed up and the ideas roll forth like the Crimson Tide over Lubbock Christian College. Using Donzis Variable Pressure, he toys with protective sports equipment for nearly every sport imaginable. There is an inflatable saddle for cowboys. He's thinking of applying his system to luggage, automobile bumpers and God knows what.

Donzis also launches into his idea for an inflatable field, which is not as wacky as it initially sounds. It would be an undercovering for an artificial surface. "You can inflate it so it's as hard as concrete," he explains, "but you'd want to find just the right pressure for the pros. They wouldn't know they were playing on an inflated surface. For younger players, you could make it softer and it still wouldn't affect performance."

N.F.L. officials decided they could pass on some of these latter ideas, but they did have enough presence of mind to take a look at the pneumatic equipment. They signed a contract providing Donzis with $40,000 in research money, and later chipped in an additional $50,000.

"I've been around football for 40 years," says Bill Granholm, the man in charge of special projects for the league. "I've seen lots of guys come down the pike with new ideas and new inventions. There have been some real weirdos. But Byron's stuff is not that far out. In fact, it's quite practical. You can protect a guy completely, bulk him up with so much equipment that he's never going to get hurt. But then you're not going to have very interesting football." Granholm says the league does everything it can to prevent injuries. They can't legislate that players wear certain types of protective gear, but they can certainly encourage its development.

"Byron's gear is light, and that's perhaps its most important feature," says Granholm. "And it does seem to stop the shock, absorbs blows real well. No, I wouldn't let Byron hit me with his baseball bat."

The Donzis pads are, in fact, extremely light, which he feels will give the players greater mobility. "That means they are going to run faster, hit harder and play a better game of football," says Donzis. But if they hit harder, won't players be hurt more often? "The pads more than compensate for the shock," he stresses. "I'm making these so the boys can bang into each other full speed, every play, and walk away from it. It means the teams will have lower medical bills, players will be healthier more of the time and play to their potential. I want it to take away the injury factor that can sink a great team come play-off time."

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The players may come through better, but there are some concerns about the pads. "What bugs me about Byron," says one N.F.L. trainer, "is that he never finishes the detail work on something before he goes into a new idea. We've been hearing his promises about this fabulous new stuff for two years and we've yet to see something that's right."

Indeed, his first generation of equipment was something of a failure because, for one thing, the pads didn't look much like traditional pads. Says Granholm, "They looked like something you'd wear on Mars. Players won't try something unless it looks familiar, and it's got to be something they can get on and off easily."

"I've heard they haven't held up very well," adds Otho Davis, trainer for the Philadelphia Eagles. "When you're paying $250 for a pad, you expect it to hold up, 'cause you can't afford to have another set sitting on the side line." Other trainers mention the costs as prohibitive.

Donzis is aware of the complaints, some of which he takes well and others of which he doesn't. "You can fix a pad in 45 seconds and pump it right back up," he says. "And as for cost, once we start manufacturing, we have a die where we just stamp out the urethane, put in a valve, put on the plastic covering and it's ready. We can make thousands of them in a day. And the cost will be competitive, or even cheaper than the pads players are now wearing."

Tex Schramm, president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, is a member of the league's competition committee, which is reviewing the pads and OKing them for trial use this season. Schramm feels the pads have potential, but not the 85 percent injury reduction that Donzis foresees. "I think that's a bit optimistic," he laughs. "But, hey, I want to have Byron optimistic. It's just that the pads aren't going to stop broken bones or the knee injuries that are so common to football. When a guy falls on his elbow and separates his shoulder, nothing is going to stop that, so you're always going to have injuries."

He does see a benefit in the blow-type injuries, the hip pointers, Charley horses and cracked ribs that can be stopped if players will wear the pads. But getting them to wear extra protection is the rub, says Jerry Rhae, trainer for the Atlanta Falcons. "Our players are so psyched about weight that they will strip a thigh pad to bare nothing, or not wear it at all. They won't wear it until they're hurt. It's like a seat belt in a car. So I really wonder if guys will wear Byron's stuff, like the flak jacket, until they've got cracked ribs."

Rhae does admire Donzis and his work. "I'm skeptical until I see it mass-produced and see it holding up through game after game, but I've got one wide receiver who's a walking testimonial to the flak jacket. He had some serious rib and internal injuries, but with the jacket, he's not afraid to go across the middle and take his shots."

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It's a spring day in Houston and the Oilers headquarters is abuzz with the trade of Pastorini to the Raiders for Ken Stabler. But in coach Bum Phillips' office, another acquisition is being considered. Donzis is showing off his "almost complete" set of pads. "Coach," says Donzis, "I guess I'm just not smart enough to figure an easier way to fasten the pads on. The ties will work for now; maybe next year I can get something out."

Phillips, between spitting big drools of tobacco juice into a wastebasket, tells Donzis not to worry. He holds a shoulder pad in one of his meaty hands, lifting it lightly. "Damn, this is light," says Phillips. "And I like the way you can replace some of the padding instead of the whole thing."

"You can do a repair in 45 seconds, coach," says Donzis, who's primed to allay any of the objections the trainers might have. "Look at the material. I've come up with a solution that you spray on the pads after the game: and when it's dry, in a couple of hours, the stuff is clean and disinfected. And the stuff lets heat out, too. You know what a three-degree difference in temperature can mean to a player on the field. This thing actually pumps air across the player's body."

Phillips appears impressed. "I was a little leery at first, Byron," he tells the inventor. "'cause that stuff you sent us looked like it was from the moon. I thought. That old boy is smart, but maybe too smart. But this here looks like a real pad. You know, I like the way it absorbs shock, but I got to see it in action. Gawd, get me a pair, Byron, so I can put it on two big ol' hogs and let 'em butt each other. Put one on Mauck [Carl Mauck, the Oilers' Neanderthal center] and let him grunt it out. That'll be the proof."

"You'll have it for the minicamps, coach," says Donzis. Phillips then looks down at Donzis' feet. He and all the Oilers assistants who have gathered in the office are wearing cowboy boots. Donzis has bare feet in loafers.

"Like your socks, Byron," says Phillips, shaking his head.

"Thanks, coach," says Donzis, knowing that football coaches, like businessmen, are baffled by the flippant and unencumbered mores of an inventor who's under a full head of steam with his ideas. Indeed, Phillips may never know what makes Donzis tick, but when he lays the pad over his knee and slaps a palm against the outside plastic shell and feels no jolt against his leg; that is something he can understand.

"Byron," says a satisfied Phillips, "this is going to make a lot more mommas let their kids play football."