Irv Cross isn't the only player from his hard-knocks football generation with nonstop headaches. At 79, he's also been diagnosed with mild cognitive dementia. He has stopped reading, avoids crowds and no longer drives, fearing he might not remember the way home.
But the gracious former Eagles cornerback, a two-time Pro Bowler who was among the first black athletes to transition successfully from the field to network television, refuses to be bitter. He is reluctant even to elaborate on the physical and mental problems he described in a new biography co-written with Clifton Brown, Bearing the Cross.