Former Oakland Raider Barret Robbins’ mental health struggles were a lifelong battle
Super Bowl XXXIX week was winding down, a turbo-charged five days in Jacksonville, Fla. churning out stories in the backdrop of the Sunday title game between the defending champion Patriots and the Eagles, who had finally slayed the NFC Championship Game hex after three previous tries.
An interview with iconic Eagle Chuck Bednarik – “Concrete Charlie” – about his flattening of Frank Gifford in a 1960 game; a feature on nearby William Raines High School, where current Eagles Brian Dawkins and Lito Sheppard were alumni; chasing mouthy Eagles wideout Freddie Mitchell around Alltel Stadium on media day and documenting his boasts.
But in the middle of the media blitz, Barret Robbins dropped into my assignment bag. The mammoth former Oakland Raiders center – who had gone AWOL twenty-four hours before the start of Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego two years earlier, when Robbins’ Raiders played Tampa Bay – was in a life-threatening situation about 350 miles south in Miami Beach.
Only a few weeks before the start of the Super Bowl between the Pats and Eagles, three Miami Beach officers had responded to a possible burglary in a commercial building on Washington Avenue, but instead found the 31-year-old Robbins barefoot and disoriented in a women’s restroom.
According to an arrest report and testimonials, a violent altercation ensued between police and the 6’3 Robbins, whose playing weight was 320 pounds. All three officers were injured during the melee, and one of them, Mike Muley, fired five shots, two of which hit Robbins in his mid-section. One bullet pierced Robbins’ heart, but he miraculously survived the shooting and ended up at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, hooked up to a ventilator and in a semi-comatose state. He was later charged with three felony counts of attempted murder.
By the time I co-wrote the story on Robbins with my Daily News colleague Mike O’Keeffe, Robbins was still hospitalized. The details of his troubled past – bipolar disorder, past concerning incidents and behavior, divorce from his wife Marisa, cut from the Raiders after a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs, and, of course, the Super Bowl disappearance – became public again or surfaced for the first time.
A Battle with Mental Illness
It was several years before the concussion-football-head trauma link engulfed the headlines and the NFL, and years before pro athletes like Dak Prescott or Naomi Osaka spoke publicly about mental health challenges.
“I was out of my mind, out of control,” Robbins told Andrea Kremer in 2009. “My life was unmanageable. I was completely living in a fantasy world. In my mind, we had already won the Super Bowl, and we were celebrating. That’s how delusional I was.”
Kremer was one of scores of voices who expressed their sadness after Robbins’ death was announced by the Raiders late last month. He was 52, but no cause was given in the team’s statement that paid tribute to their former center.
The Raiders’ official statement noted: “Oakland’s second-round draft pick out of TCU in 1995, he was among the league’s top centers over nine seasons… earning first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors in 2002.”
Memories of a “Gentle Side”
Marisa Robbins, Barret’s ex-wife, chose to honor the father of their two daughters, Madison and Marley, with deep empathy. She posted on Instagram: “Our hearts are broken… Barret, you were so loved by so many. I pray you are pain free now.”
Ed O’Donnell Sr., Robbins’ former attorney, remembered him fondly despite the struggles. “He was a really good fella. Loved his little girls,” O’Donnell said. He recalled a time when Robbins, a giant of a man, sat quietly at a children’s Christmas show to watch O’Donnell’s daughter perform.
Legacy and Change
Former Raiders CEO Amy Trask said Robbins was the inspiration behind the “Big3 Be Well” mental health policy. She hopes such programs will be adopted by all sports leagues to help players who might be suffering in silence.
Robbins’ journey was marked by incredible highs on the field and devastating lows off it, but those who knew him best remember the “softness” and the man behind the headlines.