Going Deep--Into a Hell : Former Cowboy Richards Has Seen Life Become Anything but Golden Because of Drugs

On his knees, his head aching, his body shaking, his stomach churning, Golden Richards, in a cold sweat, would hover in his bathroom over the toilet in desperate search.

He had to do something. There were no more painkillers--no more Percodan pills--in the medicine cabinet or under the bed or in whatever hole he had chosen as the latest hiding place for his drugs.

His demons demanded immediate satisfaction.

He had consumed the last of his stash. But it was morning and, as was its habit, his body was in the throes of rebellion. He couldn’t keep the damn capsules down.

So after retching, he would clutch the toilet bowl and search and pick for traces of the drugs he had taken minutes earlier. When he had salvaged what he could--sometimes he would be fortunate enough to find whole capsules--he would rinse his reclamation in the sink, pop it in his mouth once more and pray his stomach would not reject it again.

Then, when the aching and shaking and churning subsided and he felt whole and ready to face the world, Golden Richards would dress, put on the smile that turned on a city and go to work as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys.

Still, Richards, who depended on painkillers to play, believed he wasn’t a drug addict. Addicts lived in tattered clothes in dark alleys, mostly in New York City, he thought. Addicts shot heroin into their veins and stole or mugged to get the money to feed their dirty habit.

He was a Dallas Cowboy, which was all he had ever dreamed of being. He used drugs only to stop the pain. And his drugs came from doctors’ prescription pads and friendly pharmacists eager to be of service to a Cowboy star. His drugs were not recreational. He didn’t take them to escape reality.

He took his drugs because they went with the job. No matter how much his head pounded or his back throbbed or his ribs ached, he wanted to play in what he called “Showtime.” His drugs made Sunday afternoons bearable.

A drug addict, he believed, could not play in two Super Bowls. He could not catch the game-clinching touchdown pass in what remains the Cowboys’ last Super Bowl victory. Certainly, if what he was doing was really wrong, someone in the NFL would have noticed and his career would be over.

But no one said a word. The NFL had no drug policy. And so he continued catching passes, allowing his drugs to mask one kind of pain while creating another.

“I never took drugs to get high,” Richards is saying on a January night, one day shy of the 15th anniversary of his Super Bowl XII touchdown catch that clinched the Cowboys’ 27-10 victory over the Denver Broncos. “I took drugs because I couldn’t stand the pain.”

No matter the reason, Richards has learned a new reality. Sitting in a downtown Salt Lake City restaurant, his public defender attorney at his side, Richards acknowledges that he is an addict, dependent on the prescription drugs he started taking, he says, as a Cowboy.

His old coach, Tom Landry, might say he never noticed anything unusual about Richards’ behavior and never suspected the player he worked with for five full seasons had drug problems. But others in the organization, including at least one team doctor, suspected or knew Richards had a problem.

“The organization knew there was a dependency,” said one of the doctors, who declined to be identified. “We tried to help. But a person has to want help. He did not.”

Said former Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach, “Every player has taken pain pills. Obviously, players take them when they have pain. Toward the end, I had a feeling that something wasn’t right with him. But I didn’t recognize the severity of Golden’s problems until much later. I had lunch with Golden about 10 years later, and I understood soon after we sat down.”

Tex Schramm, the Cowboys’ president and general manager during Richards’ tenure from 1973 through 1978, says he doesn’t “have a recollection” of Richards’ problem.

“But I’m not saying it’s not true,” he added.

Richards was still a Cowboy when he had to be taken by ambulance to Baylor University Medical Center on an April night in 1978 for what he and his former wife call a drug overdose.

And it wasn’t long after the Cowboys had traded Richards to the Chicago Bears--five months after the overdose--that Jim Finks, then Chicago’s general manager, learned of Richards’ drug problem.

Finks, now the president of the New Orleans Saints, said that the Bears’ trainer and team doctor told him that Illinois drug enforcement agencies monitoring prescription drug sales were looking into Richards’ propensity for buying large quantities of Percodan, a strong pain-killing narcotic. He knew, he said, as he knew the Cowboys had known before him.

But now, on this snowy winter night, as he chain-smokes cigarettes and eats a steak dinner, all that matters little to Richards.

His hair is shorter than the flowing blond mane Cowboy fans remember. And his hazel eyes, cradled by dark semicircles, have lost their sparkle. He is trim and fit and still quick with the one-liners as advertised. He hardly fits his stereotype of an addict.

“I’ve been in hell, and it’s not pretty,” Richards says. “But I made my own hell.”

Richards is 42. He and Barbara, his first wife, were divorced in 1984 after 10 years of marriage. He married again. That marriage lasted less than a year.

Three times, Richards has been through drug rehabilitation programs. Three times, he has returned to his painkillers.

On Dec. 14, he was arrested in a Salt Lake City suburb and accused of forging his father’s signature on 16 checks totaling $664.88. The money had gone to buy prescription painkillers.

When the news hit the Salt Lake City newspapers, Richards says, he was fired from his construction job. The owner of the condominium where he lived called soon after to tell him he had to leave. The apartment, he was told, had been sold. Some of his Super Bowl memorabilia, including the game jersey he wore against the Broncos, has been used to pay debts.

Richards is penniless. He is jobless. And for five weeks he has been homeless, floating at night from friend’s home to friend’s home.

On Dec. 31, his 42nd birthday, he was arraigned in a suburban Salt Lake City circuit court on seven counts of forgery. He already has signed what amounts to a confession. He faces up to 35 years in prison if his court-appointed public defender is unsuccessful in getting the charges reduced from third-degree felonies to misdemeanors.

“Not quite what the golden boy had in mind for a birthday party. Not what . . . “ Richards says, his voice trailing off.

If ever there was a player who fit the image of the Super Bowl Cowboy teams of the late 1970s, it was Richards.

He was brought up in a devout Mormon family in Salt Lake City and christened with a name that seemed to foretell his future.

Golden Richards, as his religion dictated, abstained from alcohol and tobacco as a student at Granite High.

His family, which included five brothers and a sister, lived modestly. There was no extra money for the youth league football Golden wanted to play. But he needed no one to show him how to play the game in high school. He could catch the football and run like the wind.

And when he wasn’t playing football, he was playing basketball or running track.

He met Barbara Lynn Johnson when both were in the eighth grade. They didn’t date until their senior year of high school. He was too busy with sports. She was too busy modeling.

They began dating seriously when he went off to nearby Brigham Young University.

But Brigham Young in those days was no place for a wide receiver with dreams of professional football. Richards caught only 14 passes in his junior year as the Cougars shuffled three quarterbacks in and out. But he did manage to lead the nation in punt returns.

In 1972, he transferred to the University of Hawaii, because the coach there liked to pass and it was the one place he could go and not have to wait a year to be eligible for football. But he played only six games there before suffering an injured right knee and undergoing season-ending surgery in early November.

When the Cowboys chose Richards during the second round of the 1973 draft, it was as much for his ability as a punt returner as a wide receiver. Richards, who had worn No. 22 at BYU in honor of Cowboy receiver Bob Hayes, was “stunned” that he was selected so high. But the Cowboys’ computer liked his size and speed and predicted great things for him in the NFL.

No one told the computer that the doctors in Hawaii had privately predicted to Richards that his knee had been so damaged, he would never play football again.

“But football was my life,” he says. “Nothing was going to stop me.”

In Dallas, Richards joined the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Big Brothers. He was active in the Special Olympics and the West Texas Boys Ranch. His looks were movie star. His personality was pleasing. His wit was sharp. His name was a public relations dream. Barbara, whom he married in July after his rookie season, seemed the perfect complement.

When youth organizations asked for a Cowboy to speak on the evils of drug or alcohol abuse, it was often Richards they requested. Barbara says there were weeks when her husband received 1,000 pieces of fan mail.

The love affair between Dallas and Richards was deep and genuine. He almost never declined an invitation to speak or make a public appearance. And he couldn’t buy a meal at a restaurant.

“People would do anything for me,” he says. “I loved Dallas and the people in Texas, and I believe they liked me.”

But he was only 6 feet tall and hardly the 180 pounds the game programs advertised. Week in and week out, his body took poundings. His ribs took turns cracking on impact. His back was always sore.

And his face, that golden face, ached the most. Trauma from too many hits, doctors told him. Seven times, dentists had to perform root canals to repair damage from blows that penetrated his face mask.

After one of the early root canals, Richards’ teeth began graying. The dentist suggested capping them. But there were problems and the teeth had to be filed again.

It was during all the dental work that Richards got his first prescription for the Percodan, recalls Barbara, who has remarried and is now Barbara Dunn.

“Golden never could tolerate pain,” she said. “For him, all the dental work was unbearable.”

He says doctors’ prescriptions were not even necessary to soothe the pain, so long as he knew a Cowboy-friendly pharmacist.

“When I first started getting busted up bad, I started using the Percodan,” he says. “There was no prescription. Dallas Cowboys didn’t need that in those days.

“There was a pharmacist. All the players knew him. For two tickets to a game, he gave you free rein in his candy store.”

Richards says the Cowboys didn’t force the pills down his throat, but he thought it better to take them and play than not take them and and not play.

“When I was hurting, which was often, I was told you can sit out a week or we’ll give you an anti-inflammatory drug to control the swelling and something else to control the pain,” he says. “Understand, I’m an athlete, trained to compete. At noon on Sunday it was important to be there when the bell rang. We called kickoff ‘Showtime.’ Being right for Showtime was all that mattered.”

Dunn said that as Richards’ injuries mounted and he needed more and more Percodan to find relief, he began taking more and more painkiller.

“He had a great fear of losing his starting position,” she said. “But then that was compounded by the fear that he would be exposed. He couldn’t tell anyone about his problems. There was such a tremendous amount of pressure for maintaining an image. He was one of the fair-haired boys on America’s team.”

She said her pleadings went unheeded. Richards told her he would stop. But she would find pills hidden around the house. Even when there were no apparent injuries, he popped pills. The pills he took after practice made him drowsy, often lethargic.

In the middle of the night, Barbara would periodically wake, turn over and check him.

“He was taking so much,” she said. “He was consumed. I was afraid. I just wanted to make sure he was still breathing.”

So he would not have to hover over a toilet during the hoopla and glorious chaos surrounding Super Bowl XII, Richards packed an extra bag for the Cowboys’ trip to New Orleans.

His ribs had been cracked early in Super Bowl X, forcing him out of the game. Nothing, he was determined, would keep him from playing again.

Game days were always the toughest for Richards. He had to balance his body’s cravings with a need to remain sharp.

During the 1977 NFC championship game against the Minnesota Vikings, which led to the Super Bowl XII trip, Richards caught a 32-yard touchdown pass from Staubach to open the Cowboys’ scoring.

After the game, while his teammates celebrated, he wept uncontrollably outside Texas Stadium.

“I had to pull off to the side of the road,” he says. “I had decided to get help after the season. I knew then it would be two more weeks of propagating my addiction. I cried my heart out.”

But he performed his balancing act masterfully once more on Super Bowl Sunday against the Denver Broncos.

When Staubach called “brown right, x-opposite shift, toss 38, halfback lead, fullback pass to Y” in the huddle, Richards knew exactly what to do. And while Staubach lateraled the ball to running back Robert Newhouse, Richards faked a block and ran 29 yards to catch Newhouse’s touchdown pass, the game clincher.

“People always think of that game as the highlight of my career, but it wasn’t,” Richards says. “Every game I played was the highlight. Having my mates hold me up in the huddle when I had just gotten nailed and the wind knocked out of me, that was the highlight. The camaraderie of the game, every game, that was the highlight.”

Richards retreated to Salt Lake City after the Super Bowl celebration ended. He found a doctor who began helping wean him from the drugs.

But there was a scheduled April Fool’s Day speaking engagement in West Texas. Golden and Barbara returned to Dallas.

“It was Abilene or Amarillo, I don’t remember,” Dunn said. “I do remember I didn’t want him to go. I was worried.”

In West Texas, where part of his speech addressed the evils of drug abuse, Richards got his hands on a prescription.

“It was a little more than he could handle,” Dunn said.

And back in his North Dallas home on the night of April 2, he collapsed. Barbara called an ambulance and then called one of the Cowboy team doctors and asked him to meet them at the hospital.

“It wasn’t an overdose,” said Pat Evans, now medical director of the Tom Landry Sports Medicine and Research Center. “It wasn’t that bad.

“But he had a problem. I don’t know if he was an addict, but he was abusing the stuff.”

Evans said he never would have prescribed a narcotic such as Percodan for any Cowboy, and that when Richards was released from the hospital the next day, he recommended treatment for drug abuse.

Richards attended one session at a drug rehabilitation center and never returned.

“He always said he didn’t have a problem,” Evans said. “He said he just needed something for the pain.”

Richards never played another regular-season game for the Cowboys. Tony Hill replaced him in the starting lineup for the 1978 Monday night season opener against the Baltimore Colts. And on Tuesday morning, Richards, who had caught 89 passes for 1,648 yards and 16 touchdowns in his five seasons with the Cowboys, was traded to the Bears.

He played 15 games with them in 1978 and caught a career-high 28 passes.

“Golden was a good player for us,” Finks said. “I don’t remember specifics, but his problems never seemed to affect him on the field.”

Off the field, Richards recalls standing outside supermarkets near the Bears’ Lake Forest practice facility, waiting for the doors to open.

“It was me and the winos,” he says. “They couldn’t wait for their wine. I couldn’t wait for my prescriptions.”

Richards caught five passes for the Bears the next season, then was put on the injured-reserve list for the last two months after his right knee was injured again. And after the season, he learned that he had played those five games despite a broken arm.

In April of 1980, the Bears released him.

He tried to catch on with the Denver Broncos, but suffered a hand injury before training camp opened and was cut.

At 28, Golden Richards was finished as an NFL player.

But even former players maintain an aura. Richards had little trouble finding doctors and pharmacists still willing to do him favors.

“Golden was a charismatic person who was articulate and outgoing and kind, and people always responded to him,” Dunn said. “His method of operation was always the same. ‘Gee, I have a toothache,’ he would say. And doctors wrote him prescriptions. In Dallas, in Utah, it didn’t matter.”

He did some television work in Chicago and was the original host of the “ESPN Outdoors” series. But eventually, he returned to Salt Lake City and took a public-relations job with an energy company.

Dunn said she quickly realized that the end of football would not mean the end of her husband’s problem.

“I truly thought that trying to play with pain was Golden’s problem,” she said. “I thought that when he stopped playing, it would change. It didn’t.”

In March of 1984, Barbara and Golden Richards’ marriage ended.

“I finally gave up,” she said.

In July, 1984, Richards checked into a Salt Lake City drug rehabilitation facility, St. Benedict’s ACT Center, for the first of his three stays there.

“It helped for a while, but I wasn’t ready to quit,” he says. “I wasn’t ready until now.”

His December arrest, he says, has changed everything.

“You cannot fall any lower than standing there handcuffed with the only way out being to die,” he says.

And Richards, who began drinking after retiring from football, has enrolled in a hospital outpatient program and joined a local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. He is also preparing to begin speaking to youth groups on the evils of addiction.

In an after-dinner walk amid the falling snow, Richards points to restaurants and hotels. He had dinner with Willie Nelson at this one. And that’s where his friend Kris Kristofferson used to stay.

And as he prepares to say good night, Richards says, “This has been a horrible, horrible way of life. I will not lie. Like any addict, I have been deceitful, manipulative and cunning.

“People who suffer from my kind of addiction can lose everything that means everything to you.

“I know. I have.”