CINCINNATI — The burger is known as “The Godfather,” named after Dontay Corleone, the West Cincinnati child who blossomed right into a star as one of many nation’s prime defensive tackles for his hometown Cincinnati Bearcats in 2023. The best way Tom Scott, proprietor of Bucketheads sports activities bar, noticed it, partnering with an area star with a catchy nickname who, at 335 kilos, appeared like somebody who knew an excellent burger made for good enterprise.
The deal was easy sufficient: Corleone would get $2 for every burger bought — a couple of dozen every week and a pair hundred in the course of the bar’s famed “burger week” promotion. In trade, he would make an occasional in-store look.
Corleone helped choose the substances, too: A home burger topped with pulled pork, American cheese and a fried onion ring. The calorie depend is, nicely …
“If it’s important to ask,” Scott mentioned, “you don’t wish to know.”
Two years after launching their partnership, with faculty soccer’s largest stars routinely pulling in six or seven determine offers, the cash Corleone earns from his burger looks like a relative pittance, Scott mentioned. The factor is, Corleone has by no means complained, by no means requested for extra and by no means turned down an opportunity to assist out the enterprise. The cash was at all times a secondary a part of the deal. For a participant who prides himself on being true to his Cincinnati roots, Corleone takes care of his personal.
“Once I first received to school, my mother mentioned I used to be right here for 3 or 4 years, no switch portal,” Corleone mentioned. “I used to be by no means the man to chase cash. I used to be at all times loyalty over every little thing. I needed that connection.”
So, when a health care provider’s go to to handle nagging again ache in summer time 2024 was a probably career-ending analysis of blood clots in his lung, it wasn’t simply soccer Corleone feared shedding. It was the connection to his metropolis.
As an alternative, it has been the connection that endured, and it’s what carried him — via months of rehab and a season preventing his manner again into sport form — and he has a brand new outlook on his profession. As Corleone and the Bearcats kick off the 2025 season in opposition to Nebraska (9 p.m. ET on Thursday, ESPN), he not sees taking part in at Cincinnati as an act of loyalty — it’s a present.
“By no means take it without any consideration,” Corleone mentioned. “That’s the factor I’m telling the younger guys on a regular basis now. As a result of it will probably all be taken away straight away.”
CORLEONE LIKED TO play basketball to remain in good condition in the course of the offseason, however final June, he seen he couldn’t go quite a lot of journeys up and down the courtroom with out being winded. He talked about it to Cincinnati’s coaching employees, however he thought little of it.
A couple of days later, his again started to harm. Aaron Himmler, Cincinnati’s senior affiliate athletic director for sports activities medication, assumed Corleone had simply tweaked a muscle.
A day after that, Corleone awoke in agony, struggling to breathe. This time, Himmler insisted on a visit to the campus medical heart for a CAT scan.
“We simply needed to ensure nothing bizarre was happening,” Himmler mentioned. “We figured we’d rule issues out.”
Corleone was coming off a stellar 2023 marketing campaign through which he had been among the many nation’s best inside defensive linemen, racking up 11 pressures, 14 run stuffs and three sacks. He was a vital a part of the Bearcats plans in 2024, too, and Corleone assumed he would quickly be off to the NFL.
As an alternative, the radiologist referred to as Himmler again only a few hours after the scans with a grim analysis.
Corleone had a pulmonary embolism — blood clots in one among his lungs. Himmler’s coronary heart sank. A couple of years earlier, one other Cincinnati athlete was given the identical analysis, and for them, it was profession ending.
That was Corleone’s first thought, too.
“I assumed it was throughout with,” Corleone mentioned.
Corleone was distraught. Himmler spent the following few days largely by Corleone’s bedside, urging him to not suppose too far forward. There have been docs who specialised in blood clots. Himmler had handled a couple of of them earlier than. Drugs had gotten higher, too. Himmler promised Cincinnati would “throw the full-court press” on the illness. There was hope, he promised.
However even Himmler wasn’t solely sure.
“I’d be mendacity if I mentioned that didn’t undergo my thoughts [that it could be career ending],” he mentioned. “I knew precisely how large that yr was for him coming off all that success. That highlight was getting actually vivid. It was a deflating second.”
Himmler knew of specialists on the College of North Carolina, and he set a date to fly to Chapel Hill for extra checks and a session with docs there. However there can be a two-week wait earlier than their go to.
That was Corleone’s low level. For 10 days, he barely left his condo. Corleone’s mom, Resheda Myles, would name a couple of instances a day to test on him, and if he didn’t reply, she would drive to his condo and bang on the door till he opened it. She was among the many few folks he spoke to.
“He had excessive hopes of the NFL,” mentioned coach Scott Satterfield. “The thought in his thoughts was he was by no means going to play soccer once more. That’s devastating from a psychological standpoint.”
That his profession is likely to be over was on the entrance of Corleone’s thoughts, however the weight of the loss was worsened as a result of he felt sure he was letting down his household and buddies in Cincinnati.
“I stayed [at UC] as a result of the fan base is sort of a second household for me,” Corleone mentioned. “However you additionally really feel like the entire metropolis’s driving on you. As an athlete, you at all times wish to be like a superhero to folks.”
Simply earlier than he was set to go away for Chapel Hill, Corleone donned a hoodie and made a visit to the grocery retailer down the street from his condo. He saved the hood up and slouched his head, hoping he wouldn’t be seen, however 335-pound defensive tackles have a tendency to face out.
He was strolling into the shop when a lady stopped him.
He froze. He knew what was coming subsequent. Aren’t you Dontay Corleone? What’s the information in your well being? What’s going to occur to the staff with out you?
As an alternative, she put her hand on his arm, appeared him within the eye.
“How are you?” she requested. “Are you OK?”
He practically burst into tears. That straightforward gesture was a reminder of why he was right here. This metropolis liked him as a lot as he liked it.
“There was this darkish cloud over me, like — man, what are folks going to think about me now,” he mentioned. “I don’t suppose she may’ve understood how large that second was for me.”
A couple of days later, on the flight again to Cincinnati, with a contemporary perspective on his analysis and a blueprint from docs on tips on how to fight the blood clots, he turned to Himmler with a smile.
“I be ok with this,” he mentioned. “I’m able to go ahead.”
DURING FALL CAMP final season, Corleone ran. Whereas the remainder of his teammates donned pads and labored via drills, Corleone ran. Not hitting, no contact, simply operating.
“That wasn’t getting me in [football] form, so I knew the season can be completely different,” Corleone mentioned. “I knew it might be arduous. I knew it won’t look good for scouts. However getting again on the sector was what I wanted. If I performed one down, I’d cherish it without end.”
The medical staff at Cincinnati had discovered a regiment of medication that saved the blood clots at bay and exercises that might, steadily, get Corleone again onto the sector, nevertheless it wasn’t till Week 2 of the season that he was formally cleared for contact. For a defensive sort out who makes his dwelling delivering blows to a number of offensive linemen on every snap, that was an issue.
Corleone performed 48 snaps in a loss to Pitt on Sept. 7 — lower than three months after his analysis — and he was winded from the outset. Cincinnati dialed again his workload for the following two weeks, and by October, he began to really feel one thing extra like regular.
He ended 2024 with 26 tackles, 3.5 sacks and 4 QB hurries. Cincinnati ended on a five-game shedding streak.
The season wasn’t what he had hoped, however he was again on the sector, and that was value celebrating, Corleone mentioned.
Cincinnati additionally linked Corleone with former Tennessee offensive lineman Trey Smith, who had been a five-star recruit however practically noticed his profession ended by the same blood-clotting problem. As an alternative, Smith discovered medication that allowed him to return to motion, and he’s now coming into his fifth season within the NFL.
The recommendation Smith provided: Cease making an attempt to be a tricky man.
Instantly it clicked for Corleone. His well being points weren’t one thing to cover from, however relatively one thing to assault.
“The clouds went off, and there’s a giant solar now the place it simply gave me a distinct method,” Corleone mentioned.
Corleone had typically resisted working with trainers early in his profession. He considered accidents as an indication of weak point — one thing to play via, not deal with. Now, he had an entire completely different appreciation for the Cincinnati coaching employees.
Every week, Himmler meets with members of this system’s psychological well being employees, dietitians, power and conditioning coaches and sports activities medication employees for what he calls a “efficiency staff assembly,” going over the newest harm reviews and scheming out sport plans for gamers who wanted further consideration. Corleone preferred the concept, and so he requested to carry a separate assembly, only for him.
“Holistically, he’s leaving no packing containers unchecked,” Himmler mentioned. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any individual as motivated as he’s proper now.”
As a lot because the 2024 marketing campaign felt like a misplaced season at instances, Satterfield mentioned he nonetheless activates the movie and watches in awe as Corleone eats up blockers.
“If you happen to put one man on him, he’s going straight to the backfield,” Satterfield mentioned. “It occurs each time.”
Nonetheless, Satterfield is aware of there’s extra within the tank for his star defender. He’s a yr faraway from the bottom level of his profession, armed with a brand new perspective, with extra maturity.
That is the possibility for Corleone to remind Cincinnati — and the remainder of the school soccer world — what he can do.
Solely, that’s not how Corleone is viewing this season. He insists he isn’t making up for misplaced time or making an attempt to show himself once more to scouts or followers. He’s doing it as a result of he has seen what it appears to be like wish to have soccer practically disappear, and he has promised himself to profit from no matter time he has left to play the sport now.
“You undergo one thing like that and nonetheless have the chance to play, that’s motivating sufficient,” defensive position coach Walter Stewart mentioned. “‘I get to play ball.’ That’s been his method. He’s very grateful.”
IN JUNE, CINCINNATI opened its new efficiency heart and indoor apply facility — 180,000 sq. toes of state-of-the-art design that, Satterfield mentioned, marked a watershed second in this system’s climb from the Group of 5 to the higher echelons of the game.
The occasion was attended by dignitaries from round campus, with an official ribbon chopping by Satterfield, AD John Cunningham and, on the fringe of the stage, the child from West Cincinnati.
Himmler couldn’t assist however take a second to contemplate how far Corleone had are available in that second. He arrived on campus as a quiet, understated 18-year-old, frivolously recruited and desirous to show himself.
And now …
“Now he talks to donors,” Himmler mentioned. “He’s chopping ribbons. The mountain of issues he’s needed to overcome — there’s simply a lot progress.”
Satterfield factors to Cincinnati’s personal trajectory over the previous 4 years: A training change, a transfer to the Large 12, shedding seasons and hope for a breakthrough. All of it mirrors Corleone’s personal journey.
In an period through which gamers would possibly by no means construct a bond with a campus or neighborhood, Corleone has change into the epitome of what it means to be at — and be from — Cincinnati.
It’s the explanation Corleone was there on stage, snipping a ribbon on the most important funding this system has made into soccer in a technology. He’s the face of Cincinnati, and it’s the position he has at all times needed.
“He loves having a legacy in Cincinnati,” Satterfield mentioned. “He eats it up. He loves town, and town loves him.”
A couple of weeks earlier than the ribbon chopping, Corleone purchased a home with cash he earned from NIL and income sharing and, in fact, gross sales of hamburgers he can not eat. It’s a four-bed, four-bath brick residence with burgundy shutters. It’s simply two blocks from the home he grew up in, the place a single mother raised three youngsters to work arduous and cherish their roots.
Corleone has eyes on one other home, too. He needs to purchase one for his mother, however he’s ready it out. After his first large NFL contract, he mentioned he’ll get her the house of her goals — large, lovely and in any locale she needs. She has earned an opportunity to dwell in a paradise of her selecting.
Corleone hopes that is the season every little thing clicks to make that dream a actuality. He’ll put up large numbers, wow NFL scouts, lead Cincinnati again to a bowl or, perhaps, a Large 12 title. However his home, the one he purchased this summer time, is about his previous, how far he has come and the folks and town that helped him get right here.
“It nonetheless hits me how loopy it’s,” Corleone mentioned. “I got here from nothing. Now I do know wherever I’m going, I’ll at all times have a house in Cincinnati.”
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