Long After His Retirement, Morris Still Making Claims

Morris is aware that people have trouble understanding the complexities of what he's saying. He realizes that not everyone devours piles of legal papers the way he does, nor do they write dozens of them a year. He will stay up all night talking about the plan if you wish. He rarely sleeps, burning off energy by working out for two hours at 10 o'clock every night. And even after that, he often takes a pill just to fall asleep at 3 or 4 in the morning.

"He needs to physically shut down the machine," said Gita Sekhri, the Frenchwoman who lives with Morris. He has no formal legal training other than watching countless episodes of "Matlock" and "Perry Mason." Nor does he type, which means that Gita must transcribe all of his briefs and letters at night after she is done with her day job. She does not object to this. Morris is doing important work, she said.

But don't assume he is a crazy old football player. He hates when people underestimate him. Those who know him well say he might be the most intelligent person they know. "He's too smart," Gita said. Already, Morris claims to have won two favorable small-claims settlements with people who have "crossed" him -- a lawyer who tried to bilk him on speaking fees and an electronics store that lost a piece of his radio and tried to cover it up.

He says he is sure the retirement plan is working against the players by making it impossible for a retiree from a violent game to collect disability. He said that 50 to 60 percent of the players leave the game because of a disability, but that only 1.7 percent collect disability benefits.

The league says there is no data to prove exactly how many players leave the game because of injury.

And as word has gotten out among retired players that Morris has become consumed with the retirement plan, several of them have sought his counsel. And the more he reads their files, the more shocked he becomes.

For instance, Don Besselieu, a 50-year-old former Dolphin who has a similarly fused vertebrae and has had schizophrenia diagnosed, was turned down for degenerative disability benefits. This was in part, he said, because in a conversation with the doctor the plan sent him to see, Besselieu mentioned that he cut his children's hair to save money and also that he felt badly for the troops stationed in Iraq. The doctor wrote in the report that Besselieu wanted to find work as a master barber in Iraq and thus was employable.

Morris seethes when he sees a comment in a 2005 Wall Street Journal story from Douglas Ell, the plan's attorney from the Washington-based Groom Law Group, boasting that courts ruled that 16 of the 20 lawsuits filed by players looking for disability payment were decided in the plan's favor. Two were reversed on appeal and two (including Webster at the time) were in appeals court.

Morris said this is further evidence that the plan is going all out to squelch any attempt by retired players to claim benefits.

Ell would not comment about Morris because the player has pending litigation against the league.

Then Morris mentioned that he and Parrish recently discovered, after sharing information, that the NFL Players Association paid Groom $13 million between 2000 and 2006.

He slams his hand down on the table.