Coronavirus Hits Home for Eddie George

Father of the Tennessee Titans' all-time rushing leader has been diagnosed. The 70-year-old is a resident at a Philadelphia assisted living facility.

The COVID-19 pandemic has become personal for Eddie George.

The Tennessee Titans’ all-time leading rusher revealed Tuesday that his father has been diagnosed with the disease that continues to spread throughout the country. Edward George Sr. is 70 years old and a resident at an assisted living facility in Philadelphia.

“Actually, my father has COVID-19,” George told Nashville television station WKRN (Ch. 2). “We’ll see. He should be OK. He has some underlying medical issues. I haven’t heard anything, so no news is good news.”

The elder George was instrumental in his son’s football career, which included the 1995 Heisman Trophy when he was at Ohio State and nine seasons in the NFL. Eddie George was a four-time Pro Bowler and a 2000 first-team All-Pro. His 10,441 career rushing yards (10,009 of them with the Titans) place him 28 in NFL history.

"My Dad was the one that exposed me to football,” George said in a 2017 episode of A Football Life, the NFL Network’s biography series. “He loved runners that would not just make you miss but just imposed their will on you. He loved Jim Brown, loved Walter Payton, the heart that they played with. I wanted him to talk about me the same way."

That episode also delved into the complicated nature of their particular father-son relationship, which was impacted by the elder George’s drug use during much of his son’s best days in the sport. Eventually, the two rebuilt their connection.

"I wanted [my dad] desperately to get off of it and I was hoping that if he could see me living out his dream or being successful as a football player, that he would get off of the drugs and be straight,” George said.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 825,000 Americans had contracted COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus, and more than 45,000 had died as a result. Worldwide, fatalities are approaching 180,000.