Despite a grim diagnosis, a deep connection to Cincinnati kept Dontay Corleone going

CINCINNATI -- The burger is called "The Godfather," named after Dontay Corleone, the West Cincinnati kid who blossomed into a star as one of the nation's top defensive tackles for his hometown Cincinnati Bearcats in 2023. The way Tom Scott, owner of Bucketheads sports bar, saw it, partnering with a local star with a catchy nickname who, at 335 pounds, looked like someone who knew a good burger made for good business.

The deal was simple enough: Corleone would get $2 for each burger sold -- a few dozen a week and a couple hundred during the bar's famed "burger week" promotion. In exchange, he would make an occasional in-store appearance.

Corleone helped select the ingredients, too: A house burger topped with pulled pork, American cheese and a fried onion ring. The calorie count is, well ...

"If you have to ask," Scott said, "you don't want to know."

Two years after launching their partnership, with college football's biggest stars routinely pulling in six or seven figure deals, the money Corleone earns from his burger seems like a relative pittance, Scott said. The thing is, Corleone has never complained, never asked for more and never turned down a chance to help out the business. The money was always a secondary part of the deal. For a player who prides himself on being true to his Cincinnati roots, Corleone takes care of his own.

"When I first got to college, my mom said I was here for three or four years, no transfer portal," Corleone said. "I was never the guy to chase money. I was always loyalty over everything. I wanted that connection."

So, when a doctor's visit to address nagging back pain in summer 2024 turned into a potentially career-ending diagnosis of blood clots in his lung, it wasn't just football Corleone feared losing. It was the connection to his city.

Instead, it has been the connection that endured, and it's what carried him -- through months of rehab and a season fighting his way back into game shape -- and he has a new outlook on his career. As Corleone and the Bearcats kick off the 2025 season against Nebraska (9 p.m. ET on Thursday, ESPN), he no longer sees playing at Cincinnati as an act of loyalty -- it's a gift.

"Never take it for granted," Corleone said. "That's the thing I'm telling the young guys all the time now. Because it can all be taken away in an instant."

CORLEONE LIKED TO play basketball to stay in good shape during the offseason, but last June, he noticed he couldn't go more than a few trips up and down the court without being winded. He mentioned it to Cincinnati's training staff, but he thought little of it.

A few days later, his back began to hurt. Aaron Himmler, Cincinnati's senior associate athletic director for sports medicine, assumed Corleone had just tweaked a muscle.

A day after that, Corleone woke up in agony, struggling to breathe. This time, Himmler insisted on a trip to the campus medical center for a CAT scan.

"We just wanted to make sure nothing weird was going on," Himmler said. "We figured we'd rule things out."

Corleone was coming off a stellar 2023 campaign in which he had been among the nation's most effective interior defensive linemen, racking up 11 pressures, 14 run stuffs and three sacks. He was a crucial part of the Bearcats plans in 2024, too, and Corleone assumed he would soon be off to the NFL.

Instead, the radiologist called Himmler back just a few hours after the scans with a grim diagnosis.

Corleone had a pulmonary embolism -- blood clots in one of his lungs. Himmler's heart sank. A few years earlier, another Cincinnati athlete was given the same diagnosis, and for them, it was career ending.

That was Corleone's first thought, too.

"I thought it was all over with," Corleone said.

Corleone was distraught. Himmler spent the next few days mostly by Corleone's bedside, urging him not to think too far ahead. There were doctors who specialized in blood clots. Himmler had dealt with a few of them before. Medicine had gotten better, too. Himmler promised Cincinnati would "throw the full-court press" at the disease. There was hope, he promised.

But even Himmler wasn't entirely certain.

"I'd be lying if I said that didn't go through my mind [that it could be career ending]," he said. "I knew exactly how big that year was for him coming off all that success. That spotlight was getting really bright. It was a deflating moment."

Himmler knew of specialists at the University of North Carolina, and he set a date to fly to Chapel Hill for more tests and a consultation with doctors there. But there would be a two-week wait before their visit.

That was Corleone's low point. For 10 days, he barely left his apartment. Corleone's mother, Resheda Myles, would call a few times a day to check on him, and if he didn't answer, she would drive to his apartment and bang on the door until he opened it. She was among the few people he spoke to.

"He had high hopes of the NFL," said coach Scott Satterfield. "The thought in his mind was he was never going to play football again. That's devastating from a mental standpoint."

That his career might be over was at the front of Corleone's mind, but the weight of the loss was worsened because he felt certain he was letting down his family and friends in Cincinnati.

"I stayed [at UC] because the fan base is like a second family for me," Corleone said. "But you also feel like the whole city's riding on you. As an athlete, you always want to be like a superhero to people."

Just before he was set to leave for Chapel Hill, Corleone donned a hoodie and made a trip to the grocery store down the road from his apartment. He kept the hood up and slouched his head, hoping he wouldn't be noticed, but 335-pound defensive tackles tend to stand out.

He was walking into the store when a woman stopped him.

He froze. He knew what was coming next. Aren't you Dontay Corleone? What's the news on your health? What's going to happen to the team without you?

Instead, she put her hand on his arm, looked him in the eye.

"How are you?" she asked. "Are you OK?"

He nearly burst into tears. That simple gesture was a reminder of why he was here. This city loved him as much as he loved it.

"There was this dark cloud over me, like -- man, what are people going to think of me now," he said. "I don't think she could've understood how big that moment was for me."

A few days later, on the flight back to Cincinnati, with a fresh perspective on his diagnosis and a blueprint from doctors on how to combat the blood clots, he turned to Himmler with a smile.

"I feel good about this," he said. "I'm ready to go forward."

DURING FALL CAMP last season, Corleone ran. While the rest of his teammates donned pads and worked through drills, Corleone ran. Not hitting, no contact, just running.

"That wasn't getting me in [football] shape, so I knew the season would be different," Corleone said. "I knew it would be hard. I knew it might not look good for scouts. But getting back on the field was what I needed. If I played one down, I'd cherish it forever."

The medical team at Cincinnati had found a regiment of medicine that kept the blood clots at bay and workouts that would, gradually, get Corleone back onto the field, but it wasn't until Week 2 of the season that he was officially cleared for contact. For a defensive tackle who makes his living delivering blows to multiple offensive linemen on each snap, that was a problem.

Corleone played 48 snaps in a loss to Pitt on Sept. 7 -- less than three months after his diagnosis -- and he was winded from the outset. Cincinnati dialed back his workload for the next two weeks, and by October, he started to feel something more like normal.

He ended 2024 with 26 tackles, 3.5 sacks and four QB hurries. Cincinnati ended on a five-game losing streak.

The season wasn't what he had hoped, but he was back on the field, and that was worth celebrating, Corleone said.

Cincinnati also connected Corleone with former Tennessee offensive lineman Trey Smith, who had been a five-star recruit but nearly saw his career ended by a similar blood-clotting issue. Instead, Smith found medicine that allowed him to return to action, and he's now entering his fifth season in the NFL.

The advice Smith offered: Stop trying to be a tough guy.

Suddenly it clicked for Corleone. His health issues weren't something to hide from, but rather something to attack.

"The clouds went off, and there's a big sun now where it just gave me a different approach," Corleone said.

Corleone had often resisted working with trainers early in his career. He viewed injuries as a sign of weakness -- something to play through, not treat. Now, he had a whole different appreciation for the Cincinnati training staff.

Each week, Himmler meets with members of the program's mental health staff, dietitians, strength and conditioning coaches and sports medicine staff for what he calls a "performance team meeting," going over the latest injury reports and scheming out game plans for players who needed extra attention. Corleone liked the idea, and so he asked to hold a separate meeting, just for him.

"Holistically, he's leaving no boxes unchecked," Himmler said. "I don't know if I've ever seen somebody as motivated as he is right now."

As much as the 2024 campaign felt like a lost season at times, Satterfield said he still turns on the film and watches in awe as Corleone eats up blockers.

"If you put one guy on him, he's going straight to the backfield," Satterfield said. "It happens every time."

Still, Satterfield knows there's more in the tank for his star defender. He's a year removed from the lowest point of his career, armed with a new perspective, with more maturity.

This is the chance for Corleone to remind Cincinnati -- and the rest of the college football world -- what he can do.

Only, that's not how Corleone is viewing this season. He insists he isn't making up for lost time or trying to prove himself again to scouts or fans. He's doing it because he has seen what it looks like to have football nearly disappear, and he has promised himself to make the most of whatever time he has left to play the game now.

"You go through something like that and still have the opportunity to play, that's motivating enough," defensive line coach Walter Stewart said. "'I get to play ball.' That's been his approach. He's very grateful."

IN JUNE, CINCINNATI opened its new performance center and indoor practice facility -- 180,000 square feet of state-of-the-art design that, Satterfield said, marked a watershed moment in the program's climb from the Group of 5 to the upper echelons of the sport.

The event was attended by dignitaries from around campus, with an official ribbon cutting by Satterfield, AD John Cunningham and, at the edge of the stage, the kid from West Cincinnati.

Himmler couldn't help but take a moment to consider how far Corleone had come in that moment. He arrived on campus as a quiet, understated 18-year-old, lightly recruited and eager to prove himself.

And now ...

"Now he talks to donors," Himmler said. "He's cutting ribbons. The mountain of things he's had to overcome -- there's just so much growth."

Satterfield points to Cincinnati's own trajectory over the past four years: A coaching change, a move to the Big 12, losing seasons and hope for a breakthrough. It all mirrors Corleone's own journey.

In an era in which players might never build a bond with a campus or community, Corleone has become the epitome of what it means to be at -- and be from -- Cincinnati.

It's the reason Corleone was there on stage, snipping a ribbon on the biggest investment the program has made into football in a generation. He's the face of Cincinnati, and it's the role he has always wanted.

"He loves having a legacy in Cincinnati," Satterfield said. "He eats it up. He loves the city, and the city loves him."

A few weeks before the ribbon cutting, Corleone bought a house with money he earned from NIL and revenue sharing and, of course, sales of hamburgers he can no longer eat. It's a four-bed, four-bath brick home with burgundy shutters. It's just two blocks from the house he grew up in, where a single mom raised three kids to work hard and cherish their roots.

Corleone has eyes on another house, too. He wants to buy one for his mom, but he's waiting it out. After his first big NFL contract, he said he'll get her the home of her dreams -- big, beautiful and in any locale she wants. She has earned a chance to live in a paradise of her choosing.

Corleone hopes this is the season everything clicks to make that dream a reality. He'll put up big numbers, wow NFL scouts, lead Cincinnati back to a bowl or, maybe, a Big 12 title. But his house, the one he bought this summer, is about his past, how far he has come and the people and the city that helped him get here.

"It still hits me how crazy it is," Corleone said. "I came from nothing. Now I know wherever I go, I'll always have a home in Cincinnati."