A sports story worth reading: The Saga of Dexter Manley's Superbowl Ring

After it was sold for drug money, lawyer retrieved Dexter Manley's Super Bowl ring

For almost 10 years, Dexter Manley asked his friend and benefactor the same question any retired NFL gladiator with gnarled fingers here this week would demand to know: "What happened to my Super Bowl ring?"

John O'Quinn stalled at first -- and then lied.

O'Quinn told the former defensive end that the showy championship ring he won as a Washington Redskin on Jan. 30, 1983, had been given to Manley's wife, Lydia, for safekeeping.

When Lydia told her husband, "You know I don't have it, Dexter," O'Quinn hid the ring, where no one could ever pawn it for drug money again.

"Part of me had a resentment," Manley says now. "I'd be clean for nine months and say, 'Where is it?' and O'Quinn would say, 'I gave it to your wife,' and we kept going back and forth until I would just forget for a while.

"Another part of me knew why he did it and understood that that might have been one of his greatest gifts to me."

The ring was first given to a big-eyed pass rusher for his efforts in crumpling David Woodley, causing the Dolphins quarterback to fumble almost 30 years ago, the night the Redskins won Super Bowl XVII, the franchise's first. It went on to symbolize the depths one man could fall.

There's much more to the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404426.html

I was in DC when Manley was playing. I'm glad to hear he made it back from his problems.

Now maybe Leon Lett can recover from Don Beebe's chase although that was not life-threatening.

He, Riggins and Sonny got THE loudest cheers when so many players returned for the last game at RFK.