Dave Hyde: Bernie Kosar's liver-transplant story -- 'It's all unbelievable, isn't it?'

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Nov 25, 2025

Published in Football

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Bernie Kosar doesn’t start with, “Hello,’’ on the other end of the phone.

He starts “It’s almost not believable — it’s Disney-type stuff.”

He’s on the ninth floor of University Hospital in Cleveland, and tells how he was being discharged last Sunday when told they finally had a liver for him. A 21-year-old Cleveland Browns fan, Ryan Dunlap, who was following Kosar’s wait for a liver transplant, had died in a medical emergency.

His family agreed to donate Ryan’s liver to Kosar.

“The odds of his liver matching me is like you or me hitting the Lotto,’’ said Kosar, the former Browns, University of Miami and Miami Dolphins quarterback. “And it matched. See, why the whole story isn’t believable? It’s all karmatically spiritual. I’ve been waiting for a liver, been told there was a transplant a few times only to be told it didn’t match. Now this happens.

“I can see myself getting younger right in front of me.”

It’s early Sunday afternoon, six days after Kosar got his new liver, and he is waiting for his hometown Browns to watch on the TV at 4 p.m. He watched his other team, the Miami Hurricanes, beat Virginia Tech on Saturday. But his story is beyond football right now.

“I’m healing so fast, I think I’m getting discharged tomorrow,’’ he said. “I wasn’t supposed to get out for a month after the operation. Now I’m learning about my meds, anti-rejection stuff. I’m healthy, but I’m not healed. And they’re talking about me going home.

“I bet I’m talking to you in 30 hours and I’m home. If you wrote a book about it, would anyone believe this?”

Kosar has been updating his wait for a liver on social-media messages. “Like my coaches said, ‘How you do little things is how you do big things,”' he said one day. Another day: “I could really use your love, support and actual prayers,” he once said.

Then, last Monday after surgery, he said from his bed, “Wow, just waking up from the surgery here.”

His path has been one of pain to that point. There was football pain. Concussions. Broken bones. He lost so many teeth from being hit — the New York Jets’ Joe Klecko knocked his molar right on the field — that he said is the hardest part of recovery now is chewing food.

“I don’t have enough teeth,’’ he said.

His life after retiring from the Dolphins in 1996 involved a different pain. He didn’t take any pills as a player, but said he spent three decades taking more than 80 pills a day. And drinking. That all ended seven years ago. He has since started a wellness center and began working with the Crowley Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics to help others with mental issues.

He had problems needing help, too. Early-stage Parkinson’s disease. Multiple seizures, including a couple that put him in comas recently.

“The good part of that was I missed a couple of the Browns losses,’’ he said.

He suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, requiring the transplant.

“It’s kind of like a dream the way it happened,’’ he said. “I still can’t believe how good I feel right now. Like I said, I’m getting younger right before my eyes.”

He turns 62 on Tuesday.

“This might sound too dramatic, but I didn’t think I’d be alive for my 62nd birthday,’’ he said. “Now I’m going to walk out. I literally almost passed two months ago. I’ve been in a wheelchair for 10 weeks. Now I’m going to walk out and go home maybe as soon as (Monday).”

He started a GoFundMe page, and said the money will go to NFL players, military veterans and first responders in need. Golfer Phil Mickelson gave $20,000. Kosar’s University of Miami teammate, Jim Ferraro, gave $50,000.

“You know who’s getting helped first?” he said. “The Dunlap family. This’ll help pay for the funeral. I’m thankful for their son being a donor.”

He pauses on the ninth floor of the hospital. “It’s all unbelievable, isn’t it?”

It’s Thanksgiving this week, too, Kosar is told.

“I know,” he said near the end of a long journey. “Who has more to be thankful for than me?”

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