TRACY, Calif. -- The first indication that something might be horribly, irreversibly wrong with Eric Scoggins materialized nearly two years ago.
Decorating his new home, the once-robust former USC and NFL linebacker realized he no longer had the strength to lift a hammer over his head.
Someone else would have to hang pictures for a man who 30 years ago helped USC win a national championship, who was the defensive player of the game in a season-shaping victory over 1978 co-national champion Alabama, who was a part-time starter for teams that ranked among the Trojans' all-time best.
"That's when he really, really knew," his wife, Shonta, says, nodding toward her husband, "that there was something serious going on."
Scoggins' worst fears were confirmed in January 2007, when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease -- a progressive, usually fatal malady caused by the degeneration of motor neurons, the nerve cells in the central nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement.
Eventually, most ALS patients become almost completely paralyzed and lose their ability to speak. Typically, reports the Muscular Dystrophy Assn., they die within three to five years of their diagnosis, usually from respiratory complications.
Scoggins, 49, knows the score.
"It's been very hard to cope with," he says from a wheelchair, struggling to make his slurred speech understandable during an interview in his spacious, well-appointed home. "My mind is sharp, and physically I don't feel bad, like people would think. It's just that all my muscles are dying. I don't have any movement. I can't write, hold a pen or paper or even pull the sheets up on my bed."
He falls silent.
"I try not to feel sorry," he continues, the sadness evident in his misty eyes, "but it's real hard. The hardest thing is, I can't hold my wife."
As Scoggins speaks, his wife interpreting, it's mid-July. Within weeks, he'll lose his voice altogether, another symptom of his rapid physical decline.
But he vows to carry on.
A father of four, Scoggins last year founded Eric's Vision, sort of an adjunct foundation supporting Augie's Quest, a research initiative focused on finding treatments and a cure for ALS established by Augie Nieto of Corona del Mar, a Life Fitness co-founder who was diagnosed with the disease in 2005.
Says Scoggins, a successful businessman before he got sick, "We're on Augie's coattails, to support him in his quest."
