Andre Waters

Ol' No. 20 was back at Veterans Stadium yesterday. Andre Waters - one of the NFL's fiercest hitters in his prime - was invited to Philadelphia by coach Ray Rhodes, who asked him to work out and give the Eagles one more year. Does he have anything left? "I think I can play one more year - to offer leadership to the young guys on this team and Ray Rhodes," said Waters, who was hobbled by injuries last year in Arizona and released by Buddy Ryan. "But, mainly, I want to get the opportunity to retire with the team I started with.

For the longest time, the handmade nameplate was stuck above Andre Waters' dressing stall. A locker-room prankster had pasted "Dirty" in front of Waters' name. Even among friends, the Eagles' strong safety couldn't escape his reputation as a player who slipped all too often when walking the narrow line that separates aggressive from illegal on the playing field. Waters had been fined for illegal hits on quarterbacks David Archer of the Falcons in 1986 and Jim Everett of the Rams last season.

For nearly everyone who watched the Eagles last season, including Buddy Ryan and his coaching staff, Andre Waters probably led the team in being blatantly obvious - sometimes for better, occasionally for worse. Indeed, it was hard not to notice Waters somewhere in the violent scheme of things, usually at its focal point. The 5-foot-11, 185-pound strong safety from Cheyney University turned in an inordinate number of big plays and compiled some superb statistics on his way to a host of defensive honors and the occasional tribute of thunderous applause.

BELLE GLADE, Fla. - It is called Foreverglades Cemetery. Word play seems out of place at a burial ground, but there you have it. This is where Andre Waters rests, in Plot No. 118. "Waters?" asks the man behind the desk in the office, reaching for a file drawer. "How many years ago?" "Three. " "Three? It doesn't seem that long," says a woman working on the other side of the room. She stands up. "I'll take him out," she tells her co-worker. "You know, Andre was my classmate.

By now the experts have spoken, the cameras are through recording, the coach and key players have commented, and the columnists have caviled about the Eagles' 23-14 victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon. Only one essential player has yet to speak. He is the man with the ultimate insight into how the Eagles arrested the Steelers' runaway freight train of an offense in the first half. The real truth has not yet been told. But it is about to be. And to get that truth, you must listen now to the breathless, belligerent, engaging, eccentric, poetic, hilarious perspective of one Andre Waters, the strong safety who knows - knows beyond any doubt - why the game was almost lost before it was finally won. Herewith the story of Andre and the shirt.

A hypothetical question about reality as it is known in the NFL: If a player allegedly hits another player in a football stadium on a Sunday afternoon in broad daylight, but the fracas is not recorded by NFL Films, does that mean the alleged assault never happened? The NFL said yesterday that it had reached no decision on whether Eagles defensive back Andre Waters would be fined, suspended, pilloried, spanked or cleared of accusations that he attacked Eric Martin of the New Orleans Saints after a game on Oct. 13 at Veterans Stadium.

The news yesterday of the death of former Eagles strong safety Andre Waters saddened those who knew the hard-hitting defensive back, who was known for his tenacity on the field and generosity off it. Mr. Waters, 44, was found by his girlfriend at his home in Tampa, Fla., early yesterday, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The medical examiner's office confirmed that he had shot himself in the head. Mr. Waters had just completed his first season as defensive coordinator for Fort Valley State in Macon, Ga. "He was a great teammate, a hell of a player," said former Eagles coach Buddy Ryan in a phone interview.

Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer, normally the most conservative of offensive strategists, was convinced that yesterday's game against the Eagles and their mighty defense demanded a radical departure from his usual, sledgehammer rushing attack. Schottenheimer also concluded that the Eagles' penchant for bringing safeties Wes Hopkins and Andre Waters up close to the line, for support against the run, could be exploited by that exotic weapon, the forward pass. What followed was a textbook game plan success.

With their two best safeties aging and recovering from serious injuries, the Eagles plan to aggressively pursue free-agent strong safety Tim McDonald of the Phoenix Cardinals, club president Harry Gamble indicated yesterday. McDonald, 28, a fierce tackler and team leader, this month made his third trip to the Pro Bowl after leading the Cardinals in tackles in 1992. The Eagles have made shoring up the secondary among their highest off- season priorities. For more than half of last season they were without strong safety Andre Waters, who broke his left leg against Washington on Oct. 18, and was not activated until the playoff loss to Dallas.

With less than two months to go before Cheyney University's opening football game, the Wolves are still without a head coach. And although athletic director Andy Hinson hopes to rectify that situation by Monday, it may be a tough task. Hinson was hoping to bring in four or five candidates for interviews today, but as of yesterday he hadn't been able to contact the man many alumni are clamoring for - Andre Waters. "I'd like to make some recommendations (for a coach) to the president so that, by Monday, we might be able to release something," Hinson said earlier this week.

Mike Patterson has awakened in an ambulance, unsure of what happened to put him there. He has gone through the tests and talked to the doctors and weighed his options. He has heard the words arteriovenous malformation and the acronym AVM and absorbed the fact that something he'd never heard of was going to influence his life from now on. So only Patterson can make the choices he has to make. Surgery or another option? Now or later? Play football again or play it safe?

JAMES HARRISON, Quintin Mikell and all the other defensive players in the NFL have legitimate gripes. There is confusion over what is excessive and what is acceptable. Players aren't sure. Refs aren't sure. The call on Kurt Coleman against the Colts was ridiculous. But there is a reason the NFL has stepped up its enforcement of dangerous hits and why guys keep getting letters from the league's disciplinary department that include fines and suspensions. Former Bears and Eagles quarterback Jim McMahon played from 1982-96.

BOSTON - The first time Chris Nowinski asked for the brain of a dead athlete, he wrote out a script. That wasn't an easy call he was about to make to the family of Andre Waters after the former Eagles safety committed suicide in 2006. Nowinski believed that if he said one word wrong - "if I paused wrong" - the answer would be no. Since that phone call, which resulted in Nowinski obtaining access to some of Waters' brain tissue, the former Harvard football player and professional wrestler has joined with a research team at Boston University School of Medicine that is studying chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma.

BELLE GLADE, Fla. - It is called Foreverglades Cemetery. Word play seems out of place at a burial ground, but there you have it. This is where Andre Waters rests, in Plot No. 118. "Waters?" asks the man behind the desk in the office, reaching for a file drawer. "How many years ago?" "Three. " "Three? It doesn't seem that long," says a woman working on the other side of the room. She stands up. "I'll take him out," she tells her co-worker. "You know, Andre was my classmate.

On Sunday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made a startling concession to medical ethics - one resisted by his predecessors. He said that when a player sustains a concussion, teams will now be required to seek advice from "independent" neurologists. He said on NBC, "As we learn more and more, we want to give players the best medical advice. This is a chance for us to expand that and bring more people into the circle to make sure we're making the best decisions for our players in the long term.

EAGLES CAREER: He was drafted in the 10th round in 1992, falling on the Eagles list between Ephesians Bartley and Pumpy Tudors. He joined a defense that the year before had allowed fewer than 15 points a game. "There I was a couple of weeks before watching these guys on Monday night and all of a sudden I was walking in the locker room with these guys," McMillian said, not likely to turn heads at 5-7. "It was definitely a thrill for me. I remember when I first walked into the locker room.

A GEORGIA PHYSICIAN is arrested for supplying massive amounts of illegal drugs to wrestler Chris Benoit, a week after he killed his wife, child and self. The National Football League, compelled by increased stories of brain-damaged ex-players, triggered by the sad suicide of ex-Eagle Andre Waters - and perhaps the onset of a Congressional inquiry - finally begins to address the effects of concussions in its sport. Barry Bonds collects 2,325,391 All-Star votes, assuring the tainted recordholder will appear in front of his hometown fans in next week's, um, midsummer classic.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who disclosed last week that the NFL will make baseline neuropsychological tests mandatory for the 2007 season, is requiring all team medical personnel to attend a meeting on concussions next month. NFL spokesman Joe Browne said yesterday that Goodell has ordered all 32 teams to send its doctors and trainers to a June 19 meeting in Chicago for the first league-wide concussion summit. "At no time should competitive issues override medical issues," Goodell said last week.

Former Eagles cornerback Eric Allen enthusiastically returned to Philadelphia last night, embracing the Eagles' past and linking it to the present. A five-time Pro Bowl player during his career from 1988 to '94 with the Eagles, Allen served as an honorary captain for the game against the Carolina Panthers at Lincoln Financial Field. "I'm fortunate that the Luries and the Eagles' organization hopefully started this and bridged the gap between the players of the present and the past," Allen said, referring to owner Jeffrey Lurie.