CINCINNATI — It’s easy to pick out the heart of the University of Cincinnati’s campus: Historic Nippert Stadium. The fans are the heartbeat.
“We’ve got a lot of expectations. We’ve been winning forever,” said Dontay Corleone, an All-American defensive tackle and Cincinnati Bearcats football captain.
In recent years, it’s been Corleone, known as the “Godfather,” who makes the Bearcats come alive.
“He embodies everything … he is a very imposing player. Teams have to know exactly where he is at or otherwise he will make a play against you,” head football coach Scott Satterfield said.
Growing up 11 miles away in Colerain Township, Corleone is playing for his hometown team.
“I saw a goal, I saw a vision — to stay home in my backyard and just play good football,” Corleone said.
Corleone is one of the best defensive players in the country, but even he couldn’t save the Bearcats from a three-win 2023 season.
“It was very difficult, you know, I feel like I had my best offseason,” Corleone said. “I thought my team was going in the right direction. But it wasn’t. It was going the opposite direction.”
In the modern era of college football, most superstars would go chase a massive NIL check in the transfer portal. Not the Godfather.
“I committed here for three to four years. Loyalty is big for me,” Corleone said.
His loyalty stemmed from a blue-collar mentality, forged at Colerain High School.
“We didn’t have the high-tech facility or the new football gym. It’s all nasty,” Corleone said. “Colerain, we was always tough and gritty, we knew we had to get it out of the mud.”
Fighting for success was nothing new to Corleone. His whole childhood he watched his mother, Resheda Myles.
“She was a single mom that worked, had holes in her socks and stuff like that. I had to watch her just do that,” Corleone said. “Her motivation for me, it took everything.”
He was raised byhis mom and his football coaches, motivating and encouraging him every day throughout school — “even if it wasn’t really there sometimes because I never had a father figure.”
Quitting when times got tough was never an option. Coming off the toughest season of his career, Corleone's biggest battle was still ahead of him.
In June 2024, Corleone went to Aaron Himmler, UC's senior associate athletic director for sports medicine, with back pain.
“When I was working out, I felt something weird in my back and I just couldn't run or lift. So I went to Aaron (Himmler),” Corleone said.
At first, the assumption was it was a typical issue.
“He came to us with kind of some nonspecific like mid back pain, something that, you know, we see guys with ... bumps and bruises and sore body parts all the time. So you don't immediately think worst case scenario with a lot of these things,” Himmler said.
“I went back home. I tried to lay down and I had to use the bathroom, but it took nearly everything out of my power to get out the bed,” Corleone said.
The pain didn't improve over a few days.
“(Cincinnati defensive coordinator Tyson Veidt) asked me what the pain level was. I said it was like a nine, nine or a seven and then Aaron texted me, he was like, if it's a nine or a seven, we're going to have to go to an emergency hospital,” Corleone said.
“When things don't make sense, there's usually a reason why they don't make sense,” Himmler said.
Originally, Corleone said he didn't feel like an ER trip was necessary — “as a football player, you just don't know no better, like you just thinking you got to fight through everything.”
But Himmler wanted to make sure everything was OK.
“I wanted to get some advanced imaging, and unfortunately advanced imaging is when we found the blood clots,” Himmler said.
Corleone was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism (PE), a condition in which one or more arteries in the lungs become blocked by a blood clot.
“I never knew what a PE was until I found out I had it and it just was, just took my whole world out of me for a second,” Corleone said.
Surprised by the result, Himmler explained the severity of the condition to the 22-year-old.
“Blood clots are, you know, a life-threatening situation if they're not caught early enough,” Himmler said.
Corleone said his first reaction was shock.
“First off, I don’t know if I’m ever going to play football again let alone I don’t know how my life is going to be after this,” Corleone said. “I was just in complete shock. I’m a person who was always healthy.”
The physical obstacle of a lifetime also brought a mental hurdle.
“A lot of anxiety came out of nowhere because all I knew was football, and I love this sport very much, and it was almost taken away from me,” Corleone said.
The Cincinnati medical staff was not going to let Corleone’s NFL goals disappear. Himmler and his staff created a plan to, safely, get Corleone back on the field.
“He didn’t have one doubt in his mind I was going to play football again. I believed in Aaron,” Corleone said.
The road back was not an easy one. Corleone was out for the entirety of camp — “some days I didn’t have it in me, to persevere.” But there was no way that a boy who was raised by a group of hard-nosed football coaches and a single mother was going to let his future be taken from him.
“I’m seeing (my mother) struggle, I’ve seen her in pain. But I still see her work every day. She don’t complain,” Corleone said. “If she goes through that. I got to play my part too so I can get paid one day.”
“What’s been so impressive is his overall poise and resiliency with it, and just the way that he hasn’t really bent or broken,” Himmler said.
Corleone is not only back on the field, but he's still one of the best defensive linemen in the country — and still the heartbeat of the Bearcats football team.
“Playing well is just icing on top of this situation,” Corleone said.
Playing more carefree, never forgetting the bigger picture.
“I thank Aaron for everything he’s done for me. He saved my life. He also saved my mom’s life because she now still has her son breathing and playing football again,” Corleone said.
A gratitude that the Godfather shares with the man who saved him every week.
“After the captains do the coin toss, I go over there and give him a hug, and say ‘I love you’ every time ... I will do that every time because he means the world to me,” Corleone said.
A weekly message from the heart before Corleone does what he loves on the football field as the heart of his team.
Corleone has connected with current NFL players who have suffered from blood clots, most notably, Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Tre Smith. He and the Cincinnati medical staff have the utmost confidence he will be able to continue to excel with his condition at the next level.
