Don Horton’s demeanor was different in a way perhaps only a life partner could recognize. The NC State offensive line and tight ends coach had returned home Oct. 25, 2008, from a three-point loss at Maryland. Horton, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease two years earlier, told his wife Maura Horton he’d had a hard day — from field to the locker room. Future NFL star quarterback Russell Wilson, then a redshirt freshman with the Wolfpack, noticed the coach struggling to button his shirt and helped him do it. That humbling moment would inspire Maura Horton to design a shirt employing magnets hidden behind typical buttons. As founder and president of MagnaReady, Maura introduced an innovative line of accessible clothing for all dexterity-challenged individuals, securing four patents along the way. AB senior editor Paul Steinbach spoke to Maura about her family’s journey from Don’s diagnosis to his death May 28, 2016, at age 58, to the postmortem discovery in his donated brain of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, likely caused by his own playing days on the offensive line at Division III Wittenberg University in Ohio from 1978 through 1981.
Are these types of interviews difficult for you?
If I were being honest, I would say yes. You know, my love affair with my husband didn’t stop upon his death. I have never remarried nor dated since he has passed away. My love affair remains fast and true still.
Why do you do them? Why now?
Great question. I think why do I do them is I really want to be — if possible — a helping hand or a conduit for people to understand the wrecking bomb of death, grief and what it’s like to be diagnosed with something that is postmortem and for which there are very few resources. I think that’s super hard for families. They feel a little isolated. And the truth is, I do everything for our children, and I have a daughter who plays soccer at the collegiate level, and I want to make sure that the path forward is a little bit more transparent — that there are stronger regulations, etc. I’m always mindful about future generations that are coming into the game.
What did you learn about Don’s CTE?
There’s a grading scale that they provide for you, and he was right at a three, or in between a three and a four, which is one of the highest levels of CTE. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s because he goes to a doctor, he presents with symptoms, and that’s what you treat. That’s all you know. But upon Don’s diagnosis, something wasn’t adding up to me because in those in those doctor’s appointments, they say, “Oh, of all the neurological diseases that you could be diagnosed with, this is one of the best. There’s Michael J. Fox. He’s lived forever. He’s doing really well.” There’s going to be change. I just started seeing that with his progression, he was not going to sustain himself for a long period of time. From diagnosis to death was 10 years, and this is the 10-year anniversary of his passing. Whether he would have had Parkinson’s later in life, I don’t know. I don’t know if that was something that then was brought on faster because of CTE. You just don’t know the cause and effect. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? But that’s what we were diagnosed with. I was, at the time, also reading many studies about CTE, and there’s a little bit of a Boston connection to Chris [Nowinski], the head of the Concussion & CTE Foundation, and I had DM’d him and was like, “Something’s not adding up to me here with Don,” and so that was when we started dialogue about donating his brain.
Are we talking about Chris Nowinski?
Yes, that’s correct.
In hindsight, you’re not even sure if the Parkinson’s diagnosis was correct.
Yeah. I think what he had was Lewy Body disease, which is really like an offshoot of Parkinson’s with CTE. But what I don’t know is what came first. Would he have lived to be 70 or 80 and developed signs for that later if he weren’t playing? I will never know.
About 25% of individuals diagnosed with CTE experience Parkinsonism, which includes tremors, muscle stiffness, slowed movement, and balance issues.
Right.
Don coached for seven years after his diagnosis.
We weren’t public about his diagnosis, but, yes, he did. He coached for a long time.
What were the first symptoms that prompted you to have Don checked out?
For him, it was lack of strength in one of his arms. Even up until two weeks before his passing, he was an avid exerciser, and he would work out religiously where it would not cause issues. It was it was a priority in his life. We always had to make sure that wherever we were, he was still getting a workout in. He was bench pressing and was noticing that his left arm wasn’t pushing up as high as his right. You know, he was a player. He talked to a few friends and the team doctor at BC — this was when we were still at BC — and they thought it would be potentially a pinched nerve. Then he went through some testing. No, that’s not it. Has sent then to a neurologist, the doctor who treated Michael J. Fox, and Dr. Hayes watched [Don] walk. For Parkinson’s, there’s only a few tests they do. They do a hand test. They watch you walk down a hallway and see how your gait is in relation to the swing of your arms, and then they diagnose you. There wasn’t at that time a blood test or any type of test that you could take.
Is there a blood test available today?
They do have some new testing. I don’t know how well indoctrinated it is throughout the U.S., but there is some deeper testing you can do now. It’s not just visual, but I don’t think insurance covers some of those tests or most of those tests, so I’m not even sure most people get them.
When you hear a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, what’s your first reaction?
Don heard it first, because he went to the doctor by himself, and then he scheduled an appointment for us both to come together to understand it. For him, and most people in athletics, I think they’re very stoic and very strong and don’t really allow signs of weakness. And so he was very, “I can delay this as long as possible. This really isn’t going to affect us.” There was complete positivity and strength on his side, as far as, “Maura, I got this. Don’t worry.” We were at the point of building our family. We had one child, and we were trying to have a second. And I remember being in the doctor’s office saying, asking, “Oh gosh, wow. Should we continue to build our family?” And the doctor said, at that point, “Yeah. Of course.” And that was again a reference to Michael J. Fox. If there is going to be a cure, it’s going to be for Parkinson’s. And I’m very happy we did continue to build our family, and we’re lucky to have a second child. But it was definitely a moment of pause and reflection. “What is ahead of us?”
As far as his coaching career was concerned, you kept this on the down low. Did any of his fellow staff members know?
Yeah, sure. Tom O’Brien. He did tell the head coach, for sure. It’s a pretty close-knit group, and they started suspecting there were some things happening, but I don’t think he came out to them until we were at NC State, and he couldn’t hide some of the symptoms he was having.
Not to put too fine a point on this, were there tremors?
He didn’t have the tremors. He was rigid, so he would like get stuck in his feet. It’s like his brain would be telling his feet to move, and you may have seen what they call the “Parkinson shuffle.” Muhammad Ali had it. And they get stuck. Like their brain is saying, “Move,” but their feet aren’t moving. He had that. He had slowed and quiet speech. He became very quiet, and sometimes you’re not sure if people become quiet because of the diagnosis and their brains not processing things probably as fast. They’re processing it and become a little bit more quiet. His speech was affected.
At what point did he say, “I just can’t do this profession any longer”?
He didn’t. He was let go from NC State. Most of the time staffs come together and leave together. The whole staff was let go. He fought like heck to get another position in coaching and being at the collegiate level. Unfortunately, no one wanted to take a gamble on it. I think that broke his heart more than anything else. They still have letters from like Dabo Swinney. He would send them articles — just because you are diagnosed with something, just because you’re disabled, does not mean that you can no longer work. But, you know, coaching’s not for the faint of heart.
He sent those types of letters to the Dabo Swinneys of the world.
Oh, yeah. They all knew each other, for sure. Just like, “Hey, if there’s an opening on your staff, please consider me.” He was very forthcoming about it. He wanted desperately to get back in the game.
What do you recall about learning of the locker room moment involving Russell Wilson?
It was an away game against the University of Maryland. It’s an evening game. They lost the game, and Don came home and had told me he had a hard day. I, like most football coaches’ wives — you know, our livelihood depends on wins versus losses — I said, “Yeah, what happened out there?” There were probably two errors on his offensive line where they jumped offsides. I said, “Was there an audible that went wrong?” And he just stopped and said, “No, Mar. I had a hard day.” We were traveling in the same direction, but we were on different roads. Once in a while we’d touch on, “How’s this affecting you? Are you okay here?” And he would generally soldier through. But this was really one of the first moments we came to a complete stop, and I was like, “Okay, what’s happening? What can’t you do? We need to have open dialog about this.” So, he told me that, and he said sometimes if he was recruiting, which was often, that he would have to call down to the concierge to have someone help him button his shirt, and that he was having a hard time putting on his shoes and tying them at moments. So, yeah, it was a very vulnerable moment. Very open.
Was Don sharing that moment with you the start of MagnaReady?
It was the preface of it, for sure. What I did that next morning was — as we all do — jump online to try to see what was out there. “He’s going to travel again this Friday. He’s got to have something.” And what I saw was a world that we were not part of. This was a world that was very sad for older people, and he was experiencing something that many people wouldn’t experience in their 70s and 80s.
He was in his 50s.
Yeah, exactly, and it was very sad. The imagery was super sad. No one was smiling. No one was doing anything. So, I ordered something for him, and I overnighted it, and I handed it to him. He said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” And I said, “Don, this is the best that’s out there. I have searched.”
What was it?
It was like a paper-thin white shirt that looked very hospital-like. I said, “Just try it. It’s not going to hurt you to try it.” And so he did try it and was like, “Maura, I have to still be able to push this Velcro together. It still takes my fingers to do it, and I don’t have the strength in my left hand to do it.” So, yeah, it was the jumping-off point. At that same time, our second child had come to fruition, and I felt like all I was doing was helping her button and him button and get dressed every morning. And one day, I was with her shopping for an iPad cover, and I noticed all these really small magnets that just attached to the front of the iPad, and I was like, “Well, wait a minute. Why can’t we put this in a shirt?” That was kind of the culmination or the start of it all.”
Nothing like that existed — a magnetic fastener for shirts.
No. Nothing.
What necessitated four different patents?
Well, you try to expand on them. I started in shirts, and then I went to other product categories, different ways of putting them in, and that kind of thing. It was a learning curve. I never applied for a patent, read a patent or anything prior to any of this, but once I ordered magnets, got them in, I just put them in his shirt — I really was never starting a company — and it worked. He was like, “Oh, this is awesome! Just do all my shirts.” And, so, it was great. Then I washed it, and the first one corroded, because magnets don’t do well underwater. So, then I went back to figuring out how we can make this launderable.
And you did.
And we did, and while I was doing it, I was just reading story after story of people who need this type of clothing — not only from an independence and dignity side, but like physically need it. Parkinson’s was my world at the time. Now, in hindsight, there’s only a million people living with Parkinson’s, compared to 52 million living with arthritis or baby boomers who are just aging and dexterity becomes worse. I call that the “silver tsunami,” just because there are so many people who just had shoulder surgery, carpal tunnel. Whether you need it for a short period of time or a long period of time, at some point we will all probably need what we call accessible clothing, because we will all be on an arc of life that isn’t just linear and everything is smooth.
How did the Brooks Brothers partnership come to be?
That was most important to me. That happened right around 2023, and it was my goal from Day One because Don was a Brooks Brothers customer his whole life. People think coaches don’t necessarily dress that well. Sometimes they’re in a golf shirt and sweatpants, but that’s just actually not very true. So it was really important to me. I went to Brooks Brothers when I first started. I launched, I had one shirt, two colors, and we sold out within six months. I was like, “Okay, I’ve got something here. We need to keep going.” I was living in North Carolina. Most fashion happens in New York. My husband was progressively getting — and my children, that’s our number goal, as well. I wanted to license the technology, and so I went to the four larger shirt companies and presented, and one decided to move forward. Brooks Brothers was on my initial run. I’ve been chasing Brooks Brothers since 2013. It took a long time.
Are there other partners?
We have a partnership with Duluth Trading. We have a partnership with JCPenney. We were the first adaptive apparel company in every major retailer — from Macy’s to Kohl’s. It’s just super hard to sell our clothing in a brick-and-mortar store, because from the outside — if I’m doing my job right — you cannot tell it has magnets in it at all. People were getting confused, and it’s hard to tell a story in a retail store, so we focus mainly on e-commerce right now.
When Don was playing offensive line, was he ever diagnosed officially with a concussion or more than one concussion as a player?
No, I don’t believe that he ever was. But they didn’t really know what they were talking about back then. They didn’t ever even check. If you were dizzy, sit out a play or a few plays, but you go right back in.
As Don started to realize that he had a condition, I assume that he started to think about how this happened to him, and I assume he probably realized that he suffered some head trauma back in his playing days. Is that fair to say?
Fair to say, for sure.
How did you, as a family, strike a balance between a love of football and concerns about long-term brain health?
We still love football, the game of football, the lessons of football, the teamwork. I mean, there’s nothing we don’t love about the game other than the safety protocols. And I think what’s most important to us, especially in the CTE conversation, is to stop only talking about it at the NFL level, because I think it does such a disservice to the families that need to have transparency and understanding of what decisions they’re making for their 14-, 15-, 18-year-old children, and understanding the small percentage that makes it to the NFL, but that is not where all of the concussions happen. I think what also is super important to us is that the girls’ side of things does not get neglected, and that that’s equally important for us to discuss. But I think we’ve come a long way with helmet safety compared to where we were. We’ve come a long way in terms of transparency and NCAA regulation. But, you know, the love of sports can still be there. I just think sometimes parents make decisions for their children without really understanding the true impact of it, and I just think there has to be transparency throughout the entire process.
AB has covered CTE since 2010, with headlines ranging from “Increasing Number of Young Athletes Suffer From CTE” in 2018 to just this past August’s “Study: 25% of NFL Players Who Died Between 2016 and 2021 Had CTE.” How closely to do you keep such headlines on your radar?
I mean, I get Google alerts on it, for sure. Any articles. I’m all in. I want to know as much as I possibly can. Recently, [former Boston College and NFL quarterback] Matt Hasselback decided to donate his brain, as well. He and Don overlapped at Boston College by one year, and I think why I love Matt’s story and why Matt’s doing it is he also has children that play at a really high level in athletics, and we have to do more for the future generations. We can’t just talk about it and throw out numbers. From a business side, I think the part that would make things easier would be to take away pain points to help customers get to you, and I feel like the CTE discussion has to do the same thing. It’s like it might not be the easiest process from going to your doctor and them understanding — “Oh, I should always ask, did you play a contact sport?” — to being able to have conversations to donating and not just saying, “Oh well.” A college person may go and say, “I play and I suffer from depression.” Making that connection of, well, maybe we should do further research and testing. Could your playing at whatever level have impacted that mental health side of you? That’s the one thing I really would love to see is just that the pain points be taken away so that people every day can go whether you’re in the military and you’ve suffered things in the field — concussions or impact — that cause CTE. There has to be an easier entry for people to get tested.
