Ex-North Star: This Is Different -- Goldsworthy Diagnosed With Aids

ST. PAUL, Minn. - One of the hardest things to admit, Bill Goldsworthy says, is that he has met an opponent he can't handle by himself.

Goldsworthy, an original member of the Minnesota North Stars and the team's first star, has AIDS.

"As athletes, we tend to think of ourselves as invincible," Goldsworthy, 50, said last week while talking publicly about his diagnosis for the first time. "We fight through the tough times and we begin to think we can handle anything that comes our way.

"This is different. This isn't a broken arm."

Goldsworthy received the news in November while in the intensive care unit of Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., where blood clots that moved from a leg to his lungs began a month-long fight with pneumonia.

"I was taken to the hospital on Friday, and when the doctor came into my room on Monday I expected him to talk to me about blood clots and how we were going to take care of that problem," Goldsworthy said. "I felt awful, but I found out I could feel worse. Instead of talking about blood clots, he told me I had the HIV virus, that I had AIDS.

"I said, `Whoa! You've got the wrong guy. You've gotta be kidding. There must be a mistake.'

"There was no mistake."

Looking back, Goldsworthy says, "I don't think I'm different from a lot of people. I'd heard the stories about AIDS, I'd seen the programs on TV and read a few articles about it. But until you hear that diagnosis, it doesn't really hit how serious it is.

"And there's a stigma that comes with AIDS that makes you think it's something that only happens in the homosexual community and to drug abusers who use dirty needles. It's more than that."

Goldsworthy was the coach of the San Antonio Iguanas of the Central Hockey League when he was hospitalized Nov. 11.

His T-cell count - measuring lymphocytes that are part of the body's defense mechanism - was at 150 instead of the standard 1,000 to 2,000. Barely into his hospital stay, Goldsworthy was fired as coach of the Iguanas, a team that until recently was reluctant to pay the rest of his contract.

"He was absolutely shocked when I told him what we'd found. He was blown away," said Dr. Emmel Golden, the Memphis doctor who broke the news. "I'm convinced he had no idea."

Goldsworthy and his former wife, June, have been divorced for nearly 15 years. They have two children: Tammy, 26, and Sean, 23. Goldsworthy has been involved in a relationship for years but has never remarried. All of the people closest to him have tested negative for the HIV virus.

"There was a period of three to five years after my divorce when I was really into the bottle and I wasn't careful about my sexual relationships," Goldsworthy said. "And there were a few times when I was a scout for San Jose (the NHL San Jose Sharks), after I started to drink again, that I wasn't as careful about sex as I should have been."

Goldsworthy played with the Stars from 1967 to '77 during a 14-year NHL career that began with the Boston Bruins in '64 and ended with the Rangers in '78.

Goldsworthy knows he's dying.

"It's something I have to accept," he said. "It's always on your mind: You have to be so careful that you don't get real sick.

"I can live a good life; I can't live a long life.

"It's a different feeling after someone tells you that you're not going to be alive for long. Every day when I wake up, I know I have one less day to live."

Goldsworthy, who has quit drinking, knows no other way except to fight.

"My first thought was, `Why me?' " Goldsworthy said.

"When the doctors told us, the air went out of the room," Sean Goldsworthy said, remembering the meeting in Memphis with his father and sister. "It took a while for me to get my bearings, but then I told him it wouldn't change our relationship. And it hasn't."

"Sean and I looked at each other, and it got really warm in that room," Tammy said. "I remember thinking, `He's my dad, and he won't have to be alone.'

"Then I started to think about things that I hadn't thought about for a long time," Tammy said. "I remember him dancing with me at home and coming to my grade school with a broken nose and a black eye. I didn't think anything of it because I thought everybody's dad got broken noses and black eyes."

Sean is in San Antonio - he plays for the Iguanas. Tammy is home in the Twin Cities, where her dad struggles to find peace in the community he loves so much.

"I went to the Moose game earlier this week," Goldsworthy said. "Each time I talked with someone, I remember wondering if they knew I had AIDS and what they would think of me if they did.

"It's no way to live."