Gain of 10: Sportscaster's life takes a new direction.(The Dallas Morning News)

DALLAS _ Pat Summerall didn't intend to take a long look at himself and his life in a bathroom mirror in Augusta, Ga., during the middle of the night 10 years ago in April. It just happened to run across his line of vision in the old wood-frame rental house after he had finished vomiting at 3 a.m.

He had come to accept such sleep-interrupting excursions. They were part of the alcohol-dominated lifestyle that he had led for most of his adult life, first as a pro football player and later as a nationally recognized sportscaster.

But something stopped him when he looked between the two fluorescent light bulbs into the mirror that early morning at the house in which Summerall would soon be joined by his CBS cohorts for his annual assignment at the prestigious Masters golf tournament.

"I thought, `Boy, you look awful,' " recalls Summerall, a North Texas resident since 1993. " `Is this what you want to wind up being?' I could see the veins in my eyes."

Suddenly, he says, the fluorescent lights became much brighter. And Summerall began to wonder even more where his life was headed.

"I didn't get any answers that night," he says, "but I knew I wasn't going to live much longer."

Only a few weeks later, Summerall was confronted by family and friends about his drinking problem. He responded by entering the Betty Ford Clinic in southern California shortly afterward, taking leave of his television duties for almost three months. Confined to the clinic for 33 days, five more than the recommended ...