Former San Diego Chargers player missing after Bakersfield hospitalization

Kenny Graham, a former San Diego Charger football standout whose plight from homelessness to housing was chronicled by The Bakersfield Californian in a series of stories in 2016, was reported missing Friday, according to the Bakersfield Police Department.

He was being treated for pneumonia in Adventist Health Bakersfield's hospital on Chester Avenue for several days, his brother Will Graham said.

As he got better and his oxygen levels stabilized, the former AFL star became agitated and wanted to leave, Will Graham explained.

At 5 a.m. Friday, hospital staff called Kenny's case worker, assigned to him through an NFL player foundation for former athletes with injuries, Will Graham said.

Kenny had anxiety medications, Will Graham said. It’s unclear if they were administered.

By 11 a.m., the 81-year-old, who is a resident of Magnolia Place Assisted Living & Memory Care, was allowed to sign himself out of Adventist, Will Graham said.

“They said he was lucid," Graham said of hospital staff. "And that he told them he has a P.O. Box and a motorhome but that he’s homeless."

Kenny's case worker discovered he was gone by 2 p.m. that afternoon and notified the family. They contacted Bakersfield Police and have been searching for him ever since. Magnolia Place, meanwhile, also deployed 20 people to scour the city in search of Kenny, Will Graham said.

The last confirmed sighting of him was Friday afternoon near the car wash on 24th Street in downtown Bakersfield.

He has a gray beard and dreadlocks and was last seen wearing a knit “rasta” hat with red, yellow and green stripes, a gray San Diego Chargers shirt with a lightning bolt and black pants. He is 6 feet tall and weighs about 260 pounds. He has brown eyes.

The Californian followed Kenny Graham in 2016 when the then 74-year-old was discovered living under a fig tree on a vacant lot in southeast Bakersfield.

Kenny had been a standout player in the late 1960s. He played with all the biggest names of the time and was a tremendous all-around athlete. Even though he played defense, Graham even made a touchdown pick off the famous quarterback Joe Namath, something he would still recall with great glee.

But those years of playing with substandard protective equipment took their toll and Kenny suffered from dementia-like memory issues.

Through the work of friends, family and even a few downtown Bakersfield post office acquaintances, Kenny was able to access resources through an NFL foundation to help players who had suffered brain injuries during their career.

He had initially been housed in Brookdale Senior Living in 2017. But he had since moved to Magnolia Place, Will Graham said.

Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Kenny Graham (police identified him by his formal name of James Harold-Graham) is asked to call the Bakersfield Police Department at 661-327-7111.

Befriending Kenny Graham isn’t a one-and-done kind of thing.

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