MARION TWP — Family members of Raymond Mathews say the rigors of his 11-year professional sports career might have contributed to his inability to find his way home from a walk Tuesday afternoon. But they also might have contributed to the rescue’s happy ending.

As a former Pittsburgh Steeler and a minor-league baseball player, Mathews, by all accounts, stayed focused on physical fitness well past his retirement from the NFL in 1959.

Now 84, Mathews is “one tough cookie,” said Tim Mathews, one of Mathews’ six children.

After spending about 20 hours Tuesday night in the woods in near freezing temperatures, he was listed in stable condition at Grove City Medical Center Wednesday, reportedly for observation purposes.

While quick to champion his father’s excellent physical condition, sons Tim and John Mathews say their father’s memory has good days and bad. And even before this incident the family was investigating any ties to his football career.

“Part of his condition is probably from his playing days,” said Tim Mathews, who runs the restaurant his father bought during his retirement: My Brother’s Place in Springfield Township.

He said his father suffers from what he would describe as “mild dementia.” And he reflects on stories told to him by his mother, Ruth, from his father’s football career.

A Pro Bowl wide receiver, part of Ray Mathews’ job for the black and gold was to return punts.

“Back in those days there was no such thing as a fair catch,” Tim Mathews said. “There were times he’d get hit so hard, my mom didn’t think he was going to get up. And the helmets in those days were like a cardboard box.”

And, John Mathews added, “Concussion wasn’t really a word back then. It was ‘a little bang to the head’ and you did not come off the field.”

The family said Ray Mathews is generally clear-minded, and they weren’t concerned when he took an evening walk near the home he shares with Ruth and his daughter, Cathy. But for whatever reason, Tuesday afternoon Ray Mathews apparently veered off his favored route to a path along a logging road that he takes only occasionally and could not find his way home.

Tim Mathews said a chain of neighbors called family members to say they saw him walking in the area, but within the few minutes it took for Tim Mathews as well as one of his sisters to drive to the area, Ray Mathews had disappeared.

Friends and family were joined by state police, search dogs, rescue helicopters and firefighters from a handful of stations Tuesday night. But when the official search was called off about 8 p.m., Ray Mathews was not found in the area, described as wooded and muddy.

John Mathews, who lives near his father, said he searched well into the morning hours and returned to the search a few hours later. He said he “got lucky” in spotting his father about 50 yards off a traversable path that leads to old strip mines and trails.

“He scared me because he was knelt over, face down,” John Mathews said. “But I yelled ‘Dad,’ and he mumbled something.”

Alert and talking, Ray Mathews was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Although Tim Mathews calls his brother, “a hero,” both men are quick to give credit everybody who volunteered time and effort into the search.

“Just thank everyone for us,” Tim Mathews said.