National Football Foundation

A 5-foot-11, 185-pound guard from Amherst College, Kenneth Cousens made the Dean’s list as a sophomore and a junior and was an honor student in biology. A co-captain of the undefeated 1964 team, Cousens volunteered at a V.A. mental hospital, and he helped redesign a heart lung machine for biology experiments. He also served on the forum student lecture committee, and he conducted leukemia research in a Chicago hospital. Cousens graduated with a bachelor’s in biology from Amherst, and he earned his medical degree from Columbia in 1969. After completing his residency in 1973, he began studying the Essene Way, an offshoot of a New Age Religion, and he spent seven years studying in India before returning to the U.S. to become ordained in the Essene Way.

Cousens, who now goes by the first name Gabriel, advocates live foods therapy, a nutritional regimen that he says can cure diabetes, depression and other chronic degenerative diseases. Among consumers and supporters of alternative medicine, he acquired a reputation as an expert in spirituality, fasting and raw food nutrition, both in the United States and abroad. Cousens founded the Essene Order of Light in 1992, and the following year he established the Tree of Life Foundation as a federal tax-exempt religious organization operating out of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Ariz. Cousens has written books and tours internationally promoting his ideas on food and his spiritual beliefs.