One Second in Time

I was driving to work yesterday when ESPN Radio said that Darryl Stingley had died. For just a second I was transported back to being 10 years old.


While I am an Eagles fan now, my loyalties were much more split back in the 1970's. In addition to rooting for Philly, I was very much of an Oakland Raiders fan.


Even before I was into actually watching games, I collected football cards. While most of the teams looked similar, one definitely stood out. The Raiders wore silver and black. They looked mean. They played mean. They hit hard. Wasn't that what football was about? I was completely enthralled by the men in black. And in my mind the meanest one of all was Jack Tatum.


Tatum had a scary glare and a badass haircut and even though he wasn't the biggest guy on the field, a lot of the other players clearly didn't want to mess with him. He hit hard. Sometimes he hit dirty. But he instilled fear. And football and fear, especially in the mind of a 10-year old boy, go hand in hand.


We know where this all comes together. In August of 1978, in a preseason game, a hit from Tatum on a crossing route paralyzed Darryl Stingley (Raider Pat Toomay remembers the hit - and the game - here). I remember running to look through my football cards. I knew I had Tatum, but I had Stingley, too. I remember putting their cards next to each other. A day before they wouldn't have had any significance next to each other, but 29 years later in my mind and the rest of the world's, there they are, still next to each other.


What came next was my first dose of watching a railroad job. The unfortunate hit was just that...unfortunate. Very unfortunate. But it wasn't illegal. Even then-Pats' coach Chuck Fairbanks said he'd looked at it over and over, and wasn't illegal. But that didn't stop the posse. Tatum was suddenly vilified. Vilified for the very things that had made him stand out just days before.


People wanted Tatum to apologize. Apologize? For a legal hit? Tatum wouldn't do it. He felt bad it had happened, but he had nothing to apologize for. That enraged people. But I always felt like Jack Tatum was right.


Seeing the media roast Tatum was probably my first true brush with the hypocrisy that sometimes goes with sports. Football is a violent game. Guys who hit hard are at a premium. We celebrate them. We show their fiercest hits on ESPN over and over again. NFL Films makes montages of the most vicious hits and sells them. But if something goes wrong, it all turns around, and the same folks are suddenly pontificating and looking down their noses, shaking their heads. Mark Kreidler has a nice piece on how Stingley's injury ultimately changed nothing in the NFL.


Each man went on to write a book (Stingley's Happy to be Alive; Tatum's They Call Me Assassin), and each man has had his share of troubles over the last 29 years. They never managed to reconcile with each other.


29 years after that one split-second in time, doctors say the hit finally killed Darryl Stingley. I wouldn't wish what happened to him on anyone. But I wouldn't wish what happened to Jack Tatum on anyone, either.