Balls Out

The death of Patriots WR Darryl Stingley, who had been paralyzed by an infamous hit from Jack Tatum in a preseason game in 1978, brought back some old debates and emotions in some people. Tatum himself has remained stoic for the most part, accustomed to the critiques thrown his way, many by people who turn right around and applaud the violent action on their screens every Sunday.

"They said on ESPN the other day that I hit him in the back and that's just a lie," Tatum said. "It's amazing to me that they lie like that when they can just look at the hit. They have it on tape."

Tatum was made responsible because no one else, much less the fans and the NFL itself, wanted to look at themselves and think for one second about what they've created.

"Yeah, everybody is supposed to play really hard and then get up at the end like nobody is hurt," Tatum said Friday from his home in Oakland, Calif. "It's unrealistic. If you want to play football for a living, you're going to get injured.

"If you went out worrying about getting hurt, you couldn't be a player. You certainly couldn't be a great player."

This isn't to say that Tatum doesn't feel bad about what happened to Stingley. But for Tatum, there is a line between sorrow and guilt.

"I feel sorry for what happened to him," said Tatum, who lost his left leg recently because of diabetes. "I tried to apologize to him a number of times, but people around him wouldn't let that happen."

Tatum said he spoke with Stingley's attorney several times over the years, but nothing ever happened. In a TV interview several years ago, Tatum expressed sorrow again. That part was cut out, Tatum said, because of his steadfast defense of the deeper issue.

Tatum, as he has said many times, will never apologize for how he played. He didn't then and won't now. He is defiant in that regard.

It is impossible to be human and not feel a wellspring of sympathy for what happened to Stingley, and the cataclysmic turn his life took in one fateful split-second impact. But we are talking about a sport where large men are trained to aggressively assault other large men.



This is what Jack Tatum, and thousands of others just like him, have trained ferociously to do for a living. And especially in the '70s, hard hitting was highly prized, as opposed to the current (and better) priorities of coverage, pursuit, and actual tackling. But Tatum was not an anomaly, just extremely effective at his job. It could have been any other two people involved in that fateful collision, and indeed, there are plenty of football casualties out there, men in their 50s who walk more like someone 30 years older; men with serious damage to organs, to brain tissue, to spinal tissue; men who count their bone surgeries in double digits. Hell, given Tatum's penchant for spearing throughout his career, it's a minor miracle that he himself wasn't severely injured at some point.

I enjoy the strategy side of football, the play-calling, the execution, the development of the right formation and the right play to counter what the opponent is doing. There is a cerebral side to the sport, believe it or not. But it's true that most of the mileage is on the marquee plays, mostly offensively, but those plays embarrass their counterparts in the defensive secondary, who have to play faster and more aggressively to keep from getting burned again, and so on.

I've been to three Raider games since they returned to Oakland in 1995; because we live three hours away and want to make it worth the drive, we've always gotten very good seats, literally directly behind Oakland's bench. Legendary players roam the sidelines during pre-game warmups, talking to players and fans.

At one game against the Rams in 1997, Tatum came into our section and talked to us for a few minutes. Nothing profound, just a brief nice-day-enjoy-the-game type of thing, but I grew up watching the guy, so it was kinda like meeting Elvis, or at least Eddie Cochran. But from reading articles and profiles over the years, I felt like I at least realized the weight the guy carried, perhaps a mix of personal guilt and public expectations, which he had to work out for himself. He was quiet, humble, soft-spoken, nice. You would hardly guess that twenty years before, he was one of the most genuinely feared men in professional sports.

I think Jack Tatum has refused to apologize publicly because, while he understood that he owed Darryl Stingley the most profound expression of regret he could muster, he owes the public nothing. He is not a totem for absolution for self-righteous commentators or fans, nor would his abject contrition in a public arena change anything. Whether he absolves himself is between him and Stingley's family, but there's no doubt that it can never absolve us for craving our gladiator spectacle.

It's a tough call, morally. Some days I think I'm better off just firing up a round of Madden on the PS2.

[Update 4/15: SF Examiner columnist Glenn Dickey, who was actually at that 1978 game and has spoken with Tatum many times over the years, has essentially the same take on the hit, and the man who delivered it.]