Why didn't Jack Tatum apologize to Darryl Stingley?
doubledragon
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I need some closure on this, it was a tragic event that I need some answers to.
Jack “The Assassin” Tatum Paralyzed A Player, And He Never Apologized
You don’t earn a nickname like “The Assassin” unless you are one of the most-feared, hard-hitting players in the NFL. Jack Tatum embodied that. The Oakland Raiders safety was a 1971 first-round pick out of Ohio State before administering pain to players throughout the 1970s.
The three-time Pro Bowl defensive back is known for one of the hardest hits in Super Bowl history on Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Sammy White. Though it didn’t cause internal bleeding or cracked teeth, it knocked the helmet clean off White’s head. Tatum also played a key role in knocking the ball in the air to running back Franco Harris during the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Immaculate Reception” in 1972. Unfortunately, neither of those were the last of Tatum’s massive hits.
In a 1978 NFL preseason game, one of the most tragic incidents on a football field took place.
Jack Tatum’s Hit Paralyzes Darryl Stingley
The Raiders and New England Patriots faced off in a preseason game on August 12, 1978. As Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley stretched for a pass over the middle of the field, he was hit hard by Raiders defensive back Jack Tatum.
Stingley’s spinal cord compressed, and he broke his fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. He laid on the field at Oakland Coliseum before being taken off on a stretcher. Tragically, the hit paralyzed him and he spent the rest of his life as a quadriplegic.
At age 26, Stingley’s career was over. The promising receiver was in the midst of negotiating a contract that would have made him one of the league’s highest-paid receivers. For whatever reason, fate had other plans.
Tatum Never Apologized To Stingley
Tatum’s hit was entirely legal at the time. The NFL didn’t fine or suspend him for it but these violent collisions were eventually outlawed. You rarely see hits like that in today’s game, unless you’re watching Vontaze Burfict.
Tatum and Stingley reportedly never made amends. The former Raiders safety contacted Stingley many times but did so while promoting his autobiography, which was insensitively titled Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum.
“I think that over a 14-year period I’ve been across the country, out of the country, in the country, I’ve talked with John Madden who was Tatum’s coach. He calls me on a regular basis. He called me to invite me to the Super Bowl this year,” Stingley told Jet magazine in 1992. “All these people have been able to contact me and he’s never really tried.”
While Tatum never apologized, he was never the same player or person after the terrible accident. Madden once said he “went into a shell.” According to ESPN, former teammates said he never played like “The Assassin” he became known as before the Stingley hit.
“I’m sorry he got hurt, but I will never apologize for the way I play football,” Tatum later told ABC. “That just won’t happen.”
Instead it was Madden, the longtime Raiders coach, who formed a close bond with Stingley. After that preseason game, Madden rushed to the hospital to visit Stingley and stayed in touch with him years afterward. Former Raiders offensive lineman Gene Upshaw also became close with Stingley was a vocal proponent of the NFL providing health benefits for disabled players like Stingley.
The Patriots paid for all of Stingley’s medical expenses for the rest of his life as well as funding his children’s education.
Stingley’s Grandson Is LSU’s Star Cornerback
Darryl Stingley died at 55 in 2007 but not before becoming a proud grandfather.
He had four children, one of which was Derek Stingley, who played football at Purdue like his father and in the Arena Football League. Derek Stingley’s son, Derek Stingley Jr., was a top recruit coming out of high school and is currently a star cornerback at LSU who won a national championship with the Tigers in 2019.
Stingley Jr. didn’t remember much about his grandfather except that he saw promise in him.
“We would go up there for Christmas. And he would always give me a Darth Vader mask and cape and the voice thing. That’s pretty much all I remember. And my dad said that he saw something in me back then, but I don’t remember,” Stingley Jr. told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser.
As for Tatum, he finished his career with 37 interceptions and one touchdown. His final season came in 1980 with the Houston Oilers. He wrote three best-selling books: They Call Me Assassin (1980); They Still Call Me Assassin (1989); and Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum (1996).
Tatum ran into health problems of his own in 2003. A staph infection caused by diabetes led to five of his toes being amputated. He later had his right leg amputated as well and required a prosthetic leg. In 2010, three years after Stingley passed away, Tatum died of a heart attack at 61.
Tatum is still remembered as one of the hardest hitters in professional football history. Stingley will forever be remembered for the spinal cord injury in an exhibition game that ended his career.
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This is what Darryl Stingley's son, Derek Stingley had to say about this after Jack Tatum passed away.
Tatum's death summons Stingley tragedy
When somebody dies, it's polite to say something nice.
Out of respect, even the reviled are generally granted dispensation when they pass away. A particularly horrible decline elicits extra mercy.
But not when it's Jack Tatum, and not when the man being asked is Steve Grogan.
"I just can't do it," Grogan coldly said Tuesday afternoon.
Tatum, a safety who embodied the Oakland Raiders mystique and was called "The Assassin" for his brutal hits, died of a heart attack at 61. Tatum dealt with a series of problems related to diabetes in recent years. His right leg and all the toes on his left foot were amputated.
That he lived his final years in such condition was sad to some, tragically poetic to others.
Tatum's most infamous collision occurred when he paralyzed New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley in a 1978 preseason game. Stingley was 55 when he died three years ago from pneumonia complicated by his paralysis.
"I'm sorry because there was a life lost today," said Darryl Stingley's son, Derek, who was 7 when his father stopped walking. "Jack Tatum had a family. He was somebody's father, somebody's brother, somebody's cousin or uncle. I truly am sad because of that.
"But at the same time that life put my father in a situation that he couldn't feed himself when he wanted to."
Derek Stingley saw a report of Tatum's death on ESPN's news crawl and immediately called his grandmother, Hilda Stingley.
"This brings back all those memories," Derek Stingley said. "I've just been almost in a daze today."
On that fateful night in 1978, Grogan threw to Darryl Stingley on a crossing route in a meaningless game. The ball sailed incomplete. Tatum blasted him head-on anyway. Darryl Stingley didn't get up.
The hit was considered legal at the time, the kind of vicious shot Tatum delivered on a regular basis. No flag was thrown. The NFL didn't discipline Tatum. That Darryl Stingley suffered two broken vertebrae and was paralyzed from the chest down was considered bad luck.
"I've seen the hit over and over," said Derek Stingley, president of the Darryl Stingley Youth Foundation, which his father founded. "Tatum was just giving him a hard hit. That was in the cosmos. That was in the stars that day."
What happened in the days, weeks and years after the hit was what Grogan -- and much of the Patriots family -- deemed unforgivable.
"I have a hard time trying to find something nice to say," Grogan said about Tatum. "That bothers me because I'm not like that normally. You may talk to guys that played with him, and they might tell you he was greatest teammate in the world and everybody loved him.
"The circumstance that we were involved with, just the way he handled it, that will never come out of any of our mouths or minds."
Tatum never spoke to Darryl Stingley after the injury -- although he did suggest a televised reconciliation to coincide with the release of a book. Tatum wrote three of them: "They Call Me Assassin" in 1979, "They Still Call Me Assassin" in 1989 and "Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum" in 1996.
"When something like that happens and you can't apologize for it, go out and write a book to make money and try to get famous off the incident, that's just not right," Grogan said. "I thought he handled it very poorly."
In a 2003 Boston Globe story, Darryl Stingley said he still would welcome a visit or a call from Tatum -- without a commercial agenda.
"If he called me today, I'd answer," Darryl Stingley said. "If he came to my house, I'd open my door to him. All I ever wanted was for him to acknowledge me as a human being. I just wanted to hear from him if he felt sorry or not. It's not like I'm unreachable. But it's not a phone call I'll be waiting for anymore."
Darryl Stingley also claimed he harbored no hatred for Tatum.
"It's hard to articulate," Darryl Stingley said. "It was a test of my faith. The entire story. In who, and how much, do you believe, Darryl? In my heart and in my mind I forgave Jack Tatum a long time ago."
Tatum's legacy was forever tainted by his callousness. ESPN's John Clayton wrote a remembrance of Tatum and noted the behavior toward Darryl Stingley likely prevented Tatum from garnering consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Tatum was a three-time Pro Bowler. He was involved in several memorable hits, knocking off Minnesota Vikings receiver Sammy White's helmet in Super Bowl XI and waylaying Frenchy Fuqua to ricochet the ball Franco Harris turned into the Immaculate Reception.
The NFL Network ranked Tatum the sixth-most fearsome tackler in league history, but the program never mentioned his hit on Darryl Stingley.
"He had close to 30 years to apologize," Derek Stingley said. "If that created a burden for him to live with, that's his own doing. There were plenty of opportunities.
"This is a reminder to put things to the side and let bygones be bygones. I wish they had that opportunity to close that chapter in their lives, but it never happened."
The thing about playing on defense in football, the object is to bring the ball carrier to the ground, to tackle him, but you have to show some mercy when you do it. If you go out there and throw everything you got at a guy, then eventually someone is going to get seriously hurt. A lot of times the ball carrier is at the mercy of the defender, and the defender has to make the decision, do I want to destroy him, or just tackle him?
Why didn't Pete Rose apologize to Ray Fose?
"I've got to do everything I can to score there. My dad's at the game," Rose said in 2017."
Don't let James Harrison hear you say that
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Jack Tatum was a scary guy to play against, I remember when he hit Earl Campbell, Earl still made it into the endzone but you can see in this video that after he scored Earl was a bit dazed, Tatum would just throw everything he had into you.
Yes I do remember watching that 78 game Raiders - Patriots live when the hit was made by Tatum to Stingley...
***And fun fact...
I was born on 7-14-70; yep same day that Pete Rose barreled into Ray Fosse...
I played defense back in my younger days, I liked to hit guys hard at first, it gives you a rush when you get a big hit, but during one game I hit a guy as hard as I could and he was visibly shaken up. I decided from then on that I didn't want to hurt guys, he's got family in the stands watching him play, and I decided from then on that I was just going to focus on bringing guys down without trying to blast them out of their shoes. You have to realize that if you make that your style of play, you better be ready to deal with the moral consequences when you hurt a guy.
Tatum was always a punk. A very good player but a punk as a human being. Reaching out to Stingley just to make money with his redundantly titled books is about as sleazy as one can be. I agree with Grogan.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I don't see how Tatum could not apologize and live with himself, if I had paralyzed a guy I would have been absolutely devastated about it.
Bill Romanowski was a mean and vicious player, he once purposely grabbed Giants running back Dave Meggett's finger and snapped it because he was mad about not being able to get the ball out of his hands at the bottom of a fumble pile. He does feel bad about it and here's what he said:
Bill says he still feels bad about the time he was in a pile with running back Dave Meggett, grabbed the guy's finger and "cracked it like a chicken bone."
"I heard it and felt it ... and then heard the scream at the bottom of the pile."
Still, Bill admits, "There are probably 5 plays I'd love to take back ... but I can't."
"I had fun hittin' em though."
I read somewhere that Tatum attempted to visit Stingley in the hospital after that game and Stingley's family denied his visit. Call Tatum what you want, but the bottom line is he was a tough old school player doing his job, stopping the opposing team. As referred to above, his hit on Stingley was not an illegal hit back in 78. Was this unfortunate? Of course it was. But was Stingley some monster as some make him out to be? Not in my opinion.
He's still a punk.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Ok, I want to give Tatum a fair shake on this, apparently he did try to visit Stingley in the hospital, I found this statement in an article that points out what LandrysFedora was saying:
Hicks said Tatum was haunted by the play.
“It was tough on him, too,” Hicks said. “He wasn’t the same person after that. For years he was almost a recluse."
Tatum had said he tried to visit Stingley at an Oakland hospital shortly after the collision but was turned away by Stingley’s family members.
"It’s not so much that Darryl doesn’t want to, but it’s the people around him,” Tatum told the Oakland Tribune in 2004. “So we haven’t been able to get through that. Every time we plan something, it gets messed up. Getting to him or him getting back to me, it never happens.”
Always 2 sides to a story. The whole thing was unfortunate, the incident obviously and all the resulting fallout. RIP to both.
Yes, I don't think Tatum is a monster, I think deep down inside it obviously bothered him a lot about what happened, football back then was a vicious sport and still is. Like you said, it was just unfortunate for both Tatum and Stingley. Another player from that era, Jack Lambert, had a style similar to Tatum, very aggressive. It was the way a lot of players were during that era.
I could go on and on about Tatum, but if you watch the hit it was a clean fair hit. Tatum hit hard, that is what football was. Every team had their version of Tatum, but the Raiders were the villains who wore pirates and had the rag tag group that makes Animal House look PG. What happened to Stingley is terrible, Tatum's goes into depth about Stingley and Tatum's own hard hitting play style. The mentions of him going to visit Stingley in the hospital after the game are in his books as well and how he was turned away by his Stingley's family.
Before Stingley's passing their was supposed to be a reconciliation that HBO was to televise, but Stingley backed out when he found out it was a plug for Tatum's last book, as he was told it was just to be for both parties to make their peace and not for profit or promo.
I will just end with a personal note, I have met Tatum personally several times, and he was always very kind. In fact it was difficult to imagine the older man I met as the hard hitting force from his younger days, especially after he lost one then a second leg to diabetes.