jack-tatum-the-assassin

Jack Tatum, the former Oakland Raider and Ohio State defensive back known as “The Assassin,” died of a heart attack Tuesday afternoon. He was 61… Tatum targeted any and all moving opponents on the field… His biggest and most devastating hit came on a collision with Darryl Stingley of the New England Patriots during a preseason game on August 12, 1978. Though not flagged on the play, Tatum broke Stingley’s neck in a head-on hit, immediately paralyzing him from the neck down. Stingley later regained some movement in his right arm and was able to operate his motorized wheelchair. The two never reconciled and Stingley, at age 55, died in 2007 from the aftereffects.

Anyone who knows me knows that above all other things, I try to live my life to high Christian ideals.  But not today.  Not when it comes to this story.  Because very near the top of the short list of people I swore I would never mourn is Jack Tatum.  He was a vicious, sadistic, self-promoting maniac without a milligram of compassion or a human cell in his entire body.  One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was sitting in my living room in Weymouth watching that preseason game against the Raiders (I assume all my friends were out enjoying a summer night in August, but I was watching exhibition football).  The hit Tatum leveled on a defenseless Stingley in a meaningless game was no accident.  It wasn’t meant to get Oakland ready for the regular season or “send a message” or anything of the sort.  It was intended to maim, period.  And that’s exactly what it did.  It also inspired one of the great sports cartoons ever, by Larry Johnson in The Globe.  It was a take off on Darwin’s “The Ascent of Man” except the figures were lined up in the opposite direction, from Homo Sapiens to Neanderthal to Cro Magnon to ape and then finally to Jack Tatum in a 4-point stance.  It was brilliant. (Author’s note:  Larry Johnson is black.  Save your emails calling me racist.)

I could almost have forgiven Tatum though, if he showed an atomic particle of remorse or contrition.  But he didn’t.  Not once.   While his head coach, John Madden basically maintained a vigil next to Stingley’s hospital bed and eventually retired from football he felt so bad about it, Jack Tatum signed a deal to write a book called “Call Me Assassin” in which he basically pounded his chest about how laying out a defenseless receiver proved what a badass he was.  He never once reached out, tried to contact Stingley or express any sympathy at all for him.  Unless you count the time he offered to meet with Darryl years later, on camera, and oh, by the way, just before he’d broken out the Crayolas again for a second book.  To his undying credit, Stingley told Tatum to go piss up a rope.

Again, let me be clear: football is a brutal game and guys get injured all the time.  I don’t hate Tatum for paralyzing a guy.   I spit on his grave for doing it on purpose with a cheap shot, then not offering even a modicum of respect to his victim until he could profit (further) from it.  Good riddance, Assassin.  And good luck getting raped by Satan.

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