Darryl Stingley

Darryl Floyd Stingley (September 18, 1951 – April 5, 2007) was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver for five seasons with the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). His career was ended at age 26 by an on-field spinal cord injury. He died from heart disease and pneumonia complicated by tetraplegia. Stingley accepted a football scholarship to Purdue University, where he was converted into a wide receiver under head coach Bob DeMoss.

Selected nineteenth overall in the first round of the 1973 NFL draft, He eventually regained limited movement in his right arm but spent the rest of his life as a tetraplegic. The injury came just after Stingley had finished negotiating a contract extension that would have made him one of the highest-paid receivers in the NFL. The new contract was to be announced when the Patriots returned from the West Coast. Instead, it was never signed.

Although controversial, the hit was not against NFL rules at the time since it was not helmet-to-helmet contact (it was a shoulder-to-helmet contact). No penalty was called on the play. Today, however, the NFL has banned all blows to the head or neck of a defenseless player and has disallowed players to launch themselves in tackling defenseless players.

The incident became a symbol of violence in football. Stingley reportedly described it as a "freak accident." Because Stingley was a young player at the height of his career, his injuries attracted significant public attention. Partly in response to Stingley's injuries, the NFL changed its rules and conventions to curtail aggressive plays. Stingley told the Chicago Tribune that he approved of more restrictive officiating, saying "It has opened the game up to allow receivers to get downfield. And it has made the game more exciting."

The Raiders coach, John Madden, and many of his teammates extended their sympathies to Stingley. During his visit, Madden found himself the lone visitor in the hospital. No one from the Patriots was there until Madden called their team and the team's charter plane, in takeoff mode, finally returned to the gate. Raiders offensive guard Gene Upshaw also befriended Stingley and later was instrumental in securing benefits for disabled players through the NFL Players' Association.

Even though Stingley said he forgave Tatum, Tatum reached out to Stingley several times, including while promoting his own autobiography. HBO invited both men to appear on the 25th anniversary of the incident but Stingley refused after he learned of the title of Tatum's 1996 biography, Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum, the third with that term in its title. Stingley worried Tatum's efforts to contact him were profit-motivated. However, in a 1992 article in Jet, Stingley said that while he had forgiven Tatum a long time ago, Tatum had opportunities to contact him any time after the injury but did not make an effort. In 1993, he started a nonprofit organization to help troubled youth in west Chicago. Darryl has three sons – Darryl Stingley Jr.; John Smith-Stingley, a Chicago police detective,

Death On April 5, 2007, Stingley died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago after being discovered unresponsive in his home. His death was attributed to heart disease and pneumonia complicated by tetraplegia. The Cook County medical examiner, Kendall Von Crowns, MD, listed Stingley's manner of death as an accident.