Death Of “The Assassin”

Fatwah / August 1, 2010

By Mark Ames

I just found out–belatedly–that one of my childhood heroes, Jack Tatum, died of a heart attack a few days ago. When Tatum played for the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s, he was the most intimidating football player of his time–not in a hammed-up telegenic way, but in a disturbing way that made people, including fans of the sport, nervous. Tatum was serious about his violence, and sadistic, and gratuitous–but not a loudmouth. After knocking countless opponents unconscious year after year, Tatum put his most famous hit on wide receiver Darryl Stingley, snapping two of his neck vertebrae and nearly severing his spinal cord. The hit left Stingley paralyzed for life from the neck down, and sealed the NFL’s squeamish loathing of Tatum and the old Oakland Raiders forever.

Tatum never apologized to Stingley for that hit–and why should he have? Instead, Tatum wrote just two years later, “My best hits always bordered on felonious assaults.” To this day, it’s hard to find a video of the Stingley hit–even in the recent ESPN tribute to Tatum, naming him the #6 Most Fearsome NFL Hitter of All-Time, they’re still too unnerved to even mention the notorious Stingley paralyzing:

A lot of Americans back then saw Tatum as a street gangster drafted into the Raiders as some kind of bloodthirsty mercenary, or a “criminal element” as one head coach at the time said of the Oakland Raiders.

He even looked ugly and mean, even by the ugly standards of the 1970’s. He wasn’t all that big, but he knew exactly how to hit and how to hurt. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Jack Tatum.

In his dry, understated autobiography on how he came to be such a fearsome hitter, They Call Me Assassin [my Bible back then], Tatum explained how he learned to hit. Note the lack of the sort of loud-mouthed histrionics we expect today; Tatum’s voice is the voice of a professional hit-man:

[In high school] I learned that it hurt more to get hit than it did to actually do the hitting. That might sound strange, but let me explain. Most high school defensive players are passive. They sit back and wait for the opposition to come to them. This is bad, because a young player can get seriously hurt.
Good defensive football amounts to mass times velocity. The faster I can move toward impact, and the more violently I can drive my body through a target, the more effective my hit will be. This way I’m doing the hitting and the offensive player is absorbing the punishment. […] My method is similar to a karate punch. I concentrate on a point one yard or so behind the man I’m going after, and on impact, I drive hard to that point.

And then a page later, that same understated menace, the kind you get from a military veteran who’s seen and done some nasty things:

As a warrior I must discourage running backs and receivers whenever they attempt to gain yardage against the defense. It is a physical and violent job, and quite often the end results are knockouts or serious injuries to my opponent. But it is just part of a very risky business.

In high school, Tatum became notorious knocking kids out of games–at times, opponents couldn’t even field quarterbacks, because Tatum had knocked them all unconscious. In college, at Ohio State, Tatum was such a fearsome hitter that head coach Woody Hayes–a psychopath of sorts himself–pulled Tatum from practice drills because he was laying out his own teammates. Tatum’s college hits are still so legendary that to this day, Ohio State’s team holds a controversial “Jack Tatum Hit Of The Week” contest.

Jack Tatum’s account of the first NFL opponent he put a mark on is wonderful, and reminds me why I was so inspired by his book when I was still a skinny, pissed-off 13-year-old twerp. Tatum describes how, as a rookie safety, he barely managed to bring down the Colts tight end, John Mackey:

That first time, as I went after Mackey, someone had partially blocked me and I hadn’t made good contact. Mackey got up, shrugged his shoulders, and walked back to the huddle laughing and hollering in my direction, “Hard-hitting rookie..what a joke!”

The next play, the quarterback once again threw the ball to Mackey, but the outcome was a little different:

I carefully avoided the blind side blocks and drew a bead on Mackey’s rib cage. Morrall [the quarterback] hadn’t thrown one of his better passes, and I could have easily intercepted, but I had other plans. I wondered if John Mackey would still think I was a joke after he was really hit. As Mackey reached back for the ball, I drove my helmet into his ribs and knocked him to the ground. It was a good hit. Mackey was on the ground flopping around like a wounded duck and gasping for air. Standing over him, I glared down and asked, “How funny was that joke?” Of course, I admit I cussed at him, too.

That’s the part that other, decent Americans couldn’t stomach: why wouldn’t Tatum go for the glory of the interception when he had the chance? Why the private violence, the savage hit, instead–a hit that made him few fans and plenty of enemies?

What made the Raiders different back then was that they were more about creating a permanent impression than merely winning–and still, they usually won. Which was an affront to all decent Americans, who saw the Raiders as an extension of the lawlessness, decadence and racial unrest of that time. But for me, it was the opposite: the Raiders, and especially Tatum, were an antidote to that bad decade. They were the answer to American squeamishness and hippie bullshit and decline–they were mean and unashamed, and they won. And the whole world was against them.

Here’s a great video tribute to Tatum and his partner-in-crime, the far meaner but far less talented strong safety George Atkinson:

What’s heartening is that Jack Tatum’s name still inspires raw middlebrow loathing today. A recent article in Time magazine on Jack Tatum blamed him for every crime and sin under the sun, and then pretends to redeem Tatum’s legacy, as if this story is one of sin and redemption. The article is titled “Football’s ‘Assassin’: The Anti-Legacy of Jack Tatum,” and it begins by describing a vicious college football hit last year that resulted in a penalty flag, something that didn’t used to happen:

The Coleman incident was an unfortunate reminder that each week during football season, Ohio State coaches give an award for the hardest hit — which is fine, except that they’ve named it after former Ohio State player Jack Tatum. Yes, that Jack Tatum, who as an NFL safety for the Oakland Raiders paralyzed New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley with a barbaric helmet-to-helmet hit in 1978. It was the worst of a gallery of similar blows Tatum dished out during his violent 10-year career, earning him the macho-moronic nickname “the Assassin.” In his 1980 book — which just two years after leaving Stingley a quadriplegic he was tasteless enough to title They Call Me Assassin — Tatum wrote that he liked to think his hits “border on felonious assault.”(See a video of what football can do to your brain.)
Tatum died on Tuesday in Oakland, Calif., at the age of 61, an amputee after losing a leg to diabetes in his later years. True to form, he never apologized to Stingley, who died three years ago at age 55. But it’s hard to blame Tatum for thinking his “felonious assaults” weren’t just permissible but actually admirable. Until just recently, we as a nation of football fans, like drunk Romans braying in the Colosseum, had regularly celebrated hits like Tatum’s as the apotheosis of the game. “All Jacked Up!” to quote the sophomoric ESPN mantra — football not as skilled autumn spectacle but as brute gangsta mayhem.

It’s hard to know what’s more annoying–the self-righteous Mrs. Crabtree tsk-tsking, the reveling in Tatum’s gruesome death by diabetes, or the idiotic/delusional assertion that NFL football was always meant to be a graceful sport “like ballet” as those idiots like to say, rather than the brute gangsta mayhem that fans want and expect. And it’s all Jack Tatum’s fault, every poor football player who done got hurt playing the game. So you can see the Time correspondent cheering on Tatum’s death as some sort of celestial justice, the victory of ballet-loving soccer fans over the brute forces of NFL fandom:

Fortunately, the NFL and the NCAA — facing mounting medical evidence that the helmet-to-helmet collisions promoted by football’s jacked-up culture are leading to more and more serious concussions and their lifelong consequences — are beginning to crack down. So it’s fitting that Tatum passed away on the eve of a new football season: as fans reflect on his controversial legacy, we’ve got to ponder our Neanderthal approach to this game and start booing its excesses more loudly.

I remember that exact same angry, moralizing, deluded tone that the Raiders faced when I was a little kid growing up in the 70s. And it was always part of what attracted me to the Raiders–their struggle. It was “The Raiders vs. The World”:

As Mao once said: “Battling with heaven is endless joy! Fighting with the earth is endless joy! And struggling with humanity is endless joy!”

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal, and the co-author of The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove).

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62 Comments

Add your own

1. Strahlungsamt | August 2nd, 2010 at 12:05 am
Once upon a time America had MEN!!!
2. Zhu Bajie | August 2nd, 2010 at 3:02 am
American football: 5 seconds of action, 50 minutes of standing around.
3. Berkshire Hunt | August 2nd, 2010 at 3:08 am
Second that. The battle of Shewan was won on the playing fields of Oakland.
4. Dr. Luny | August 2nd, 2010 at 3:17 am
It’s no mystrery why the NFL doesn’t want to show the Stingley hit. They want to avoid any indication that the sport is dangerous and that the players usually live relatively short, brain-damaged lives after they retire. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a football fan, and I don’t want to see players rolling around on the ground crying for a penalty because the got hit too hard. I think as long as the players understand what they’re getting into it should remain the violent sport it is today.
5. Armen | August 2nd, 2010 at 3:28 am
So the guy had permanent road rage. Big fuckin deal.
6. Lavrentij Lemko | August 2nd, 2010 at 6:23 am
Apropos —
The women all control their men
With razors and with wrists
And the princess squeezes grape juice
On a torrid bloody kiss
What will you be wearing there
The lion or the raven hair?
The flesh will all be tearing
But the tail will be my own
In the colosseum tonight
This one’s for the balcony
And this one’s for the floor
As the senators decapitate
The presidential whore
The bald headed senators
Are splashing in the blood
The dogs are having someone
WHo is screaming in the mud
In the colosseum tonight
Now it’s raining and it’s pouring
On the pillaging and goring
The constable is swinging
>From the chains
For the dead there is no story
No memory no blame
Their families shout blue murder
But tomorrow it’s the same
In the colosseum
A slowly acting poison
Will be given to the favorite one
THe dark horse will bring glory
To the jailer and his men
It’s always much more sporting
When there’s families in the pit
And the madness of the crowd
Is an epileptic fit
In the colosseum
No justice here, no liberty
No reason, no blame
There’s no cause to taint the sweetest taste of blood
And greetings from the nation
As we shake the hands of time
They’re taking their ovations
The vultures stay behind
In the colosseum, in the colosseum
In the colosseum tonight
7. Inception | August 2nd, 2010 at 7:13 am
It’s funny that Lynn Swann was on that second video bitching about Tatum. These days, he’s a Republican highly active and visible in politics. He even tried to run for governor of PA a few years ago.
8. Don | August 2nd, 2010 at 7:21 am
I would like to see the hit on Earl Campbell at the goal line. It’s a classic. Earl ran through and over the best defensive guards, ends and linebackers. he had to be gang tackled. Jack was the only player to hit him man on man. Really got to see that video.
9. Fissile | August 2nd, 2010 at 7:54 am
In other words, he was hated, not for what he did, but for telling the truth: The average American is a cowardly creep in love with blood sports — as long as it’s not his own blood.
10. brian | August 2nd, 2010 at 8:06 am
thanks
brings back memories
the 70s Raiders were before the 49ers run in the 80s
snake stabler
casper
lester stickum hayes
we were lucky in the bay area to have both
so sad to see what has become of the Raiders
11. Old Europe | August 2nd, 2010 at 9:09 am
one day y’all gonna evolve from the caveman attitude. us-americans, the neanderthals already played what you call “soccer” but cave monkeys in the zoo still play “american football”. shh hold world championships with yourself lol degenerates
12. wengler | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:14 am
It sounds like Tatum was an expert at using the safety gear(his helmet) to impale his opponents. Those Raiders teams weren’t just a bunch of hard hitters though, as the video above shows they were also willing to put some cheap shots in there.
American football is all about destroying yourself physically and mentally. No wonder the Calvinist masochists love it so much.
13. Mudhead | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:24 am
Stingley hit is at :12:
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242997&highlight=tatum
That hit would get you tossed and fined today, even if no one was hurt.
14. Nate Dogg | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:25 am
Great piece. And that’s coming from a Donkeys fan.
15. Mudhead | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:27 am
Mod: skip my previous post
The Stingley hit is at :12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJrDYQwwbuY&feature=player_embedded
That hit would get you tossed and fined today, even if no one was hurt.
16. platitudes | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:37 am
I’m smiling thinking about how Tatum in his prime would be knocking the piss out of the Terrell Owens/Chad Ochocinco drama queens of today.
And goddamn the NFL is really living up to its No Fun League moniker. Three-and-out, punt, timeout. Missed 47 yard field goal? Timeout. TV timeouts just because. They’re doing a GREAT job of making baseball interesting by comparison.
17. Geoduck | August 2nd, 2010 at 11:03 am
That’s what always bugs me with people who whine about professional athletes getting “paid too much”; the players are putting their bodies on the line to satisfy couch potatoes’ blood-lust. They earn every damn penny.
18. Matt | August 2nd, 2010 at 11:51 am
And the point is..??..Oh yeah, Tatum passed away. Try outlining before you spout.
19. DarthFurious | August 2nd, 2010 at 11:54 am
Holy shit. Jack Tatum’s dead. Nobody even told me.
20. x | August 2nd, 2010 at 11:56 am
it’s a game, like tennis or bridge. not a warn
paralysing someone in any game, and not apologizing
for it, isn’t cause for celebration.
it’s a cause for great shame and shunning.
21. bartleby | August 2nd, 2010 at 12:02 pm
“the victory of ballet-loving soccer fans over the brute forces of NFL fandom”
yeah yeah–football’s for real men, soccer’s for pussies. we get it already. maybe more people should get off their fatasses more and quit worshipping professional athletes.
22. tim | August 2nd, 2010 at 1:13 pm
I’m with stupid. Feel my wiki-wiki, too.
23. DopeAddict | August 2nd, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Why any parent would let their kid play this stupidly violent game I cannot fathom. Then again, if it helps cull the herd of those unable to make decisions which could save their lives, I guess I’m all for it.
Crack on soccer/football all you like, but the only way someone dies on the field is thru heart failure, not mindless violence.
Not to mention the fact that the NFL is the most boring, action-free & expensive waste of time available to the American spectacle consumer. 4+ hours to watch what — 60 or so 5-second plays? It is to laugh. And fall asleep.
At least soccer gets the shit over & done with in 1hour 45minutes tops.
24. LIExpressway | August 2nd, 2010 at 4:13 pm
“it’s a game, like tennis or bridge. not a warn
paralysing someone in any game, and not apologizing
for it, isn’t cause for celebration.
it’s a cause for great shame and shunning.”
What you speak of reeks of lies, either way you got one out of three. The one being the game part.
I’m reminded about what Judge Holden said of war and games in the his speech in Cormac Mccarthy’s masterpiece Blood Meridian that sums up much more eloquently the nature of football. Read it and you will understand the true soul of the the good old USA. The nfl is a part of that soul.
I doubt Jack felt any shame, nor should he.
25. internal exile | August 2nd, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I’m gonna drive up the middle of the tight end and get fullback penetration into the end zone. Better wear my nose guard. This pass is going deep! After the huddle, that is. Hope not too many guys pile on me.
26. Reginald Bosanquet | August 2nd, 2010 at 4:26 pm
‘Hits’, ‘Assassin’ – it’s still just rugby for poofs.
27. Jefferson Street Joe | August 2nd, 2010 at 4:41 pm
If Tatum was only #6 among the NFL bad guys, who are 5 thru 1? Chuck Noll and the Steelers hated Tatum, Noll complaining that he should have been arrested and thrown in the slam for what he did on the field.
One of the all-time great defensive plays ever was the Sunday that Turkey Joe Jones of the Browns pretty successfully used Bradshaw’s head as a piledriver.
The Browns fans loved it.
The Steelers fans didn’t quite know what to make of the whole thing. Sure, Bradshaw’s dome made a crater in the turf; but . . . well, hell, it was, after all, just Bradshaw’s head.
No harm, no foul.
28. RecoverylessRecovery | August 2nd, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Headbutts, elbows to the chest, knee-in-the-face, spine-snapping tackles from behind; almost ANYONE can be a great player when PRISON RULES are allowed.
29. porkers-at-the-trough | August 2nd, 2010 at 6:46 pm
bla bla bla
The fascination with violence and hurting people has a name: sadism. oo, and i’m a fag who is scared of sadism, oo!
Now as War Nerd well recounts (many times) TERRORISM can be a great tactic on the battlefield… or even in preventing a battle from taking place when the enemy surrenders without a fight.
But the fascination with up-close violence can be DESTRUCTIVE to one’s own goals, too. Best example I can think of is Zulus at Roark’s Drift. The Zulus had some good quality guns at the battle, but of course their favorite battle tactic was impaling or disembowling their enemies up close, with that savage steel tipped wood spear. Fighting the Zulu’s way.. they lost.
Had they instead gone for a NIGHT attack, and stationed their riflemen to shoot at the flashes of British gunmen, they probably would have won that battle – they vastly outnumbered the Brits, and in the dark, the advantage would have been up close vs long-range British gunnery.
Not learning the strengths and weaknesses of British battle tactics, and not modifying their own tactics to negate British advantages, doomed the Zulus.
Guile & insight overcomes savage strength, in most cases. And what’s so glorious about football players being injured?
I hate seeing a quaterback throw a high, lobbing pass over the middle – is he trying to assassinate his own receivers (McNab)???
30. RobertD | August 2nd, 2010 at 7:08 pm
I keep trying to pretend that I don’t care and I’m not interested, but I keep coming back, registering, and posting stupid comments. Anyone care to comment?
31. Padilla | August 2nd, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” is a laughably bad book: no humor to be found at all, characters that can’t speak normally but either grunt like apes or go on and on through interminable philosophical tirades, neverending descriptions of rocks and insects in a hammy Old Testament voice… The book trudges along as ponderously as a herd of very fat elephants, save for the torture porn scenes designed to keep the rubes reading… Just awful!
American football I also find tedious enough, but at least we are spared the bullshit Yahweh-like solemnity.
32. LIExpressway | August 2nd, 2010 at 10:46 pm
“no humor to be found at all, characters that can’t speak normally but either grunt like apes”
You just described my entire HS football team. I am sadly not joking in this respect. This might just be a cultural thing. Are you American by chance. Please don’t say you favor soccer over…
The Judge might even be a coach of sorts, Glanton surely is.
“The book trudges along as ponderously as a herd of very fat elephants, save for the torture porn scenes designed to keep the rubes reading… Just awful!”
Sounds like a very accurate description of war/genocide to me. This should be all the more reason to read this very honest book.
Trust me on that. It’s a great book despite what padilla might say. It’s also somewhat historically accurate which is scary indeed.
Since you find football tedious than your a lost cause to me anyways.
STAKESISHIGH
33. Mudhead | August 3rd, 2010 at 12:01 am
Okay, I’ll finally get this right. The Stingley hit is at :12:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU91c9T-RWs&feature=player_embedded
34. Black Monk | August 3rd, 2010 at 5:03 am
@27 – here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_BuDursFIg&feature=related
35. chugs | August 3rd, 2010 at 5:56 am
yawn. what fuck is wrong with me. how shit the world is without the exile. I used to be hard. not anymore.
36. Lavrentij Lemko | August 3rd, 2010 at 8:06 am
I think that the feminization of football and the rise of “futbol” has a great deal to do with the feminization of the Uhmerigun male in general over the past 40 years.
37. Lavrentij Lemko | August 3rd, 2010 at 8:07 am
Uhmerigans have become a land of limp-wristed anal polyp-addled retarded sissies.
38. maxie | August 3rd, 2010 at 9:13 am
football = gladiatorial games from Rome. It is one tool used to keep america what it has become, and americans content to not fight back.
39. Karl | August 3rd, 2010 at 9:57 am
I see, you’re saying this guy was Serbian.
40. Lavrentij Lemko | August 3rd, 2010 at 10:54 am
Right, panes et circenses, bread from Wal*Mart and football on Monday night.
41. Padilla | August 3rd, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Lemko is tedious as well… A concise bore, though, it has to be admitted.
42. Padilla | August 3rd, 2010 at 3:19 pm
On second thoughts, how come so many American men (?) sound like squealing groupies when it comes to violence and sadism?
(As long as Ho-Chi Minh or Osama Bin Laden are not involved, that is.)
It sounds sort of vintage 1970’s Colombian or Central-American to me.
Super-macho über-alles… But why?
43. Padilla | August 3rd, 2010 at 4:08 pm
This is war. Read and learn, or either.
THE DEATH OF THE BALL TURRET GUNNER
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)
44. Roland | August 3rd, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Not only was Tatum one of the most gifted and frightening men to ever play the game, his Assassin books were one of the few chances for the average fan to hear the truth about the game they love.
If you claim to be a football fan and you haven’t read his books, read them. If you aren’t a fan of football you might become one after reading them.
Thanks for the article Ames but most importantly RIP Tatum you will be missed.
45. GARY | August 4th, 2010 at 12:17 am
i’ve never done anything real brave and admirable… like hitting a guy, usually my partner hits me because i can’t shut my fucking mouth … or my comments fingers… oo scary, i’m going to comment you blindside
46. George | August 4th, 2010 at 5:52 am
“To this day, it’s hard to find a video of the Stingley hit–even in the recent ESPN tribute to Tatum, naming him the #6 Most Fearsome NFL Hitter of All-Time, they’re still too unnerved to even mention the notorious Stingley paralyzing:”
The “hit” was shown on just about every sports news show I watched when Tatum’s dath was announced.
47. captain buttknocker | August 4th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
It’s the closest thing we have to real gladiators in this effete christian zeitgeist.
48. zhubajie | August 4th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
So what did he do with the rest of his life?
49. zed | August 5th, 2010 at 6:29 am
actually…nobody gives a shit
50. good 'ol johnny | August 5th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
“American football: 5 seconds of action, 50 minutes of standing around.”
That is the most tired commentary on the sport ever. Hey, how’s this: “war is 1% action and 99% driving or marching around.”
51. Armen | August 7th, 2010 at 3:43 am
‘Hey, how’s this: “war is 1% action and 99% driving or marching around.”’
Now ya got TWO things to armchair-general, sitting on your obese ass with a bag of cheetos, until they come for your house, but you’d probably watch that on TV, too, and root for Wall Street.
52. MishasEvilTwin | August 8th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Holy Shit! In the 1970’s he looked like Samuel L. fucking Jackson (small f large J) looks today: http://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/tatum-assassin-book2.jpg
53. Technomad | August 9th, 2010 at 9:25 am
They think that modern football is violent? Hell’s bells, back in the real old days, before they wore helmets or padding, they had football that was football…with manouvers like the “flying wedge.”
Back before WWI, Tatum would have been, at best, a rather restrained player.
54. Bloodthirst | August 9th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
This article is completely USELESS….
without….
VIDEO FOOTAGE OF THE TATUM-STINGLEY HIT!
The NFL keeps deleting it online! Anyone got any links to see it!
55. zhubajie | August 11th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Too bad he can’t tackle Christopher Hitchens or someone deserving like that.
56. zhubajie | August 11th, 2010 at 7:26 am
The real US national sport is Pro Wrestling!
57. John | August 13th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Ames, get off your ass and post some articles instead of this weird RSS feed shit you’ve got going on. Hire some writers if you’ve got to. A lot of people will write for free. Hell, I’ll do it if it comes down to that
58. Grant | August 19th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Whatever you think of the great hashishin’s inimitable style, this is a great and well-deserved eulogy. Standout player on a unique team at a unique time in NFL history. And with the exile now running links or so-so movie reviews and dusty retreads every couple weeks, it’s very welcome! Hoping this sclerosis is just some kind of summer break.
59. DK | August 21st, 2010 at 8:01 am
“World Football”=0 seconds of action and 50 minutes of guys wandering around a field aimlessly in short pants.
60. Bart | November 24th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Lynn Swan is a pussy! Always was. Back in the day it was funny to see him tippy-toeing around trying to avoid getting hit. At least Stallworth had some balls.
61. someone | April 11th, 2011 at 6:11 am
“Tatum never apologized to Stingley for that hit–and why should he have?”
Yeah, it’s not like getting paralyzed from the neck down is a big deal or anything! Of course, I’m going to ignore the real reasons why Ames (and Tatum) don’t think apologizing makes sense–which is that he was hired to play fucking football, and apologizing would absolve all the football fans who make it possible and blame instead everything on the evil black man. But since I’m actually a Koch troll looking for a way to defend my master, I’m going to latch onto this one and git ya real good by saying, “You are a psychotic dumbfuck.”
Oo, that’s gotta hurt!
62. M | January 1st, 2015 at 1:04 am
Tatum, based on what I’ve seen on film was A DEGENERATE. John Madden is no better. It was Madden and Woody Hayes who wanted Tatum to be a DEGENERATE, and TATUM MADE HIS CHOICE. Now he’s dead. TOUGH SHIT. This is what his legacy is. If Pete Rozelle rejected the check Tatum’s views he wouldn’t have let him play as long as he did and do what he did for as long as he did.
As for me, well, you can tell by my tough-guy language and my anonymity that I am one bad-assed mofo. I’d’ve kicked Tatum’s ass if I saw him. Yeah, betcha you never read a commenters as scary and intimidating as me, bro.