The Assassin

[TheShadow]

www.time.com/



Monday, Jan. 28, 1980


A bone-jarring autobiography

His team failed to reach Super Bowl XIV, but Oakland Raiders Safety Jack Tatum is making his presence known off the field with about as much impact as the bruising tackles that have made him one of football's worst-feared defensive players. Tatum, who left New England Patriots Receiver Darryl Stingley paralyzed from the neck down after a 1978 encounter, has set down a chilling account of his violent career. The book, written with Pro-turned-Journalist Bill Kushner, was published last week (Everest House; $9.95). Its grisly title: They Call Me Assassin.

Tatum takes pride in his work. "I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault," he writes, "but at the same time everything I do is by the rule book ... My style of play is mean and nasty, and I am going to beat people physically and mentally, but in no way am I going down in the record book as a cheap-shot artist." He explains the now-outlawed "Hook" tackle taught to him by fellow Safety George Atkinson as "simply flexing your biceps and trying to catch the receiver's head in the joint between the forearm and the upper arm. The purpose of the Hook was to strip the receiver of the ball, his helmet, his head and his courage." The best hit of his career, Tatum recalls, was a Hook to Riley Odoms of the Denver Broncos: "I heard Riley scream on impact and felt his body go limp." (He was not seriously injured.) That kind of fun soon had Tatum vying with Atkinson in a gruesome covert race for the most "knockouts," or players left unconscious (two points), and "limp-offs" (one point). Crows Tatum: "Guess who won?"

About his injury to Stingley, Tatum says, "It was one of those pass plays where I could have attempted to intercept, but because of what the owners expect of me when they give me my paycheck, I automatically reacted to the situation by going for an intimidating hit." He adds in passing regret: "When the reality of Stingley's injury hit me with its full impact, I was shattered. To think that my tackle broke another man's neck and killed his future ... well, I know it hurts Darryl, but it hurts me, too."

That admission has done little to soothe Stingley, who calls the book "a slap in everybody's face." Says he: "The bottom line is I feel sorry for the guy." Not so Stingley's attorney Jack Sands, who has asked Football Commissioner Pete Rozelle to ban Tatum from the game. Preoccupied with the Super Bowl, Rozelle has yet to take any action. He was, however, heard to mutter a few words about Tatum's cheek: "That's asking for it. Unbelievable." A number of players have joined the chorus. "Mean" Joe Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers says flatly, "We're sportsmen, we're athletes. We shouldn't be anything else." Adds Dave Elmendorf of the Los Angeles Rams: "I think [Tatum] is in a minority of one."

Perhaps. But even if Tatum is the only savage-minded safety in professional football—and that seems dubious—his case is complex enough to merit consideration. For while his "confessions" may be tasteless and disturbing, he tempers them with a sort of pathetic self-pity ("I am not an assassin, but rather a human being with a deep compassion for little children"). He also tells of a ghetto boyhood in Passaic, N.J., and football as his only way out. At every stage of his career, Tatum says, he has been judged mostly by how hard he hits, first by a shrewd high school coach, later by Ohio State's notorious Woody Hayes, and finally by the Raiders. If he has done his job too well, the rules of the game are partly at fault, Tatum insists, and he proposes reforms: banning quick slant-in passes that leave receivers little running room, zone defenses that give a Tatum too much time to zero in on his target, and linebacker blitzes that take a heavy toll on quarterbacks. As for the spirit of the game that he so crassly violates, he can hardly be excused. But there are others to share the blame: the Raiders' owners, coaches and fans who pay Jack Tatum to be their "assassin."