NFL Safety Concerns: Roots go back decades
By Andy Pollin
The Redskins-Texans game last Sunday gave us a pair of roughing the passer calls that had many saying, “they’re trying to turn this into two hand touch.” What looked to be by-the-book hits on the quarterback by Washington’s Jarvis Jenkins and Houston’s D.J. Swearinger, were both flagged for 15 yards. The NFL is cracking down on player safety and this is some of the fallout. While research on the effects of concussions in recent years has increased awareness of safety, the concern for players’ health goes back longer than most can remember. Forty-three years ago, a Detroit Lions player died on the field.
It happened at the since demolished Tiger Stadium, October 24, 1971. The Lions were hosting the Chicago Bears, who were led by the ferocious Dick Butkus, one of the great linebackers in the history of the league. Late in the fourth quarter with the Lions trailing 28-23, Detroit receiver Chuck Hughes caught a 32-yard pass over the middle and was sandwiched by Bears defenders Bob Jeter and Garry Lyle. He made it back to the huddle, but teammates could tell he was hurting. The code of the game, especially then, was to suck it up and play.
A few plays later, Hughes was jogging back to the huddle and suddenly collapsed right in front of Butkus. The Bears brute had quite a reputation and some wondered for a moment if Butkus had decked Hughes. But then Butkus began waving for doctors to get on the field as soon as possible. CPR was performed on the field, Hughes was loaded into an ambulance, but was declared dead at the hospital a short time later.
As Les Carpenter wrote in a December, 2013 story on Yahoo Sports:
“On the day after Chuck Hughes died, a Detroit-area pathologist, Taisja Tworek, performed an autopsy on the player. (The report) said one of Chuck’s arteries was severely clogged and that a blood clot had broken loose, presumably from the hit on his last catch and had become trapped in the artery, cutting off blood to the heart muscle.”
Chuck Hughes was 28 years old. Hardening of the arteries usually occurs in people much older. Hughes, one of 15 children in a family with a history of heart trouble, had actually died of advanced arteriosclerosis. But there is more to the story than just the highly unusual case of a well-conditioned athlete dying of a disease that afflicts the elderly.
As Carpenter reported in 2013, Hughes likely suffered a heart attack seven weeks before his death. And if it had been properly diagnosed, his football career may have ended, but his life may have been saved. Hughes had collapsed in the locker room after the Lions final preseason game and was rushed by ambulance to Henry Ford Hospital. A series of tests were run, but doctors couldn’t find what was wrong with him. He was released after four days.
Hughes wanted back on the field and was cleared to play in the fifth game of the season, despite complaints to friends and family of chest pains. A week later he died, the only player in the history of the NFL to die on the field. A year later, Hughes’s widow Sharon filed a $21.5 million malpractice suit against Henry Ford Hospital. The suit was settled two years later for an undisclosed amount.
The Lions have retired Hughes’ number 85. Each year they give out an award in his name for the most improved player on the team. As a player, he was known for getting the most out of his ability. A fourth-round pick by Philadelphia in 1967 out of Texas Western College, now the University of Texas-El Paso, he played three years for the Eagles before being traded to the Lions. Mostly a special teamer, Hughes caught only 15 passes for his career, including the one minutes before he died.
Though it would be many years before the NFL would begin to fully address concerns about player safety — particularly blows to the head — Chuck Hughes’ death did raise awareness about player health. Defibrillators are now installed in every stadium and teams put their players through thorough physicals before they even let them practice. Chuck Hughes wasn’t a star, but he takes an important place in the history of the NFL.