By Jack De Vries
There was something about this quiet kid – the sophomore who played for Paterson Eastside’s freshman team last fall.
He was fast and quick to the football – that was easy to see – but it was the way he hit that was different. He was strong… but not like city kids on the field. No, this kid was ‘country strong.’
The summer before that 1964 season, Jack Tatum had returned to North Carolina, the place he never stopped missing, to work on his granddad’s farm. He spent two months bailing hay in the fields – picking up bales and throwing them up on the truck. Man’s work.
By the time he got back to his family’s new home in Passaic, he’d put 25 pounds of new muscle on him.
Years before in Paterson, he sometimes carried a pipe in case he was jumped for his lunch money. Jack didn’t need that pipe anymore.
On the Passaic Stadium field, Tatum’s hits were solid, delivered up around the numbers, chest-to-chest and hard – exactly the way Coach John Federici taught him. He’d tackle players so hard that he nearly knocked them out of their cleats. Then he’d walk away without a word.
The Indians would go 24-2-1 while he was there and win the state championship in 1964. Ohio State was next, and Tatum would be better, as the Buckeyes became national champions in 1968.
The NFL’s Oakland Raiders would be his final stop, and he’d help Raider Nation win the 1977 Super Bowl, along with creating an image of intimidation that defines the franchise to this day.
At this year’s Thanksgiving Day game against Clifton at Boverini Stadium in Passaic, they’ll retire Tatum’s No. 32, the one he wore to honor his idol Jim Brown. It’s a ceremony that’s been a long time coming. Not only was Tatum one of Passaic’s greatest players, he was one of New Jersey’s best – a two-way athlete who might have made it to the NFL as a running back.
But it’s the tackles that people remember… the hits that changed games and lives. It’s the hits that mark Jack Tatum’s story.
Nearly a Mustang
Here’s a little known fact to make every Clifton Mustangs fan skip a beat. Around 1950, when Lewis and Annie Mae Tatum moved their family from rural North Carolina to New Jersey, searching for a better life, jobs, and education for their children, they didn’t settle in Passaic or Paterson.
“When I was in second grade,” remembers Tatum, “We moved into an apartment in Clifton about two blocks from the Passaic line. I had an aunt and uncle who had one floor of a two-family house, and we took the other floor.”
In his new city, Tatum faced immediate culture shock.
“I came from a segregated school in the country to a big city segregated school,” he says. “Me, my sister, my two cousins were the only blacks in the school.”
Unfortunately for future Clifton High football teams, the Tatums moved to another apartment in Passaic the following year.
Jack was an active kid, always outside. He began playing basketball often, getting into games at Weasel Brook Park in Clifton, and School 11 and Third Ward Park in Passaic. He loved sports, as did his brothers, Manuel, who was 10 years older, and Samuel, five years older.
By the sixth grade, Jack began realizing he was a better athlete than the kids he played with.
But that year, Tatum moved again, this time to Paterson, and the quiet boy had to make another adjustment. After three years and one season on the freshman team, the family moved back to Passaic, this time to stay.
Despite Tatum’s athletic promise, neither parent was interested in sports. Jack’s father was a welder, and his mother worked as a domestic.
“My mom didn’t want me to play football,” Tatum says. “In my freshman year, I twisted my ankle pretty bad. By the time they took me to the doctor and got me home, my mom was there – she had a premonition something had happened to me.
“But she didn’t stop me from playing. She said if I wanted to go ahead and kill myself, she couldn’t stop me. Later, she became my biggest fan.”
In his first season at Passaic High School in 1964, Tatum refined his tackling technique under Federici, whom he calls his greatest sports influence growing up.
“Jack was a nice young man, very quiet – you never heard him swear,” remembers Vinny Magliarditi, a volunteer assistant coach at Passaic. “But when that whistle blew, look out. Jack had a style of hitting you just couldn’t teach – a natural. He’d rock you.”
Tatum’s talent as a defensive player soon became legendary.
“We were playing undefeated East Paterson,” remembers Magliarditi. “They had a great running back who (sportswriter) Augie Lio said was the best in New Jersey. And we got on Jack’s case all week. John said to Jack, ‘You don’t have to play in the game – that kid is the best. All week in practice, we had a uniform on the field with this kid’s number on it.
“On the day of the game, I went to get Jack in the freshman locker room at the other end of the stadium. When I saw him, his eyes were red. I said, ‘You’re playing against a great, great football player today.’ Jack said, ‘We’ll see.’”
Magliarditi took his seat in the press box and watched the teams trade punts. When the famed East Paterson running back took the ball on a sideline pitch, Tatum took aim.
“Jack came across the field and hit this kid so hard that he knocked him over the bench where the kids were sitting. I remember it plain as day. I said to Federici, ‘Get the ambulance on the field!’ I don’t know how many of the kid’s ribs that Jack cracked – you could hear the sound of the hit up in the press box.”
Matching the Mustangs
Though Tatum would intimidate opponents with defense, he also became an offensive force.
“In my first season at Passaic,” Tatum says, “I played linebacker. We already had a great running back at Passaic – Roland Moss.”
Later taking the All-State Moss’s place in Passaic’s backfield, Tatum would gain 1,421 yards as a senior, earning All-American honors as a 205-pound fullback. “Tatum was a bruiser, a bull,” Clifton lineman Rich Lio told Clifton Merchant in 2004. “He could go right through you.”
Ken Tecza, Passaic’s quarterback, says, “Every team keyed on Jack, and he took a lot of punishment but never said a word. In fact, Jack played hurt a lot of the time.”
Remembering the Mustangs as “our big rival,” Tatum has some good memories of Clifton School Stadium, including a 27-0 victory in 1964. “My first ‘big game,’” Tatum remembers. “I was a substitute wingback and carried the ball a lot that day. I scored my first touchdown on about a 45-yard run. Clifton had a big stadium, big crowd… but the fans were pretty much stunned that day.”
Tatum’s next game against Clifton was not as easy. Playing at Passaic Stadium, Tatum was injured on a kick-off, pulling a muscle.
“The doctor,” says Tatum, “told me my muscle was so strong that it pulled the tip of the bone, giving me a small fracture.” The Mustangs went on to win, 15-12, easily the highlight of Clifton’s disappointing 2-5-2 season.
In his 1966 senior year, Tatum and Passaic wanted revenge on Clifton, and Mustangs Coach Bill Vander Closter’s job was on the line. Since taking over for the winning coach Joe Grecco in 1964, Vandy had gone 7-9-2, and the Clifton fans were restless.
Luckily for Vandy, Mother Nature took an interest.
“Only two games were played in the state that day,” says Tatum, “And that was one of them.”
With monsoon-type rain drowning New Jersey, Vandy decided to play, knowing that field conditions would slow Tatum. He was right. “The field was all mud,” says Tatum. “You could hardly run and you couldn’t cut.”
“Our trainer Lou Capuano,” remembers Clifton’s Larry Mialik, “Had us step in a pan of motor oil before going on the field, saying the oil would keep the mud from sticking. I don’t know if it worked but we did it.”
Clifton sophomore Richie Tate took the opening kickoff to the Passaic 22-yard line. On the next play, quarterback Larry Ferraro hit Bob Duch for the game’s only touchdown and a 7-0 lead. The rest of the day’s action was confined to the middle of the field, with Tatum gaining only 36 yards.
The win propelled the Mustangs to a 7-1-1 record and Vandy’s first state championship.
But Tatum’s career didn’t slow down for long. Along with leading the team in rushing that season, he led the Indians with 187 tackles, and nearly every major college wanted the Passaic player for its own.
On to Ohio State
Though scores of college recruiters came to Passaic, Tatum was planning to attend Syracuse University, school of his idol Jim Brown. “I wanted my family to be able to see me play,” says Tatum, “And Syracuse was the closest big school.”
Enter Mr. Woody Hayes, coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes.
“Woody came and recruited my mother,” Tatum laughs. “He had such a way with parents. When he left the house, Mom told me, ‘I kind of like that Mr. Hayes.’ At that point I realized I was going to Ohio State.”
However, Federici and his coaches were taking no chances.
“When Woody Hayes came,” says Magliarditi, “We made Jack look bigger by having him wear an extra shirt and stuffing cardboard into his shoes so he could look down at Woody. Jack didn’t look big in person, but he played big.”
Hayes liked what he saw, and Tatum accepted his scholarship offer. The only question was where to play him.
“Woody Hayes,” says Magliarditi, “Told John, ‘Jack is so good offensively, I can’t play him defensively. He’s so good defensively, I can’t play him offensively. But if I play him on defense, he’ll take us to the Rose Bowl.’”
Still, the temptation to use Tatum as a running back was great. It was only after his freshman season that assistant coach Lou Holtz convinced Hayes to bring Tatum to the defensive side permanently – something that was fine with Jack.
“I always liked defense better,” he says. “It was better to hit than be hit.” During his career at Ohio State, Tatum helped the Buckeyes to a 1968 National Championship his sophomore season with a 27-16 win over USC in the Rose Bowl. As a three-year varsity starter, he led Ohio State to a 27-2 record and at least a share of three Big Ten conference titles.
Hayes later said about Tatum: “Pound for pound, the finest athlete I ever coached.”
In college, Tatum was a unanimous First Team All-America selection in 1970 and consensus pick in 1969. He earned First Team All-Conference honors three times and was named National Defensive Player of the Year in 1970.
In the 1971 NFL Draft, he was selected with the No. 19 pick by the Oakland Raiders.
“The Raiders were the only team that I hadn’t heard from,” Tatum says. “I thought I was going to the Giants. I didn’t even know where Oakland was.”
The Silver & Black Assassin
In 1971, Al Davis’s Oakland Raiders had a history of “mad bombing,” wide-open football. The selection of Jack Tatum would change that reputation.
“They had a great offense,” says Tatum, “But the year I came, they made a conscious decision to build an intimidating defense.”
Tatum was one of Oakland’s cornerstones. After an exhibition game against the Baltimore Colts, sportswriters were already comparing his hits to that of Chicago linebacker Dick Butkus.
But while Butkus’ defensive style was more mad dog and ferocious, Tatum used glowering intimidation followed by explosion. They nicknamed him “The Assassin.”
His 1971 play led to a spot on the All-Rookie Team. During his 10-year NFL career, Tatum made All-Pro five times, totaled 37 career interceptions, set an NFL record for a 104-yard touchdown fumble recovery, and started 12 playoff games.
“I saw Jack play three times in Pittsburgh,” says longtime Passaic friend Ron Smith. “When Franco Harris would see Jack coming, he’d run out of bounds. Lynn Swan would flat run away from him.”
Along with Skip Henderson, Willie Brown, and George Atkinson, Tatum’s Raiders secondary was a receiver’s nightmare. “If you came across the middle,” Tatum says, “you were going to get hit.”
Mialik, a tight end who played against Tatum at Clifton, in college with Wisconsin, and in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons, says, “Though quiet, Jack is really a nice guy. But on the field, you had to know where No. 32 was. Playing against him so much didn’t make it an easier, but I knew what to expect.”
While the Raiders usually made the playoffs, what Tatum describes as “freaky things” kept them from the Super Bowl – including the “Immaculate Reception” that gave the Pittsburgh Steelers a 1972 playoff win.
With 22 seconds left in the game, Tatum unloaded on running back Frenchy Fuqua just as Terry Bradshaw’s pass reached him. After the collision, the ball soared into the air and Harris grabbed it off his shoe tops and raced into the end zone for the win.
“I hit Fuqua, not the ball,” Tatum says. “When I saw Franco running, I thought, ‘Boy, he’s in a hurry to get to the locker room. I thought the game was over and we won. Then I saw our guys chasing him.”
In 1977, the Raiders finally reached the Super Bowl to face the Minnesota Vikings, and the nation witnessed why Tatum was one of the hardest hitters ever to play football. On a pass over the middle, he creamed Sammy White, knocking White’s helmet off and setting the tone for the rest of the game. The Raiders won, 32-14.
“I had a good read on the pattern, jumped it, and got there when the ball arrived,” describes Tatum. “But he hung onto it – so it wasn’t a great play, just a great hit.”
But the play many remember Tatum for – and one that still haunts the NFL – was his hit on the New England Patriot’s Darryl Stingley in a 1978 exhibition game that left the receiver paralyzed from the waist down.
Many criticized Tatum for the hard hit during an exhibition game; others said he was wrong for never apologizing to Stingley. Some in the media called Tatum a thug or cheap shot artist, making him the symbol for over-the-top violence in sports.
After an entire career of being praised for hard hits, Tatum was now being vilified.
Both coaches, New England’s Chuck Fairbanks and Oakland’s John Madden, said it was a clean, legal hit. Tatum also did go to the hospital to visit Stingley, something Madden confirms, but was not allowed to see him.
“As far as it being an exhibition game,” Tatum says, “I knew one way to play and that was all out, all the time. But the play did get me down… my performance went down. But I talked to my mom and brothers, and they said I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Still, the hit remained. Though he later expressed public remorse and did attempt to reach out to Stingley, the two never spoke. Stingley died in April 2007.
Toughest Fight
Tatum retired after the 1980 season, spending his final year in football with the Houston Oilers and totaling a career high seven interceptions.
After retiring, he wrote three books, They Call Me Assassin (1980), They Still Call Me Assassin (1989), and Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum (1996).
But his toughest battle was just ahead.
In 2003, after what he thought was a simple cold, Tatum contracted a staph infection from diabetes, which led to the eventual amputation of his right leg.
“When he got sick, it affected him some, depressed him,” says Smith. “But when he saw the children with the same disease, it changed him. He wanted to help others.”
Today, Tatum works on behalf of many diabetes organizations, including the Central Ohio Diabetes Foundation, which finances treatment. In fact, before the Passaic ceremony to retire his number, he will stop off in Ohio to take part in fundraising efforts.
He’ll also check on his own treatment with world renowned diabetes specialist Dr. Manuel Tzagournis, the foundation’s head.
“When Dr. Tzagournis heard I was ill, he called me to come back to Ohio so he could examine me. He saved my life. While I was playing at Ohio State, Dr. Tzagournis was Woody Hayes’s doctor – Woody was a diabetic, too.
“Getting involved helps me to make something good come out of my situation.”
On Thanksgiving Day in Passaic this year, Tatum is looking forward to visiting his hometown and seeing family, friends and especially hoping to see many of his old teammates.
“I’m hoping a lot of our teammates will show up to honor Jack,” says Tecza. “It will be a great reunion for us.”
“Eleven NFL players come from Passaic,” says Greg Komeshok, Passaic athletic director, “And Jack and Craig Heyward are probably the most legendary. But you can’t match Jack’s sports pedigree – he’s been part of a state champion high school team, a national champion college team, and a Super Bowl winner. This is an honor that’s long overdue and great for our program to recognize.”
Jack Tatum’s former teammates are invited to take part in his number-retiring ceremony. For information about how to be part of this special day, call Passaic Athletic Director Greg Komeshok at 973-470-5228.
