Jack Tatum: The Raider Nation Mourns

July 27, 2010   ·   David Wilson   ·   Jump to comments

So passes Jack Tatum, one of the truly greatest players ever to grace the silver and black.
Jack Tatum died today of a suspected heart attack after long suffering from diabetes.
There never was anyone else like Jack Tatum, he was a unique individual who left his mark on the National Football League to the extent that he is still talked about today as one of the most intimidating defensive presences of all time.
What is defense about if not about hitting?
Nobody hit like Jack Tatum, and I mean nobody. Not Dick Butkus, not Ray Lewis, no one at all.
His hits on Earl Campbell and Sammy White are the stuff of legend.
His autobiography, They Call Me Assassin, was a best seller and one of the best football books of all time.
But Jack Tatum never got the credit he deserved, because he played for the Oakland Raiders, and because of an entirely legal hit on Darryl Stingley that left the receiver a quadraplegic for the rest of his life. It wa...

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