Jack Tatum

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American pro athlete, a football player drafted by the Oakland Raiders in 1971. He spent most of his 10-year career with the team and with them, took home the 1977 SuperBowl championship rings. In 1980 he was traded to Houston and retired from pro-football at the end of the season. A powerful hitter on the field, his power turned to tragedy on August 12, 1978 in a pre-season game played in Oakland, CA against the New England Patriots. Tatum tackled Darryl Stingley with such force that the collision fractured Stingley's two neck vertebrae and so damaged his spinal cord that Stingley was left a quadriplegic. In 1980 Tatum wrote a book that revealed the impact on his own life of that accident but he was criticized for never apologizing to Stingley. Stingley died in 2007. After he retired from pro-football, he went into business, selling real estate, co-owning a restaurant and working to promote diabetes research. He wrote two other books about his football years and his life. He and his wife had three children. In his later years Tatum lost a leg as a complication of his diabetes. He suffered a fatal heart attack on July 27, 2010 in Oakland. Link to Wikipedia biography