Tragedy Continues To Visit Star-Crossed Detroit Lions

PONTIAC, Mich. - They gathered. They cried. They prayed. They reflected.

The images remain of Reggie Brown flat on the football field, not breathing, the medical staff working feverishly around him.

The doctors say that they saved his life that Sunday in December on the floor of the Silverdome.

But Brown's injury reminded again that genuine tragedies occur in sports.

"I'm upbeat about Reggie; it's a positive," said Detroit Lions Coach Bobby Ross, who has been hit by tragedies at other stops in his coaching career.

Through the decades, in all the sports, perhaps no team has suffered more misfortune than the Lions.

They have endured a run of sudden death - active players Lucien Reeberg, Chuck Hughes and Eric Andolsek, head coach Don McCafferty, assistant coach Len Fontes. The paralyzing injury to Mike Utley remains a fresh memory, made more harrowing by the scary near-tragedy of Brown's neck injury.

"Unbelievable shock," said John Gordy, who played alongside Reeberg only one season. "He went to the hospital, and then he was gone."

Gordy played 10 seasons for the Lions. He was a rookie on the Lions' last championship team in 1957. He played mostly at right guard, several years as All-Pro. His first five seasons, he played alongside four different tackles. Then in 1963, the Lions drafted Reeberg from Hampton Institute. The rookie excelled.

"Lucien was coming in, and I felt I got my guy," said Gordy from his home in San Clemente, Calif. "I felt I really had a mate there. All of a sudden, he's gone."

Reeberg entered Detroit Osteopathic Hospital a month after the end of his first season to participate in a weight-control program. He weighed 320 pounds at his rookie camp. The Lions wanted him at 260. In the hospital, according to press reports, tests disclosed that Reeberg had a disease called hematuria. He had a history of high blood pressure.

On Jan. 22, he underwent another test. He collapsed during the test and died.

"We went to New York for the funeral," Gordy said. "I was a pallbearer . . . It was one of the saddest things I went through in my life."

The Lions of 1971 were bonafide contenders for the Super Bowl. They had finished with a rush in 1970. A member of that team was Chuck Hughes, picked up from the Philadelphia Eagles during training camp.

Joining the Lions, he requested uniform No. 13.

"No, you can't wear that number here," said Roy "Friday" Macklem, the Lions' equipment man for 44 years, who himself died on Christmas Day 1997.

"Here's No. 85," he said.

On Oct. 24, 1971, the Lions played the Chicago Bears at Tiger Stadium, riding a four-game winning streak. Late in the game, with the Lions trailing 28-23, Coach Joe Schmidt sent Hughes into the lineup at wide receiver.

He went deep on a route, over the middle. The pass was incomplete, not intended for him. He started to return to the huddle.

Then he collapsed, somewhere around the 30-yard line. He just went down.

The first to reach him was Dick Butkus, the Bears' Hall of Fame middle linebacker, who signaled urgently to the Lions' bench, to summon the doctor.

Moments later, team physician Richard Thompson could be seen pounding Hughes' chest. The stadium was very quiet.

A stretcher was rolled onto the field. He was taken by ambulance to Henry Ford Hospital.

The game finished in eerie silence with the Lions losing.

Afterward, it was announced that Hughes had been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He had died on the field, of a heart attack.

Three days later, the Lions flew as a team to San Antonio for the funeral and burial of their teammate.

Macklem retired No. 85.

The Lions would finish 7-6-1 and out of the playoffs that season.

Schmidt would coach one more season, then resign in frustration at the front office.

The Lions hired Don McCafferty to replace him.

He had succeeded Don Shula as coach of the Baltimore Colts in 1970. That first season, McCafferty's Colts won Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys.

His first season in Detroit was a year of turmoil and transition and a 6-7-1 record. As training camp before the 1974 season was starting, McCafferty unexpectedly suffered a fatal heart attack.

Eric Andolsek played left guard for the Lions. He was in his fourth season in 1991. That season, the Lions had a new starting right guard - a tough, carefree blocker with flowing hair, Mike Utley.

On Nov. 17, Utley went down in a game against the Los Angeles Rams. He could not get up. He was rolled off the field on a gurney. As he was leaving, he flashed a thumbs-up signal to Andolsek and his other teammates.

Utley remains paralyzed more than six years later, an inspiration for disabled people everywhere with his spirit and his foundation.

That '91 season, he and his thumbs-up signal may have helped inspire the Lions to their closest approach to a title since 1957, reaching the NFC championship game before losing to Washington.

After that season, Len Fontes, brother of head coach Wayne Fontes, died of a heart attack.

And in the off-season, back home in Louisiana, Andolsek was standing on his front lawn one day.

A rumbling truck went out of control, jumped onto the lawn - and struck him dead.

Another genuine tragedy for this team of tragedies.

"I've had three players that died," Ross said.

Chris Caudle played tight end at Georgia Tech, where Ross won half of a national championship. Caudle was a drowning victim.

Two died while he coached the San Diego Chargers - David Griggs in June 1995 in an auto wreck and Rodney Culver in the May 1996 ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades.

Ross also had coached running back Joe Delaney when he was an assistant with the Kansas City Chiefs. Delaney later drowned in a failed lifesaving attempt.

"Griggs played outside linebacker for us," Ross said of his San Diego tragedies. "He was a starter the year we went to the Super Bowl. He wrapped his car around a tree."

Culver and his wife were returning home to Detroit from a Florida vacation.

"They had tickets for another flight," Ross said.

They exchanged the tickets, presumably when space opened on an earlier flight. "They were the last to get on their flight," Ross said.