The Sporting Life:
The Public Professor’s
Saturday Sports Column
In the world of sports, only dedicated football fans with a sense of history know of the great Colts tight end John Mackey. However, here in Baltimore where he played from 1963-71, he is the stuff of legend. And with his passing on Wednesday, that legend needs to grow.
The New York City native revolutionized the position of tight end after arriving in the NFL. Long treated as a sixth offensive lineman, tight ends caught few balls in an era of modest passing. Those who 
were successful receivers, such as Mike Ditka and Ron Kramer, mostly picked up yards in chunks while working the middle. But Mackey ran a 4.6 second 40-yard dash and he soon became a favorite deep target of Baltimore quarterback Johnny Unitas.
Mackey used that speed and an aggressive running style to average over 15 yards per catch during his career, topping the 20 yard mark in two seasons. In 1966, he posted numbers that would make even Kellen Winslow and Antonio Gates blanch, scoring ten touchdowns, six of them going for more than 50 yards. In 1992, after waiting far too long, Mackey became only the second full-time tight end immortalized in the hallowed halls of Canton.
After a career that included a Super Bowl victory, five Pro-Bowls, and three All Pro honors, Mackey hung up his cleats in 1972. But he wasn’t done with football. Instead of grazing in the pasture, he became the first president of the National Football League Players Association, the fledgling union representing the bruised and battered men of professional football. As NFLPA leader, Mackey hired administrators and a lawyer, and then organized a successful strike, winning the players $11,000,000 worth of pension contributions and other benefits. During an era when many players still had off-season jobs, and when a number of his Baltimore teammates lived in the city’s working class row homes, much like the one I’m sitting in as I type these words, the NFLPA’s successful strike was a major achievement.
Ironically, it was that same NFLPA that would let him down when he needed them most.
John Mackey had been incredibly durable on the field, missing only one game during his ten seasons in the NFL. But that meant he gave and took too many hits. By the 1990s he was suffering from memory loss and moodiness. They turned out to be early signs of frontotemporal dementia, serious brain damage that most likely resulted from knocking heads on the gridiron. He may have also 
suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a form of degenerative brain damage affecting a frightening number of former NFL players, but which can only be fully diagnosed through a posthumous brain examination.
Spending his adult life here in Baltimore, there were stories of Mackey disappearing when his wife Sylvia turned her back. More than once, he wandered off helpless and disoriented into the unknown depths of the city, sending Sylvia into a panic. But before the police could start a missing person’s investigation, he would be returned safely home by some random Colts fan who’d recognized their beloved old warrior on the other side of town and brought him back to her.
Despite his condition, Mackey had been denied benefits by the same NFLPA he had worked so hard to establish. By 2006, he was residing in a full time assisted-living facility. It was only when his wife and old teammates such as players’ advocate Bruce Laird shamed the union for turning their backs on former players that the NFLPA set up The 88 Fund in 2007. Named for Mackey’s jersey number, The 88 Fund awards upwards of $88,000 per year to former players suffering from dementia.
It’s been almost 30 years since the universally reviled Robert Irsay packed up the Colts and stole away to Indianapolis in the middle of the night, a despicable crime that hurt the good people of Baltimore every bit as much as the Dodgers’ infamous exodus tortured Brooklynites. But Baltimore is a football town, and they’ve never forgotten the great Colts of the past, many of whom like Unitas, Art Donovan, and Lenny Moore are well known figures in NFL 
history, and rightly so. However, John Mackey didn’t play a glory position like Unitas and Moore, and he didn’t become a media celebrity like Donovan, so he never gained the same national renown after his playing days were over.
But it doesn’t really matter. Because John Mackey was one of the best who ever played, one of the most important afterwards, and one of the most beloved by the people who counted most: his family, his friends, his teammates, and the adoring fans of Baltimore.
R.I.P. John Mackey 1941-2011.