February 2, 2021 • 26 mins
Jim Duncan's rare athleticism made him a star on the Maryland State College football team, where he played offense, defense and special teams. In 1968, he was a fourth-round draft pick by the Baltimore Colts, and soon became the leading kickoff return man in the NFL, enjoying a level of celebrity and status that friends and family back in Lancaster could hardly imagine.
New episodes coming each Tuesday, through March 16.
To continue supporting work like this, visit heraldonline.com/podcasts and consider a digital subscription.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Long Shot is a production of McClatchy Studios and I
Heart Radio m previously on Return, Men went out came here.
It really was a big town. Just the ranks to
people black sometime I'm associated with each other, were poor.
But we didn't know poor Mama always Blood, which was
(00:24):
an outstanding athlete from a little boy. He was good football,
baseball and basketball. We all could have won pool at
Strange Control LANs. I mean everybody you knew what the
space people so lost men most and lankster did. This
(00:52):
is the Orange Bowl. It will be jam eighty tho
fans today Super Bowl Day. It's harder to imagine brighter
lights than the Super Bowl in a place further from
a dirt lot in Lancaster, South Carolina than the Orange
Bowl in Miami. Just before game time, it is already filled.
And believe me, it's been a tough ticket for those games.
(01:15):
For Jim Duncan, who was once to stand out at
bar Street High and now a star on the rise
for the Baltimore Colts, seventy was the best year of
his life. Hi, everybody, this is Kurd Galdy along with
Joe Namath here in Miami. You're to day as the
Baltimore Cols champs of the American Conference the Dallas Cowboys
champs of the National Conference. Jim had left his southern
(01:40):
milltown in the early nineteen sixties. Some might say escaped
if they're not the right, but that's Sunday in Miami.
He was an NFL Swiss Army knife on the cusp
of stardom. In the eyes of sixty million people were
upon him. And now we're going to take a unique
look at the starting lineup. You haven't drunkard number thirty five.
(02:03):
The top took off the turned man in the American
convert From the poorest side of Lancaster's main Street, Jim
had arrived at perhaps the biggest game in the world,
culminating in a play that would go down in Colts history,
the high point in a life that soon began crumbling
(02:23):
around him. From the Herald McClatchy Studios and I Heart Radio,
this is return man. I'm Brett McCormick, and this is
part two. From the cotton Fields to glory. They turned
longest bridge in the world, spanning Chesapeake Bay is ready
(02:45):
for service. In en sixty four, Jim Duncan left Lancaster
found for Maryland's Eastern Shore. As the cars began to
roll over the brand new bridge, each motorist is saving
a hundred and twenty five miles from the eastern end
of the western shore of Maryland. The year he graduated
from bar Street, Jim's High school head coach Sandy Gilliam
had been offered the head coaching job at Maryland State
(03:06):
College in rural Princess Anne. That was very loyal to
friends and family alike. Rosie Gilliam is Sandy's son. When
he left South Carolina, I guess it went to Meryland
State College. He took some of the players that he
had coached in high school. Obviously he knew their talent,
and it was his first recruiting I guess tests to
(03:27):
convince them to come, and that made them the success
that I think they were. Maryland State College is now
known as Maryland Eastern Shore, located about a hundred and
thirty miles from Baltimore. It's a historically black college and
was a safe harbor in a remote corner of Maryland
stalked by racial tensions. At the time, Princess Anne had
(03:48):
been the location of the last recorded lynching in the
state of Maryland. How can you tell black people to
be non violently and at the same time condone the
sinning of white killers. The summer before Duncan arrived at
college nearby Cambridge, Maryland was in flames after a visit
from h. Rat Brown, then the chairman of the student
Non Violent Coordinating Committee. We built the country up, we
(04:11):
will burn it down. You can quote that. I say
violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture.
It is as American as cherry pie. Rosie Williams's father
was Jim's coach at Maryland State, and Gilliam remembers his
family's home there became an oasis for the football players
(04:34):
and in the process Rosie's parents got some free babysitting
out of it. Our parents, would you know, I think
they had almost manufacture of reason for them to go out,
and they would have several players over in our house.
You know, they hang out in our basement, play records.
They would make sandwiches and leave mean a refrigerator. These
young men and women became my brother and I babysitters,
(04:58):
and and at to say time they were quote having fun.
Rosie Gilliam rubbed elbows with some all time grades at
Maryland State. During the four years Duncan played for the Hawks,
twelve football players from the school went on to the NFL.
I'm sure on some levels we were brandy little kids
to the players because we're always around them and there
are heroes. I mean, we may not appreciate that this flayer,
(05:20):
that player was NFL player quality, but if you're on
the team, you were considered a big person. And yeah,
we'd hang out with them as much as you know,
a kid could hang out with somebody ten or so
years older than they were. Duncan played offense, defense, and
special teams for the Hawks. He lined up at quarterback, safety,
(05:43):
and return punts. He ran two kicks back for touchdowns
in a game against lock Haven with sixty seven and
eighty seven yard returns. Outside of football, he played on
the school's basketball and baseball teams for at least one
season each and earned his way into Maryland States Athletic
Hall of Fame. You can still find Maryland State yearbooks online.
In one, Jim is pictured with other multi sport athletes
(06:05):
at the school, standing directly in front of his football coach.
Jim is beaming in the front row, wearing snazzy white
dress shoes, dark sunglasses and a giant grin. Darton was very,
very quiet, a really nice pat would you would say,
make him? I going to find particularly to play date
Upton Bell was the Baltimore Colts director of player personnel
(06:28):
from nineteen sixty six to nine, and he was the
first NFL scout to see Jim's potential. Most days Frenches
were much toughers better, and you have to really be
tough to fight, and here's toughness to be light. It's
really almost sweet personality. In nineteen sixty seven, Bell urged
(06:49):
the Colts head coach, future Hall of Famer Don Shula,
to make the drive across the Chesapeake Bay and check
on Maryland States overlooked players. Johnny Unitas already has such
a grip on the slippery bubble of sports immortality that
one expects red velvet ropes to go up around this
dressing cage on the day he retires into the record
(07:10):
books of pro football. The Colts were all set at quarterback,
as is evident from this episode of Woody's World on
CBS from that year. Woody Brune is profiling John Uniteds,
one of the most mythologized quarterbacks in NFL history. As
a leader, Unitis belongs to the school of that other
great quarterback, the Duke of Wellington, a man whose coolness
(07:30):
only grew as Napoleon's old guards came close to breaking
the pocket at Waterloop. But Upton Bell was certain Jim
could help the Colts in other ways. He has such
Greek speed witness and he was told by said Ms.
Scott would be a great punt return but remember himlike
today where there's no don't kick off the punt return.
Potentially man we was much more for special teams were important.
(07:54):
If he did nothing else, he could break one in
a close game and you win. The Colts picked Jim
in the fourth round of the seventeen round nine NFL
draft held that January. He signed a contract with the
team three months later, and six months after that, Jim
bought a wooded plot of land in his hometown of
(08:15):
Lancaster for sevres. There, he had a local contractor built
a three bedroom house for his mother and siblings. Everyone
in the neighborhood felt invested in Jim's success, including Floyd White.
Oh Man, we have to be we have. I worked
with my buddy. He was in construction then he bet
(08:39):
but it was you know, it was nice. It was nice.
It's kind of like what you see on to you now.
White helped pour the concrete foundation of Jim's new family home,
and once it was finished, County records show the house
at Street was valued at twenty dollars about a hundred
and eighty thousand in today's money. The home was still
(09:00):
on the east side of Main Street, but in a
safer part of town, closer to the high school. The
move reflected the promise carried in Duncan's two d pound
frame and offered a path out of poverty for his family.
And you can made eight kids and the shotgun out.
When I said, shotgun straight through the front door like
a long narrow You've got people sleeping in one or
(09:22):
two bays, and you've got sleeping on the floor and
there witha do what you got to do. As Floyd
White said, it was just a few blocks, but a
whole world away from that shotgun house in Newtown. That
street house was a man. There's a change in the environment.
So they had the chancy to bribe the side of
life that all the negative side us. We'll be back
(09:45):
after the break. The year Jim Duncan was drafted, the
Colts were loaded with veterans on defense and special teams.
If the called offense was efficient, it's defense was invincible,
flawless and superb. NFL films couldn't say enough about them.
It was a defensive swarming Blue Jerseys that forced so
(10:07):
many breaks. The offense rarely had to take the ball
more than half the field. So Jim spent that nineteen
eight season practicing in Baltimore as a defensive back and
kick returner during the week. Then he headed to Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania on weekends to play for Baltimore's farm team, the
Capitol Colts. The players called it the taxi squad. Yeah, yeah,
(10:30):
they just wanted to give us. He was probably good experiences.
Jeff Beaver was the quarterback for the Capitol Colts team
Jim played on. Like the fans in the middle towns,
we played for secial teams. There were four Colts rookies
on that Harrisburg team, which was largely made up of
part time players with day jobs. The team are just
(10:57):
extra money for us. Yeah, here we were they you know,
they were thinking we were a hot doot and we
were trying to make a living just like they were. Yeah,
I was playing football for six months and we had
a job of the bank, and the other six months
that we were living large nice. Early in his time
(11:18):
with the Colts, Jim also had another job in the
off season. He worked in the mail room at Springs
Mill back in Lancaster. But they're on the field in Harrisburg.
Jim clearly stood out. After one of the team's wins,
a local reporter wrote that he quote looked like a
record setting dash man during the sixty five yard interception
return for a touchdown. You're a lanky, tough guy. Yeah,
(11:41):
I had a great small athlete. Remember. Baltimore fans remember
that season mainly for the team's historic loss in Super
Bowl three, when Colts quarterback Earl Morrell had a lousy
game in place of the injured Johnny Uniteds and Jets
quarterback Joe Nay engineered one of the greatest upsets in
(12:02):
sports history. The Colts fans in Harrisburg remember something different
the raw promise in that linky rookie from South Carolina,
and the next year, when the Colts cleared out their
aging defensive backfield Baltimore gave Jim a chance. He quickly
made the most of it, scoring his first touchdown. In
the third game of the sixty nine season. The Colts
(12:23):
trailed the Falcons fourteen to seven with twenty four seconds
left in the first half when Jim Duncan took a
kickoff and raised ninety two yards to tie the game
at half time. The Colts finished eight five and one
in nineteen sixty nine and just missed the playoffs. But
by early the next season in nineteen seventy, Jim was
at the peak of his football powers. Six ft two
(12:45):
and two d pounds, he had become the most feared
kickoff return man in the league. We're just about ready
to get the second half underway. Easily recognizable by his
black pooma cleats with taped white laces, Public Colt Jim
Duncan against the Dolphins that November, Ji caught the second
half kickoff and knife towards the right sideline past the
teammates block. Then he gallops yards for the scoring outside.
(13:08):
The Miami tacklers were left in the literal dust of
the grassless Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. It's not like Baltimore
(13:31):
didn't have its own issues with civil rights. This is
the story of a street which has been rejected by
a large segment of society. Pennsylvania evangel became the bustling
center of the black man's working life and leisure robbers
because downtown was more or less off limits to negros.
By the early nineteen seventies, Baltimore's historic black cultural corridor Downtown,
(13:53):
once home to theaters and countless jazz clubs, had fallen
onto hard times. But the solens of Pennsylvania Avenue are
not all musical. There is, for example, the sound and
fury of the spoken words so vividly projected by the
man known simply as X. Whether you are a Christian
or a Muslim or a nationalist, we all have the
(14:14):
same problem. They don't hang you because you're a Baptist.
They hang you God, you're black. The government has failed this.
You can't deny that any time you're walking around here
singing we shall overcome. The government has failed. The year
Jim was drafted by the Colts, Baltimore too had been
(14:35):
inflames after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. CBS
News reported from the front lines of that uprising Pennsylvania
Avenue in Baltimore's Western Negro district where the severe trouble
was last night. Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew instituted a curfew
and the army was sent into control the city. At
six eleven this evening, I requested federal reinforcements. They should
(14:58):
now be taking for Asians in the critical areas great
We know now as never before, that violence is no
friend to freedom, and that the mob there's no allies
of civil rights. Still. Players from the time remember the
(15:19):
Colts as a unifier. At the very least, white people
had no problem with the black players wearing Colts blue.
And by nine seventy when the Colts and their marching
band took the field, there was nothing but celebration among
the fans. We didn't have to pay for anything, hardly
any place that we went. Throughout my research on Jim's life,
(15:42):
I spoke multiple times to Bob Grant, he was drafted
by the Colts the same year as Jim. Sometimes they
would ask to sign a few autographs. Even at the
grocery store. Cash here would ask you for the stock,
Wars would ask you for That's the way that it
was back then. We true. We were princes of the
city at that time, so Jim grew his hair out
(16:02):
a little bit. I bought a lincoln Mark three luxury
car in Canary yellow. He told a reporter that year.
He loved Burt Backer Acts music, and Jim began teaching
himself to play the piano. He was an amazing dresser.
Even back in Maryland State, Jim's sense of style had
(16:23):
stood out, and Bob Grant told me a pro football
player's salary only amplified it. All of the clothes had
to match, including the shoes and socks. There would not
be one single thing out of place whenever we dressed
to go out or when we were hot. Grow Back
in Lancaster, Jim's family and friends knew him as butch,
(16:44):
but they're in Baltimore. Teammates called him speedy. According to Grant,
it seemed as fitting off the field as it did
on it. There was lots of female o companionship available,
and it was pretty easy to meet young ladies back then,
especially if he wore a ball player or an entertainer,
and we were ball players. I spoke to Ernie A.
(17:05):
Corsi during my research. He was the Colts public relations
man during the nineteen seventy season. He chose not to
appear in this podcast, but of course he told me.
Jim's base salary that season was probably about fifteen thousand dollars.
That translates to roughly a hundred thousand dollars a year
in modern terms. It's a far cry from today's half
million dollar minimum contracts. Even then, it was much less
(17:27):
than what Colts stars like Johnny Unitis or tight end
John Mackie were paid, but of course he said it
was right in line with what most other players earned.
Outside the locker room. The black Colts players had few
equals in their socio economic class. A solid middle and
upper class for people of color in this country was
still largely absent during the Civil Rights era. So even
(17:49):
if fifteen thousand dollars might not have been enough to
live like a king, teammate Bob Grant said it was
enough to live like a prince, especially there in Baltimore,
where their money was no good in the places they went.
The two friends both rented luxury apartments downtown in a
building called Sutton Place. They drank beer on Grant's twelfth
floor balcony and watched the sunset over the Inner Harbor.
(18:12):
It was the first time in Jim's life he could
embrace financial comfort, even wastefulness. We would talk and we
would listen to music, and he would drink half of
a bottle and he would open a new one. So
when Speedy like you left, there would always be somewhere
between six and twelve half bottles that were just left there.
(18:32):
When we were on the road or the restaurants in
the city, Speedy always ordered two meals. He would never
eat the second meal. And he told me that when
he was a young man, he had had a lot
of days that he didn't have enough food, and now
that he had made it, he was never going to
have a day whereas he did not have enough food
(18:54):
in front of him. Grant also said that Jim had
planned to write a book. I asked him once. I said, okay, well,
what are you gonna call this book? Speedy and he says,
from the cotton Fields to Glory. Jimmy Duncan was a
good man. I think that he would have done some
good things in life. We'll be back after the break.
(19:24):
Baltimore won seven of its first eight games that v season,
and of the nine people I interviewed for this podcast
who worked with or played alongside Jim all said he
was a fine guy to have in the locker room.
The first thing you noticed was that he had a
great attitude. He's cheerful up the Bill Curry was the
Colts center and team captain during Jim's time in Baltimore.
(19:47):
The second thing you noticed, and there's some good about
it and there's some real bad about it. In the NFL,
this is what counts the most. But if you can
really play, if your hell of a player, you get
instant credibility. Yeah, he can find out playing. Probably would
have been a great player had he lived. Jim Duncan, Well,
(20:08):
we see this kick That nineteen seventy season, Jim led
the league in kickoff return yards with a thirty five
point four yard average. It is coming a Duncan a
real threat to the plan fifteen, to the plenty and
the twenty five. But that's not all. Jim took over
a starting job as cornerback too, and what's now considered
(20:30):
one of the greatest defenses ever and him on a
great play by Jim Duncan. He's made two good tackles
coming up from the quarterbacks every day. You know, he
gave me the look of the opposing player that were
teams were gonna play. Eddie Hinton was a receiver with Baltimore.
He remembers Jim as a lockdown defender on a Colts
team that only allowed fifteen and a half points per
(20:51):
game that season, and he just stayed on me. I
mean just sometimes I would defeat him, and sometime he
defeat me. When he defeated me up with all my man,
why could not state as he got the best of me,
And you don't realize I'm thinking about how great that
makes name practice Hidden scored seven touchdowns for the Colts
that year, tied for the most on the team. He
(21:13):
told me that was partly thanks to Jim. When that
kind of battling all week. When I got to play
on Sunday on Monday night, I already played the person
maybe four or five times because Jim would give me
the look. And having that kind of teammate kept you
on edge. You know, you never had time relaxed, and
he was always prepared for every game. The Colts finished
(21:33):
the nineteen seventy regular season eleven two and one, then
charged into the playoffs back to throw fires the passes
because five the Colt are playing fine football and tapped
it out. The Colts swept aside Cincinnati and then Oakland
the japan Soon they were headed to Miami for their
(21:57):
second championship game in three years. NBC Sports resents for
the Championship of Professional Football super Ballpie the American Conference champions,
the Bollimar Colt. First, it was the National Conference champions,
the Dallas Cowboy. On January sevent Jim suited up for
(22:21):
the biggest game of his life. Two years ago we
covered the Colts and the Jeffs, and so far everything
started going wrong for Bollimore, almost like it was two
years ago against New York. Footage of the game shows
Jim eager to throw himself into pile ups, though early
on his impact was mostly felt on special teams. There
was a kick off a yort one. He returned four
(22:41):
kicks in the Super Bowl for ninety yards total and
almost broke this one near the end of the first quarter.
Running up on the Jim Duck in a great kickoff,
rejoined earth to the thirty brings it out to the
thirty six. He's averaged thirty five yards a kick returned
and he years against Baltimore good field position after a kickoff.
The Colts trailed thirteen to six at the half, and
(23:01):
in the locker room the news got worse. The Colts
learned before the second half that their star quarterback was
questionable at best after hit earlier in the game fractured
Unitus's ribs. Johnny United does not come back out on
the field. We understand from the Baltimore bench he was
having his ribs x raid. But right now this ball
game is in the hands of Earl Morl. Then, as
if the Colts needed any more adversity to overcome, Jim
(23:24):
gave it to them at the start of the second half.
Here's the kick back. Farre Duncan fields it on the
seventh that's twenty oho, he bubbles and that's the fifth
Baltimore turnover. It was one of the only fumbles of
Jim's career, and a series of punishing runs by running
back Dwayne Thomas pushed the Cowboys toward the goal line.
(23:45):
Then on the two yard line, Dallas looked to go
up twenty six and take control of the game. The
old standard d give it to Thomas, trying to spending
that goal line but in one of the most consequential
plays in Colts history, Dwayne tom Miss plunged toward the
goal line right into the heart of Baltimore's defense, and
a bubble and a Colt every covering and it was
(24:07):
Jimmy Duncas and the cover of that bumble. Jim recovered
the ball. Earl Morrill settled down the Colts offense. With
the score tide at thirteen and time running out, Colts
kicker Jim O'Brien lined up for a thirty two yard
field goal nine doors your clubs, O brian. He's been
slightly a raticod time and the kick did too, but
(24:31):
suck a costly sixteen thirteen. Moral was the focus of
the postgame interviews, having avenged that Super Bowl loss to
the Jets two years earlier. Well where in the Colts
loop room again in the world champion Baltimore Colts, I
should say Old Marl, who came off the bench following
the Andrew Due Johnny united. For a long time, you
(24:52):
and john both have waited for this. He's a great
feeling be on the side, on the wedding side, and
I hate to see anything I have to Johnny. I
just take a faints about. It's a great feeling, but
Jim got his due as well. Each player in the
Colts was given a fifteen thousand dollar bonus for the win.
Jim was young, handsome, and now a Super Bowl champion.
(25:13):
Are the world professional football champion. But no matter how
fast he moved, Jim Duncan could never outrun his demons.
And on part three of return Man, look out out
to Kansas City nine yard. But I just thought, you know,
we all got on the log when he as long
as he did what he needed to do in the field,
(25:33):
that's all I was interested. The end going deep touchdown,
Docan is combiding it was out of bounds. Duncan is
complaining because he wasn't covering a really good NFL team.
You don't have a bunch of really well adjusted Sunday
school guys. Jim had some problems, but I didn't remember
what they were, and I did not get involved. I'm
(25:55):
Brett McCormick. Return Man is a production of The Herald,
McClatchy Studios and I Heart Radio. It's produced by Matt Walsh,
Kara Tabor Cotta, Stevens, Rachel Wise, and Davin Coburn. The
executive producer for I Heeart Radio is Sean Titone. For
lots more on this story, go to Harold online dot
com slash return Man. If you have any additional information
(26:18):
about Jim Duncan's life or death, email us at return
Man at Harold online dot com. To continue supporting this
kind of work, visit Harold online dot com slash Podcasts
and consider a digital subscription. And for more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Long Shot is a production of McClatchy Studios and I
Heart Radio m previously on Return, Men went out came here.
It really was a big town. Just the ranks to
people black sometime I'm associated with each other, were poor.
But we didn't know poor Mama always Blood, which was
(00:24):
an outstanding athlete from a little boy. He was good football,
baseball and basketball. We all could have won pool at
Strange Control LANs. I mean everybody you knew what the
space people so lost men most and lankster did. This
(00:52):
is the Orange Bowl. It will be jam eighty tho
fans today Super Bowl Day. It's harder to imagine brighter
lights than the Super Bowl in a place further from
a dirt lot in Lancaster, South Carolina than the Orange
Bowl in Miami. Just before game time, it is already filled.
And believe me, it's been a tough ticket for those games.
(01:15):
For Jim Duncan, who was once to stand out at
bar Street High and now a star on the rise
for the Baltimore Colts, seventy was the best year of
his life. Hi, everybody, this is Kurd Galdy along with
Joe Namath here in Miami. You're to day as the
Baltimore Cols champs of the American Conference the Dallas Cowboys
champs of the National Conference. Jim had left his southern
(01:40):
milltown in the early nineteen sixties. Some might say escaped
if they're not the right, but that's Sunday in Miami.
He was an NFL Swiss Army knife on the cusp
of stardom. In the eyes of sixty million people were
upon him. And now we're going to take a unique
look at the starting lineup. You haven't drunkard number thirty five.
(02:03):
The top took off the turned man in the American
convert From the poorest side of Lancaster's main Street, Jim
had arrived at perhaps the biggest game in the world,
culminating in a play that would go down in Colts history,
the high point in a life that soon began crumbling
(02:23):
around him. From the Herald McClatchy Studios and I Heart Radio,
this is return man. I'm Brett McCormick, and this is
part two. From the cotton Fields to glory. They turned
longest bridge in the world, spanning Chesapeake Bay is ready
(02:45):
for service. In en sixty four, Jim Duncan left Lancaster
found for Maryland's Eastern Shore. As the cars began to
roll over the brand new bridge, each motorist is saving
a hundred and twenty five miles from the eastern end
of the western shore of Maryland. The year he graduated
from bar Street, Jim's High school head coach Sandy Gilliam
had been offered the head coaching job at Maryland State
(03:06):
College in rural Princess Anne. That was very loyal to
friends and family alike. Rosie Gilliam is Sandy's son. When
he left South Carolina, I guess it went to Meryland
State College. He took some of the players that he
had coached in high school. Obviously he knew their talent,
and it was his first recruiting I guess tests to
(03:27):
convince them to come, and that made them the success
that I think they were. Maryland State College is now
known as Maryland Eastern Shore, located about a hundred and
thirty miles from Baltimore. It's a historically black college and
was a safe harbor in a remote corner of Maryland
stalked by racial tensions. At the time, Princess Anne had
(03:48):
been the location of the last recorded lynching in the
state of Maryland. How can you tell black people to
be non violently and at the same time condone the
sinning of white killers. The summer before Duncan arrived at
college nearby Cambridge, Maryland was in flames after a visit
from h. Rat Brown, then the chairman of the student
Non Violent Coordinating Committee. We built the country up, we
(04:11):
will burn it down. You can quote that. I say
violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture.
It is as American as cherry pie. Rosie Williams's father
was Jim's coach at Maryland State, and Gilliam remembers his
family's home there became an oasis for the football players
(04:34):
and in the process Rosie's parents got some free babysitting
out of it. Our parents, would you know, I think
they had almost manufacture of reason for them to go out,
and they would have several players over in our house.
You know, they hang out in our basement, play records.
They would make sandwiches and leave mean a refrigerator. These
young men and women became my brother and I babysitters,
(04:58):
and and at to say time they were quote having fun.
Rosie Gilliam rubbed elbows with some all time grades at
Maryland State. During the four years Duncan played for the Hawks,
twelve football players from the school went on to the NFL.
I'm sure on some levels we were brandy little kids
to the players because we're always around them and there
are heroes. I mean, we may not appreciate that this flayer,
(05:20):
that player was NFL player quality, but if you're on
the team, you were considered a big person. And yeah,
we'd hang out with them as much as you know,
a kid could hang out with somebody ten or so
years older than they were. Duncan played offense, defense, and
special teams for the Hawks. He lined up at quarterback, safety,
(05:43):
and return punts. He ran two kicks back for touchdowns
in a game against lock Haven with sixty seven and
eighty seven yard returns. Outside of football, he played on
the school's basketball and baseball teams for at least one
season each and earned his way into Maryland States Athletic
Hall of Fame. You can still find Maryland State yearbooks online.
In one, Jim is pictured with other multi sport athletes
(06:05):
at the school, standing directly in front of his football coach.
Jim is beaming in the front row, wearing snazzy white
dress shoes, dark sunglasses and a giant grin. Darton was very,
very quiet, a really nice pat would you would say,
make him? I going to find particularly to play date
Upton Bell was the Baltimore Colts director of player personnel
(06:28):
from nineteen sixty six to nine, and he was the
first NFL scout to see Jim's potential. Most days Frenches
were much toughers better, and you have to really be
tough to fight, and here's toughness to be light. It's
really almost sweet personality. In nineteen sixty seven, Bell urged
(06:49):
the Colts head coach, future Hall of Famer Don Shula,
to make the drive across the Chesapeake Bay and check
on Maryland States overlooked players. Johnny Unitas already has such
a grip on the slippery bubble of sports immortality that
one expects red velvet ropes to go up around this
dressing cage on the day he retires into the record
(07:10):
books of pro football. The Colts were all set at quarterback,
as is evident from this episode of Woody's World on
CBS from that year. Woody Brune is profiling John Uniteds,
one of the most mythologized quarterbacks in NFL history. As
a leader, Unitis belongs to the school of that other
great quarterback, the Duke of Wellington, a man whose coolness
(07:30):
only grew as Napoleon's old guards came close to breaking
the pocket at Waterloop. But Upton Bell was certain Jim
could help the Colts in other ways. He has such
Greek speed witness and he was told by said Ms.
Scott would be a great punt return but remember himlike
today where there's no don't kick off the punt return.
Potentially man we was much more for special teams were important.
(07:54):
If he did nothing else, he could break one in
a close game and you win. The Colts picked Jim
in the fourth round of the seventeen round nine NFL
draft held that January. He signed a contract with the
team three months later, and six months after that, Jim
bought a wooded plot of land in his hometown of
(08:15):
Lancaster for sevres. There, he had a local contractor built
a three bedroom house for his mother and siblings. Everyone
in the neighborhood felt invested in Jim's success, including Floyd White.
Oh Man, we have to be we have. I worked
with my buddy. He was in construction then he bet
(08:39):
but it was you know, it was nice. It was nice.
It's kind of like what you see on to you now.
White helped pour the concrete foundation of Jim's new family home,
and once it was finished, County records show the house
at Street was valued at twenty dollars about a hundred
and eighty thousand in today's money. The home was still
(09:00):
on the east side of Main Street, but in a
safer part of town, closer to the high school. The
move reflected the promise carried in Duncan's two d pound
frame and offered a path out of poverty for his family.
And you can made eight kids and the shotgun out.
When I said, shotgun straight through the front door like
a long narrow You've got people sleeping in one or
(09:22):
two bays, and you've got sleeping on the floor and
there witha do what you got to do. As Floyd
White said, it was just a few blocks, but a
whole world away from that shotgun house in Newtown. That
street house was a man. There's a change in the environment.
So they had the chancy to bribe the side of
life that all the negative side us. We'll be back
(09:45):
after the break. The year Jim Duncan was drafted, the
Colts were loaded with veterans on defense and special teams.
If the called offense was efficient, it's defense was invincible,
flawless and superb. NFL films couldn't say enough about them.
It was a defensive swarming Blue Jerseys that forced so
(10:07):
many breaks. The offense rarely had to take the ball
more than half the field. So Jim spent that nineteen
eight season practicing in Baltimore as a defensive back and
kick returner during the week. Then he headed to Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania on weekends to play for Baltimore's farm team, the
Capitol Colts. The players called it the taxi squad. Yeah, yeah,
(10:30):
they just wanted to give us. He was probably good experiences.
Jeff Beaver was the quarterback for the Capitol Colts team
Jim played on. Like the fans in the middle towns,
we played for secial teams. There were four Colts rookies
on that Harrisburg team, which was largely made up of
part time players with day jobs. The team are just
(10:57):
extra money for us. Yeah, here we were they you know,
they were thinking we were a hot doot and we
were trying to make a living just like they were. Yeah,
I was playing football for six months and we had
a job of the bank, and the other six months
that we were living large nice. Early in his time
(11:18):
with the Colts, Jim also had another job in the
off season. He worked in the mail room at Springs
Mill back in Lancaster. But they're on the field in Harrisburg.
Jim clearly stood out. After one of the team's wins,
a local reporter wrote that he quote looked like a
record setting dash man during the sixty five yard interception
return for a touchdown. You're a lanky, tough guy. Yeah,
(11:41):
I had a great small athlete. Remember. Baltimore fans remember
that season mainly for the team's historic loss in Super
Bowl three, when Colts quarterback Earl Morrell had a lousy
game in place of the injured Johnny Uniteds and Jets
quarterback Joe Nay engineered one of the greatest upsets in
(12:02):
sports history. The Colts fans in Harrisburg remember something different
the raw promise in that linky rookie from South Carolina,
and the next year, when the Colts cleared out their
aging defensive backfield Baltimore gave Jim a chance. He quickly
made the most of it, scoring his first touchdown. In
the third game of the sixty nine season. The Colts
(12:23):
trailed the Falcons fourteen to seven with twenty four seconds
left in the first half when Jim Duncan took a
kickoff and raised ninety two yards to tie the game
at half time. The Colts finished eight five and one
in nineteen sixty nine and just missed the playoffs. But
by early the next season in nineteen seventy, Jim was
at the peak of his football powers. Six ft two
(12:45):
and two d pounds, he had become the most feared
kickoff return man in the league. We're just about ready
to get the second half underway. Easily recognizable by his
black pooma cleats with taped white laces, Public Colt Jim
Duncan against the Dolphins that November, Ji caught the second
half kickoff and knife towards the right sideline past the
teammates block. Then he gallops yards for the scoring outside.
(13:08):
The Miami tacklers were left in the literal dust of
the grassless Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. It's not like Baltimore
(13:31):
didn't have its own issues with civil rights. This is
the story of a street which has been rejected by
a large segment of society. Pennsylvania evangel became the bustling
center of the black man's working life and leisure robbers
because downtown was more or less off limits to negros.
By the early nineteen seventies, Baltimore's historic black cultural corridor Downtown,
(13:53):
once home to theaters and countless jazz clubs, had fallen
onto hard times. But the solens of Pennsylvania Avenue are
not all musical. There is, for example, the sound and
fury of the spoken words so vividly projected by the
man known simply as X. Whether you are a Christian
or a Muslim or a nationalist, we all have the
(14:14):
same problem. They don't hang you because you're a Baptist.
They hang you God, you're black. The government has failed this.
You can't deny that any time you're walking around here
singing we shall overcome. The government has failed. The year
Jim was drafted by the Colts, Baltimore too had been
(14:35):
inflames after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. CBS
News reported from the front lines of that uprising Pennsylvania
Avenue in Baltimore's Western Negro district where the severe trouble
was last night. Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew instituted a curfew
and the army was sent into control the city. At
six eleven this evening, I requested federal reinforcements. They should
(14:58):
now be taking for Asians in the critical areas great
We know now as never before, that violence is no
friend to freedom, and that the mob there's no allies
of civil rights. Still. Players from the time remember the
(15:19):
Colts as a unifier. At the very least, white people
had no problem with the black players wearing Colts blue.
And by nine seventy when the Colts and their marching
band took the field, there was nothing but celebration among
the fans. We didn't have to pay for anything, hardly
any place that we went. Throughout my research on Jim's life,
(15:42):
I spoke multiple times to Bob Grant, he was drafted
by the Colts the same year as Jim. Sometimes they
would ask to sign a few autographs. Even at the
grocery store. Cash here would ask you for the stock,
Wars would ask you for That's the way that it
was back then. We true. We were princes of the
city at that time, so Jim grew his hair out
(16:02):
a little bit. I bought a lincoln Mark three luxury
car in Canary yellow. He told a reporter that year.
He loved Burt Backer Acts music, and Jim began teaching
himself to play the piano. He was an amazing dresser.
Even back in Maryland State, Jim's sense of style had
(16:23):
stood out, and Bob Grant told me a pro football
player's salary only amplified it. All of the clothes had
to match, including the shoes and socks. There would not
be one single thing out of place whenever we dressed
to go out or when we were hot. Grow Back
in Lancaster, Jim's family and friends knew him as butch,
(16:44):
but they're in Baltimore. Teammates called him speedy. According to Grant,
it seemed as fitting off the field as it did
on it. There was lots of female o companionship available,
and it was pretty easy to meet young ladies back then,
especially if he wore a ball player or an entertainer,
and we were ball players. I spoke to Ernie A.
(17:05):
Corsi during my research. He was the Colts public relations
man during the nineteen seventy season. He chose not to
appear in this podcast, but of course he told me.
Jim's base salary that season was probably about fifteen thousand dollars.
That translates to roughly a hundred thousand dollars a year
in modern terms. It's a far cry from today's half
million dollar minimum contracts. Even then, it was much less
(17:27):
than what Colts stars like Johnny Unitis or tight end
John Mackie were paid, but of course he said it
was right in line with what most other players earned.
Outside the locker room. The black Colts players had few
equals in their socio economic class. A solid middle and
upper class for people of color in this country was
still largely absent during the Civil Rights era. So even
(17:49):
if fifteen thousand dollars might not have been enough to
live like a king, teammate Bob Grant said it was
enough to live like a prince, especially there in Baltimore,
where their money was no good in the places they went.
The two friends both rented luxury apartments downtown in a
building called Sutton Place. They drank beer on Grant's twelfth
floor balcony and watched the sunset over the Inner Harbor.
(18:12):
It was the first time in Jim's life he could
embrace financial comfort, even wastefulness. We would talk and we
would listen to music, and he would drink half of
a bottle and he would open a new one. So
when Speedy like you left, there would always be somewhere
between six and twelve half bottles that were just left there.
(18:32):
When we were on the road or the restaurants in
the city, Speedy always ordered two meals. He would never
eat the second meal. And he told me that when
he was a young man, he had had a lot
of days that he didn't have enough food, and now
that he had made it, he was never going to
have a day whereas he did not have enough food
(18:54):
in front of him. Grant also said that Jim had
planned to write a book. I asked him once. I said, okay, well,
what are you gonna call this book? Speedy and he says,
from the cotton Fields to Glory. Jimmy Duncan was a
good man. I think that he would have done some
good things in life. We'll be back after the break.
(19:24):
Baltimore won seven of its first eight games that v season,
and of the nine people I interviewed for this podcast
who worked with or played alongside Jim all said he
was a fine guy to have in the locker room.
The first thing you noticed was that he had a
great attitude. He's cheerful up the Bill Curry was the
Colts center and team captain during Jim's time in Baltimore.
(19:47):
The second thing you noticed, and there's some good about
it and there's some real bad about it. In the NFL,
this is what counts the most. But if you can
really play, if your hell of a player, you get
instant credibility. Yeah, he can find out playing. Probably would
have been a great player had he lived. Jim Duncan, Well,
(20:08):
we see this kick That nineteen seventy season, Jim led
the league in kickoff return yards with a thirty five
point four yard average. It is coming a Duncan a
real threat to the plan fifteen, to the plenty and
the twenty five. But that's not all. Jim took over
a starting job as cornerback too, and what's now considered
(20:30):
one of the greatest defenses ever and him on a
great play by Jim Duncan. He's made two good tackles
coming up from the quarterbacks every day. You know, he
gave me the look of the opposing player that were
teams were gonna play. Eddie Hinton was a receiver with Baltimore.
He remembers Jim as a lockdown defender on a Colts
team that only allowed fifteen and a half points per
(20:51):
game that season, and he just stayed on me. I
mean just sometimes I would defeat him, and sometime he
defeat me. When he defeated me up with all my man,
why could not state as he got the best of me,
And you don't realize I'm thinking about how great that
makes name practice Hidden scored seven touchdowns for the Colts
that year, tied for the most on the team. He
(21:13):
told me that was partly thanks to Jim. When that
kind of battling all week. When I got to play
on Sunday on Monday night, I already played the person
maybe four or five times because Jim would give me
the look. And having that kind of teammate kept you
on edge. You know, you never had time relaxed, and
he was always prepared for every game. The Colts finished
(21:33):
the nineteen seventy regular season eleven two and one, then
charged into the playoffs back to throw fires the passes
because five the Colt are playing fine football and tapped
it out. The Colts swept aside Cincinnati and then Oakland
the japan Soon they were headed to Miami for their
(21:57):
second championship game in three years. NBC Sports resents for
the Championship of Professional Football super Ballpie the American Conference champions,
the Bollimar Colt. First, it was the National Conference champions,
the Dallas Cowboy. On January sevent Jim suited up for
(22:21):
the biggest game of his life. Two years ago we
covered the Colts and the Jeffs, and so far everything
started going wrong for Bollimore, almost like it was two
years ago against New York. Footage of the game shows
Jim eager to throw himself into pile ups, though early
on his impact was mostly felt on special teams. There
was a kick off a yort one. He returned four
(22:41):
kicks in the Super Bowl for ninety yards total and
almost broke this one near the end of the first quarter.
Running up on the Jim Duck in a great kickoff,
rejoined earth to the thirty brings it out to the
thirty six. He's averaged thirty five yards a kick returned
and he years against Baltimore good field position after a kickoff.
The Colts trailed thirteen to six at the half, and
(23:01):
in the locker room the news got worse. The Colts
learned before the second half that their star quarterback was
questionable at best after hit earlier in the game fractured
Unitus's ribs. Johnny United does not come back out on
the field. We understand from the Baltimore bench he was
having his ribs x raid. But right now this ball
game is in the hands of Earl Morl. Then, as
if the Colts needed any more adversity to overcome, Jim
(23:24):
gave it to them at the start of the second half.
Here's the kick back. Farre Duncan fields it on the
seventh that's twenty oho, he bubbles and that's the fifth
Baltimore turnover. It was one of the only fumbles of
Jim's career, and a series of punishing runs by running
back Dwayne Thomas pushed the Cowboys toward the goal line.
(23:45):
Then on the two yard line, Dallas looked to go
up twenty six and take control of the game. The
old standard d give it to Thomas, trying to spending
that goal line but in one of the most consequential
plays in Colts history, Dwayne tom Miss plunged toward the
goal line right into the heart of Baltimore's defense, and
a bubble and a Colt every covering and it was
(24:07):
Jimmy Duncas and the cover of that bumble. Jim recovered
the ball. Earl Morrill settled down the Colts offense. With
the score tide at thirteen and time running out, Colts
kicker Jim O'Brien lined up for a thirty two yard
field goal nine doors your clubs, O brian. He's been
slightly a raticod time and the kick did too, but
(24:31):
suck a costly sixteen thirteen. Moral was the focus of
the postgame interviews, having avenged that Super Bowl loss to
the Jets two years earlier. Well where in the Colts
loop room again in the world champion Baltimore Colts, I
should say Old Marl, who came off the bench following
the Andrew Due Johnny united. For a long time, you
(24:52):
and john both have waited for this. He's a great
feeling be on the side, on the wedding side, and
I hate to see anything I have to Johnny. I
just take a faints about. It's a great feeling, but
Jim got his due as well. Each player in the
Colts was given a fifteen thousand dollar bonus for the win.
Jim was young, handsome, and now a Super Bowl champion.
(25:13):
Are the world professional football champion. But no matter how
fast he moved, Jim Duncan could never outrun his demons.
And on part three of return Man, look out out
to Kansas City nine yard. But I just thought, you know,
we all got on the log when he as long
as he did what he needed to do in the field,
(25:33):
that's all I was interested. The end going deep touchdown,
Docan is combiding it was out of bounds. Duncan is
complaining because he wasn't covering a really good NFL team.
You don't have a bunch of really well adjusted Sunday
school guys. Jim had some problems, but I didn't remember
what they were, and I did not get involved. I'm
(25:55):
Brett McCormick. Return Man is a production of The Herald,
McClatchy Studios and I Heart Radio. It's produced by Matt Walsh,
Kara Tabor Cotta, Stevens, Rachel Wise, and Davin Coburn. The
executive producer for I Heeart Radio is Sean Titone. For
lots more on this story, go to Harold online dot
com slash return Man. If you have any additional information
(26:18):
about Jim Duncan's life or death, email us at return
Man at Harold online dot com. To continue supporting this
kind of work, visit Harold online dot com slash Podcasts
and consider a digital subscription. And for more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.