March 8, 2022 • 23 mins
Following his Super Bowl win, Jim Duncan fell in love with a woman he met in South Carolina. But financial obligations soon sapped his joy for the game, and those who knew Jim say his personality began changing in unsettling ways. They speculate that for a rising star playing arguably the most dangerous position on the football field, head injuries might have begun to take their toll on Jim. New episodes coming each Tuesday, through March 16. To continue supporting work like this, visit heraldonline.com/podcasts and consider a digital subscription.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Long Shot is a production of McClatchy Studios and I
Heart Radio. Previously on Return Man, It is coming to
Duncan A real breath has such great speed witness. He
could wait one of a close game and you went,
I want to the guys on the team. We were
working day and just such your money. You know, they
(00:22):
looked like we were so we were trying to make
a limages like by war. How can you tell black
people to be non violently and at the same time
condone the sinning of white killers as they were? What
are you gonna call this book? Speedy? From the cotton
fields to glory? He would have done some good things
in life. I was told repeatedly during my reporting that
(00:51):
Jim Duncan could be quite friendly and generous, and you
can lead eight kids going out Having been raised in poverty,
he knew how it felt to go hungry. You got
sleeping on the flowing it with what you got to do.
But in all the time I've looked into Jim's life,
I've been struck by how few people said they really
knew him that well. I just remember you, the lanky
(01:15):
cup guy, and uh I do remember being a good guy.
Um and uh. Jeff Beaver was the quarterback for the
Capitol Colts team Jim played on That always seemed a
little odd. It's a word that came up more than
once during interviews with his former teammates. Yeah, odd ways,
(01:38):
But I just thought, everybody, you know, we all got
a long way and him on a great play by
Jim Duncan. As long as he did what he needed
to do in the field, that's all I was interested in.
Eddie Hinton was the cultural receiver who faced Jim every
day in practice. That didn't make sense to me, but
you know who was honestly, yeah, you thinking yeah for
(02:03):
the next day look out at the Kansas City forty
nine yard line. I knew that Jim had had some
personal problems, but hell, we all. Bill Curry was the
cold center and team captain during Jim's time in Baltimore.
Good NFL team. You don't have a bunch of really
well adjusted Sunday school guys. But no one knew just
(02:24):
how far Jim would fall. Jim had some problems, but
I didn't remember what they were, and I did not
get involved. From the Herald McClatchy studios and I heart Radio,
this is return man. I'm brought McCormick and this is
part three The Burden nine. He robs O'Brien that one offseason,
(02:58):
Jim's life changed ramatically off the field. Over the summer,
he visited a friend from his college days named Lawrence Acker.
Duke Acker as he was known. Your name had come
up as a friend of his and wondered if he
had like a little while to talk about him. Acker
is in his seventies now and lives down in Greenville,
South Carolina, not far from Lancaster. How did you guys meet?
(03:21):
Was it in Greenville? You know what I'm talking about? Right?
Did you call him butch maybe? Or a speedy He
declined to lend his voice to this podcast, but he
told me that Jim was a devoted and committed friend.
He said that even with all his football success, Jim
turned his attention to life outside of sports. He and
Acker decided they would finance a South Carolina franchise of
(03:41):
a popular whig store Jim had seen in Baltimore. Duke
knew two women in Greenville he thought would be perfect
to run the business. So the plan was for the
women to go to Baltimore for a little while to
learn the ropes at the store. Then they'd returned to
open the new franchise in Greenville. I found a couple
more photos that I thought even one seat, and I
actually emailed these two this morning. One of those women
(04:05):
was twenty year old Alice Marie Young, and over time
Jim began to look at her as more than just
a business partner. Maryland State has had a yearbook online
that was like, I think it's sophomore year, so he
was younger there. I thought it was a great picture
of him. Though. Alice declined to lend her voice to
this podcast, but we sat down together multiple times in
(04:27):
the lobby of a hotel near Greenville, and we spoke
there for nearly four hours. This is a Monday night
football broadcast from like nineteen and seventy was on YouTube.
They showed like who he was mashed up against. I
just stopped it and took a picture that was interesting.
Alice is in her seventies now and still lives near Greenville.
It's the hometown she thought she'd be going back to
(04:47):
during the fall of seventy one after the training in
Baltimore was finished, But once she got to Charmed City,
Jim called an audible. He lived in Sutton Place in Baltimore.
UM nice place to live. Jim master to stay and
move in with him at his Sutton Place apartment in Baltimore.
The two had only known each other for a few months,
so it may have been an impulsive thing for Jim
(05:08):
to ask, but Alice was just as taken with him
and happy to be impulsive right back. By that fall
of seventy one, a new NFL season was underway. Jim
made plenty of money with the Colts, so Alice didn't
have to work. She waited there in Baltimore for Jim
(05:29):
to come home from practices and road games. One of
the things that I've learned about him is that he
compartmentalized his life. But even a love struck twenty year
old couldn't help. But notice Jim had a funny way
of keeping her in the dark. Being the time that
it was, it was easier for him to keep things
to himself. You guys nowadays would have face time, text email.
(05:50):
Whatever whatever his issues, it may not have helped that
Jim season began with sky high expectations. The second All right,
Jim Duncan, that's the right cornerback and immediately fell to earth,
coming up hard Jim mc ducan from his right cornerback position.
Jim miss almost the entire preseason with an ankle injury
(06:11):
and never seemed to fully recover. Lambs trailing the bottle
ball Jim. He started the first three games that year,
but by November Jim was clearly struggling. He looked lost
trying to cover an l A. Ram receiver in this
Monday night game going d touchdown. Doc get his complaining
it was out of bounds. Duncan is complaining because he
(06:33):
wasn't covering. A news story from that year said Jim
was beaten in one on one coverage six times during
a close loss to the Cleveland Browns. Jim told the
reporter quote, after that, all the lines started coming together.
Another alarming story from that season was reported by the
Philadelphia Inquirer. One of Jim's teammates, Roy Hilton, told the
(06:56):
Inquirer that the two got into an argument over a
card game that turned into a fist fight, which was
surprising enough for a guy who was said to be
so likable. Hilton told the paper that Jim left the
room after getting punched, and when Hilton left soon after
Jim was waiting for him outside with a loaded gun.
The Inquirer wrote that other Colts players took the gun
(07:17):
from Jim before anything happened. No one I interviewed for
this podcast could confirm that happened. And Hilton has passed away.
But I asked Upton Bell about it. He's the Colts
executive who helped draft both players. So you never got
confirmation from Hilton now, and I'd asked Eddie Hilton and
(07:38):
boi Hilton was got a bullshitter. Yeah, Hilton was a
man of few words. If Hilton seventh, I believe it.
If true, it would mean that by late nineteen seventy one,
Jim was in a dangerous place. We'll be right back
(08:00):
Throughout the rest of Jim's ugly ninety one football season,
Alice remembers his behavior at home becoming increasingly odd. Sometimes
it was little things like the two sets of curtains
he insisted on using to keep the bedroom pitch black.
But Alice told me that sometimes the episodes were more frightening.
It's another one of those things that as much as
(08:22):
you want to get into it, did he like becomes
them like abusive She told me Jim was never abusive,
but that he would sometimes grab her with a fire
in his eyes that came out of nowhere. Clearly, the
Colts noticed it too late. That nineteen seventy one season,
team executives told Jim they were sending him to a
doctor to be tested for something that could explain his
(08:44):
looking lost on the field and his erratic behavior off
of it. I talked to a ct expert at UM
Southern County, and you know, there are seven year old
NFL players that have died that they were able to
do the autopsy on the brain and they found that
they had ct E. Today, listeners will recognize similarities between
gems worsening mental state in a neurodegenerative disease called chronic
(09:07):
traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. Researchers at Boston University examined the
brains of one hundred and eleven deceased NFL players. They
found signs of the disease ct and a hundred and ten.
Jim's confusion on defense, his impulsiveness and aggressiveness at home,
(09:28):
even light sensitivity. They're all symptoms broadly associated with CTE,
which in recent years has become increasingly associated with repeated
hits to the head that NFL players suffered. Doc getness,
but why thing it was out of bouns. Don't get
his complaining because he wasn't covering. Since we've known that
(09:49):
people exposed to many concussions developed brain changes, and those
brain changes couldn't leave them to be demented, just like
someone with Alzheimer's disease, but a much younger age. Jeff
Viktorov is an associate professor of clinical neurology at the
University of Southern California. He wrote a groundbreaking textbook on
concussions and traumatic en cephalopathy. Ten years ago, we knew
(10:13):
the NFL full players or others who exposed multiple concussions
during adulthood would be at risk for various kinds of
bad brain change. In the last ten years, we now
know that if a kid started playing football before age
twelve and then joined the NFL, he's much more likely
(10:36):
to suffer those brain changes. What that means, if you
kind of do the math, is that almost every boy
who plays football before age twelve has to experience some
degree of permanent brain damage. High school football players typically
(10:56):
have five brain rattling experiences every season Jim, just today
is cheap. We'll kick it off. You're guy had a
coach number thirty five, Jim Duncan and ball game is
under way. Many of Duncan's former college and proteinmates told
(11:18):
me horror stories about their own football related head injuries.
You know they wouldn't to wear those things, like being
corn field. Eddie Hitton, the Colts receiver Jim faced and practice,
talked about getting hit so hard in the game that
for the next few downs he saw two footballs on
every play, and the quarterback and throw the ball. I
(11:41):
saw kiland I've reached and maybe I always seem granted
right one. Jim would have been especially vulnerable to head injuries.
Jim Duncan on the thirty five deep foot Balltimore. He
played offense, defense, and special teams from childhood through college,
so he was on the field almost the entire game.
In the NFL, he was best known for returning kickoffs,
(12:01):
perhaps the game's most dangerous playing. They hit the sleep
under the corner at that dun that time doting will
come out with him. Tacklers from the opposing team charged
sixty yards at full speed to hit him as hard
as they could. He is beyond the point of five
Baltimore ball verst than Matt at their own body seven
give the dog. It's almost guaranteed. Any child or adult
(12:24):
who rattles his brain enough to say, WHOA, I lost
it there for a second has had an injurious impact
on the part of the brain that controls emotions. Your
subject may have experienced significant changes in an ability to
understand what was threatening and not threatening, what he should
(12:46):
respond with violent behavior too, and all of that would
be a normal, unexpected reaction to multiple concussions. No one
can say for sure that Jim was suffering from CTE.
Diagnosing that requires preserving the patient's brain within twenty four
(13:07):
hours of their death, and no one did that in
Jim's case. CTE wasn't even a diagnosable condition until the
early two thousand's. But in hindsight, for Alice, that would
explain a lot. It's completely reasonable. He was twenty six
at least, probably played fifteen years, may have played you
probably around there fifteen years of football. A lot of
dings on your brain. Quitment is rudimentary. It pains me
(13:30):
that there's no way to prove it, but I really
feel there, and I mean You've just given me even more,
she told me quote that would explain his actions and
the changes in him. I've heard from other women who
have husbands who went through the same things, especially when
the women say that they couldn't live with them anymore.
They got to the point that they had to move
away having gone through a lot of things with Jim.
(13:52):
That is what I saw. All the evidence is there.
Jim played in eleven games for the Colts that seventy
one season, but he only returned three kicks that year,
(14:12):
and he fumbled twice. The Colts never got an official
diagnosis for what they thought was wrong with him, at
least none that Alice heard. That offseason. In early nine,
the Colts traded Jim to the New Orleans Saints for
an offensive lineman and draft picks. In a few months,
Jim would report to training camp with the Saints, but
(14:32):
in the meantime, he and Alice headed back to South Carolina.
In late January two, Jim and Alice moved into one
of the bedrooms of the house he built in Lancaster.
His mother, Ellerie Clyburne, lived there, along with a handful
of Jim's youngest brothers and sisters, including Moral United, Clyburne,
(14:52):
Jim's youngest brother, who recently had been born, Carl mar
who came off the bench following Andrew do Johnny United.
He was the last of Jim's seven siblings. In honor
of the greatest season of Jim's life and the two
quarterbacks who had helped engineer it, Jim chose the name
for his youngest brother. He has a great family on
the side, on the wedding side, and then I just
(15:13):
set about Jim. That Orange Bowl in Miami must have
felt farther away than ever. And Acker, Jim's partner in
the whig business, told me quote, although I felt like
I was his best friend, I don't know that I
knew exactly where his head was all the time. For months,
the two had forged ahead with trying to launch that
(15:34):
whig shop. They'd renovated a storefront in a Greenville strip
mall and bought inventory, paying for at least half of
it with Jim's money. Exactly how much was spent is
another piece of this story without an easy answer. It's
also not clear Jim's family and friends understood what his
financial situation really was, and that it probably wasn't as
(15:57):
good as they thought defense. That wait what the Baltimore
Colt Jim Doctor on the right side as a taxi
squad player in nineteen sixty eight, Jim was paid so
little he needed a second job in the off season.
In Baltimore. Jim made about fifteen thousand dollars a season
(16:20):
in nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy, and nineteen seventy one.
That's about a hundred thousand a year in today's dollars.
Jim also earned a fifteen thousand dollar bonus for winning
the nineteen seventy Super Bowl, So in total, Jim was
paid a little more than sixty thousand dollars by the Colts,
or a max of about four hundred thousand in today's money.
(16:43):
We were very free with his money, you know. At
that time he made like hun a thousand, which was
a lot of money. In seven one of my early
conversations with Jim's brother, Elroy, underscored how generous Jim was
and how much confusion there was about his finances. He
(17:03):
most of the time when he was the daddy, you know,
all arrest I was. He took care of me when
I was in college, you know, and he was in
the pro whether Jim misled people about his money, didn't
have a firm grasp on it himself, or was just
the subject of wishful thinking. He had already bought his
(17:24):
mother a house in Baltimore. Jim had lived in a
high rise on Park Avenue and bought a Lincoln Mark
three luxury car. He'd even given away a prize possession
for any football player, the Championship ring each Colt received
for winning the nineteen seventies Super Bowl. That giant fourteen
carrot gold ring had a nearly one carrot diamond on top,
surrounded by a white gold horse shoe embedded with seven
(17:46):
blue sapphires. It was probably worth about two thousand dollars
at the time, and Alice said he just gave it
to his aunt. I really wonder if he was having
money problems, because I don't think a Super Bowl ring
with disappearance at Lincoln at time. It was another way
Alice was kept in the dark. He was able to
keep things from his brother, his mom, from you, and
(18:07):
I think he carried all of it, all of it.
Jim gave the Lincoln Mark three to Elroy and once
Jim and Alice moved back to Lancaster. He bought a
smaller canary yellow black top VW bug, But that wig
business seemed to drag Jim deeper into a financial hole.
There were stories that I found that said he had
(18:29):
lost a lot of money. Did Jim like invest a
lot in that company? When I asked Acker about how
much Jim might have lost, he told me, quote, I'm
not a money type man, so I can't really say
he lost some money and I lost some money. But
at one point in Jim told a reporter he lost
as much as sixty dollars in that business, which would
(18:51):
have been nearly all of his NFL earnings right there.
I don't want to be accusatory or anything. Did I mean,
did you keep up with him much after the business
to work out? Or did you guys kind of just
go your separate ways. There's a long history of pro
athletes sinking money into failed businesses, often run by their friends.
But when we spoke, Acker clearly disputed any implication he
(19:12):
might have taken advantage of his friend. He told me, quote,
I can tell you without a doubt, there wasn't a
whole lot of money lost in the venture. Hell I
bought as many lunches and dinners as he did. We'll
be back in a moment. For James Edward Duncan and
(19:33):
Alice Marie Young, April fools Day two was no joke.
Alice had become one of the few remaining rays of
light in Jim's life as his football career started spiraling.
By all accounts, Jim lavished gifts on his family and friends,
maybe Alice most of all, and she'll remember the red,
white and blue dress Jim gave her that spring for
(19:55):
the rest of her life. That April one, in Lancaster,
they'd row from the house Jim had built at the
end of Isom Street to the courthouse at the center
of town. Jim and Alice had known each other for
less than a year. Alice was twenty one years old,
and Jim's life had become a whirlwind. Alice told me
that just about the only person at the courthouse that
(20:17):
day was the probate judge. Jim hadn't even told her
why he'd asked her to wear that special dress, or
why he'd brought her to the court house in the
first place. Finally, Alice told me, Jim had simply said
we're going to get married today. As she remembers it,
it wasn't really a question. No. I thought it would
have a witness on her living. Alice showed me their
(20:38):
marriage license. The witness appears to have been that judge's secretary. Okay, Sandra, Yeah,
Sandra Estridge was your witness. Romantic. As rough as the
prior NFL season had been for Jim with the Colts,
according to Alice, he was in rush to report to
(21:01):
the Gulf Coast. So you lived in Lancashire, so in
seventy two, like after you got ready. They had been
living on a street with Jim's family for the previous
few months, which would put a strain on any couple,
but Jim's reluctance to play for the Saints, or maybe
just play football anymore at all, became another source of
(21:21):
ongoing arguments. Alice told me she was far less worried
about Jim leaving football than she was about the two
of them making a life together some place other than
in that family home in Lancaster. But for Jim's family,
his quitting the game would mean the end of those
NFL paychecks for him and the relatives he'd been supporting.
Oh yeah, and and you know you think that your
(21:43):
brother makes four times more than he makes. That's a
simple misunderstanding. Alice told me. She said to Jim, quote,
you make up your mind what you want to do,
lee front of the corner, ducer will come out whatever.
It's fine with me, whether you play football or not,
but let it be your to Asian. The storm clouds
(22:03):
were engulfing Jim's life and the stunning end was approaching
for more than just his NFL career. And I'm part
four of return Man. He made something kind of thing
with about ideas. Never realized I having money would create
so many problems. They're nothing bad that I could tell
you about. What other than he could love one el
(22:27):
Ray had told me that Jim had a kid. Did
you know that he was dating a few of the
local white girls. It was something that some people were
obviously threatened by. I'm working on a story. Have you
got some time to talk? I'm Brett McCormick. Return Man
(22:48):
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 produce surfer I
Heart 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 about Jim Duncan's life or death,
(23:11):
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. Previously on Return Man, It is coming to
Duncan A real breath has such great speed witness. He
could wait one of a close game and you went,
I want to the guys on the team. We were
working day and just such your money. You know, they
(00:22):
looked like we were so we were trying to make
a limages like by war. How can you tell black
people to be non violently and at the same time
condone the sinning of white killers as they were? What
are you gonna call this book? Speedy? From the cotton
fields to glory? He would have done some good things
in life. I was told repeatedly during my reporting that
(00:51):
Jim Duncan could be quite friendly and generous, and you
can lead eight kids going out Having been raised in poverty,
he knew how it felt to go hungry. You got
sleeping on the flowing it with what you got to do.
But in all the time I've looked into Jim's life,
I've been struck by how few people said they really
knew him that well. I just remember you, the lanky
(01:15):
cup guy, and uh I do remember being a good guy.
Um and uh. Jeff Beaver was the quarterback for the
Capitol Colts team Jim played on That always seemed a
little odd. It's a word that came up more than
once during interviews with his former teammates. Yeah, odd ways,
(01:38):
But I just thought, everybody, you know, we all got
a long way and him on a great play by
Jim Duncan. As long as he did what he needed
to do in the field, that's all I was interested in.
Eddie Hinton was the cultural receiver who faced Jim every
day in practice. That didn't make sense to me, but
you know who was honestly, yeah, you thinking yeah for
(02:03):
the next day look out at the Kansas City forty
nine yard line. I knew that Jim had had some
personal problems, but hell, we all. Bill Curry was the
cold center and team captain during Jim's time in Baltimore.
Good NFL team. You don't have a bunch of really
well adjusted Sunday school guys. But no one knew just
(02:24):
how far Jim would fall. Jim had some problems, but
I didn't remember what they were, and I did not
get involved. From the Herald McClatchy studios and I heart Radio,
this is return man. I'm brought McCormick and this is
part three The Burden nine. He robs O'Brien that one offseason,
(02:58):
Jim's life changed ramatically off the field. Over the summer,
he visited a friend from his college days named Lawrence Acker.
Duke Acker as he was known. Your name had come
up as a friend of his and wondered if he
had like a little while to talk about him. Acker
is in his seventies now and lives down in Greenville,
South Carolina, not far from Lancaster. How did you guys meet?
(03:21):
Was it in Greenville? You know what I'm talking about? Right?
Did you call him butch maybe? Or a speedy He
declined to lend his voice to this podcast, but he
told me that Jim was a devoted and committed friend.
He said that even with all his football success, Jim
turned his attention to life outside of sports. He and
Acker decided they would finance a South Carolina franchise of
(03:41):
a popular whig store Jim had seen in Baltimore. Duke
knew two women in Greenville he thought would be perfect
to run the business. So the plan was for the
women to go to Baltimore for a little while to
learn the ropes at the store. Then they'd returned to
open the new franchise in Greenville. I found a couple
more photos that I thought even one seat, and I
actually emailed these two this morning. One of those women
(04:05):
was twenty year old Alice Marie Young, and over time
Jim began to look at her as more than just
a business partner. Maryland State has had a yearbook online
that was like, I think it's sophomore year, so he
was younger there. I thought it was a great picture
of him. Though. Alice declined to lend her voice to
this podcast, but we sat down together multiple times in
(04:27):
the lobby of a hotel near Greenville, and we spoke
there for nearly four hours. This is a Monday night
football broadcast from like nineteen and seventy was on YouTube.
They showed like who he was mashed up against. I
just stopped it and took a picture that was interesting.
Alice is in her seventies now and still lives near Greenville.
It's the hometown she thought she'd be going back to
(04:47):
during the fall of seventy one after the training in
Baltimore was finished, But once she got to Charmed City,
Jim called an audible. He lived in Sutton Place in Baltimore.
UM nice place to live. Jim master to stay and
move in with him at his Sutton Place apartment in Baltimore.
The two had only known each other for a few months,
so it may have been an impulsive thing for Jim
(05:08):
to ask, but Alice was just as taken with him
and happy to be impulsive right back. By that fall
of seventy one, a new NFL season was underway. Jim
made plenty of money with the Colts, so Alice didn't
have to work. She waited there in Baltimore for Jim
(05:29):
to come home from practices and road games. One of
the things that I've learned about him is that he
compartmentalized his life. But even a love struck twenty year
old couldn't help. But notice Jim had a funny way
of keeping her in the dark. Being the time that
it was, it was easier for him to keep things
to himself. You guys nowadays would have face time, text email.
(05:50):
Whatever whatever his issues, it may not have helped that
Jim season began with sky high expectations. The second All right,
Jim Duncan, that's the right cornerback and immediately fell to earth,
coming up hard Jim mc ducan from his right cornerback position.
Jim miss almost the entire preseason with an ankle injury
(06:11):
and never seemed to fully recover. Lambs trailing the bottle
ball Jim. He started the first three games that year,
but by November Jim was clearly struggling. He looked lost
trying to cover an l A. Ram receiver in this
Monday night game going d touchdown. Doc get his complaining
it was out of bounds. Duncan is complaining because he
(06:33):
wasn't covering. A news story from that year said Jim
was beaten in one on one coverage six times during
a close loss to the Cleveland Browns. Jim told the
reporter quote, after that, all the lines started coming together.
Another alarming story from that season was reported by the
Philadelphia Inquirer. One of Jim's teammates, Roy Hilton, told the
(06:56):
Inquirer that the two got into an argument over a
card game that turned into a fist fight, which was
surprising enough for a guy who was said to be
so likable. Hilton told the paper that Jim left the
room after getting punched, and when Hilton left soon after
Jim was waiting for him outside with a loaded gun.
The Inquirer wrote that other Colts players took the gun
(07:17):
from Jim before anything happened. No one I interviewed for
this podcast could confirm that happened. And Hilton has passed away.
But I asked Upton Bell about it. He's the Colts
executive who helped draft both players. So you never got
confirmation from Hilton now, and I'd asked Eddie Hilton and
(07:38):
boi Hilton was got a bullshitter. Yeah, Hilton was a
man of few words. If Hilton seventh, I believe it.
If true, it would mean that by late nineteen seventy one,
Jim was in a dangerous place. We'll be right back
(08:00):
Throughout the rest of Jim's ugly ninety one football season,
Alice remembers his behavior at home becoming increasingly odd. Sometimes
it was little things like the two sets of curtains
he insisted on using to keep the bedroom pitch black.
But Alice told me that sometimes the episodes were more frightening.
It's another one of those things that as much as
(08:22):
you want to get into it, did he like becomes
them like abusive She told me Jim was never abusive,
but that he would sometimes grab her with a fire
in his eyes that came out of nowhere. Clearly, the
Colts noticed it too late. That nineteen seventy one season,
team executives told Jim they were sending him to a
doctor to be tested for something that could explain his
(08:44):
looking lost on the field and his erratic behavior off
of it. I talked to a ct expert at UM
Southern County, and you know, there are seven year old
NFL players that have died that they were able to
do the autopsy on the brain and they found that
they had ct E. Today, listeners will recognize similarities between
gems worsening mental state in a neurodegenerative disease called chronic
(09:07):
traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. Researchers at Boston University examined the
brains of one hundred and eleven deceased NFL players. They
found signs of the disease ct and a hundred and ten.
Jim's confusion on defense, his impulsiveness and aggressiveness at home,
(09:28):
even light sensitivity. They're all symptoms broadly associated with CTE,
which in recent years has become increasingly associated with repeated
hits to the head that NFL players suffered. Doc getness,
but why thing it was out of bouns. Don't get
his complaining because he wasn't covering. Since we've known that
(09:49):
people exposed to many concussions developed brain changes, and those
brain changes couldn't leave them to be demented, just like
someone with Alzheimer's disease, but a much younger age. Jeff
Viktorov is an associate professor of clinical neurology at the
University of Southern California. He wrote a groundbreaking textbook on
concussions and traumatic en cephalopathy. Ten years ago, we knew
(10:13):
the NFL full players or others who exposed multiple concussions
during adulthood would be at risk for various kinds of
bad brain change. In the last ten years, we now
know that if a kid started playing football before age
twelve and then joined the NFL, he's much more likely
(10:36):
to suffer those brain changes. What that means, if you
kind of do the math, is that almost every boy
who plays football before age twelve has to experience some
degree of permanent brain damage. High school football players typically
(10:56):
have five brain rattling experiences every season Jim, just today
is cheap. We'll kick it off. You're guy had a
coach number thirty five, Jim Duncan and ball game is
under way. Many of Duncan's former college and proteinmates told
(11:18):
me horror stories about their own football related head injuries.
You know they wouldn't to wear those things, like being
corn field. Eddie Hitton, the Colts receiver Jim faced and practice,
talked about getting hit so hard in the game that
for the next few downs he saw two footballs on
every play, and the quarterback and throw the ball. I
(11:41):
saw kiland I've reached and maybe I always seem granted
right one. Jim would have been especially vulnerable to head injuries.
Jim Duncan on the thirty five deep foot Balltimore. He
played offense, defense, and special teams from childhood through college,
so he was on the field almost the entire game.
In the NFL, he was best known for returning kickoffs,
(12:01):
perhaps the game's most dangerous playing. They hit the sleep
under the corner at that dun that time doting will
come out with him. Tacklers from the opposing team charged
sixty yards at full speed to hit him as hard
as they could. He is beyond the point of five
Baltimore ball verst than Matt at their own body seven
give the dog. It's almost guaranteed. Any child or adult
(12:24):
who rattles his brain enough to say, WHOA, I lost
it there for a second has had an injurious impact
on the part of the brain that controls emotions. Your
subject may have experienced significant changes in an ability to
understand what was threatening and not threatening, what he should
(12:46):
respond with violent behavior too, and all of that would
be a normal, unexpected reaction to multiple concussions. No one
can say for sure that Jim was suffering from CTE.
Diagnosing that requires preserving the patient's brain within twenty four
(13:07):
hours of their death, and no one did that in
Jim's case. CTE wasn't even a diagnosable condition until the
early two thousand's. But in hindsight, for Alice, that would
explain a lot. It's completely reasonable. He was twenty six
at least, probably played fifteen years, may have played you
probably around there fifteen years of football. A lot of
dings on your brain. Quitment is rudimentary. It pains me
(13:30):
that there's no way to prove it, but I really
feel there, and I mean You've just given me even more,
she told me quote that would explain his actions and
the changes in him. I've heard from other women who
have husbands who went through the same things, especially when
the women say that they couldn't live with them anymore.
They got to the point that they had to move
away having gone through a lot of things with Jim.
(13:52):
That is what I saw. All the evidence is there.
Jim played in eleven games for the Colts that seventy
one season, but he only returned three kicks that year,
(14:12):
and he fumbled twice. The Colts never got an official
diagnosis for what they thought was wrong with him, at
least none that Alice heard. That offseason. In early nine,
the Colts traded Jim to the New Orleans Saints for
an offensive lineman and draft picks. In a few months,
Jim would report to training camp with the Saints, but
(14:32):
in the meantime, he and Alice headed back to South Carolina.
In late January two, Jim and Alice moved into one
of the bedrooms of the house he built in Lancaster.
His mother, Ellerie Clyburne, lived there, along with a handful
of Jim's youngest brothers and sisters, including Moral United, Clyburne,
(14:52):
Jim's youngest brother, who recently had been born, Carl mar
who came off the bench following Andrew do Johnny United.
He was the last of Jim's seven siblings. In honor
of the greatest season of Jim's life and the two
quarterbacks who had helped engineer it, Jim chose the name
for his youngest brother. He has a great family on
the side, on the wedding side, and then I just
(15:13):
set about Jim. That Orange Bowl in Miami must have
felt farther away than ever. And Acker, Jim's partner in
the whig business, told me quote, although I felt like
I was his best friend, I don't know that I
knew exactly where his head was all the time. For months,
the two had forged ahead with trying to launch that
(15:34):
whig shop. They'd renovated a storefront in a Greenville strip
mall and bought inventory, paying for at least half of
it with Jim's money. Exactly how much was spent is
another piece of this story without an easy answer. It's
also not clear Jim's family and friends understood what his
financial situation really was, and that it probably wasn't as
(15:57):
good as they thought defense. That wait what the Baltimore
Colt Jim Doctor on the right side as a taxi
squad player in nineteen sixty eight, Jim was paid so
little he needed a second job in the off season.
In Baltimore. Jim made about fifteen thousand dollars a season
(16:20):
in nineteen sixty nine, nineteen seventy, and nineteen seventy one.
That's about a hundred thousand a year in today's dollars.
Jim also earned a fifteen thousand dollar bonus for winning
the nineteen seventy Super Bowl, So in total, Jim was
paid a little more than sixty thousand dollars by the Colts,
or a max of about four hundred thousand in today's money.
(16:43):
We were very free with his money, you know. At
that time he made like hun a thousand, which was
a lot of money. In seven one of my early
conversations with Jim's brother, Elroy, underscored how generous Jim was
and how much confusion there was about his finances. He
(17:03):
most of the time when he was the daddy, you know,
all arrest I was. He took care of me when
I was in college, you know, and he was in
the pro whether Jim misled people about his money, didn't
have a firm grasp on it himself, or was just
the subject of wishful thinking. He had already bought his
(17:24):
mother a house in Baltimore. Jim had lived in a
high rise on Park Avenue and bought a Lincoln Mark
three luxury car. He'd even given away a prize possession
for any football player, the Championship ring each Colt received
for winning the nineteen seventies Super Bowl. That giant fourteen
carrot gold ring had a nearly one carrot diamond on top,
surrounded by a white gold horse shoe embedded with seven
(17:46):
blue sapphires. It was probably worth about two thousand dollars
at the time, and Alice said he just gave it
to his aunt. I really wonder if he was having
money problems, because I don't think a Super Bowl ring
with disappearance at Lincoln at time. It was another way
Alice was kept in the dark. He was able to
keep things from his brother, his mom, from you, and
(18:07):
I think he carried all of it, all of it.
Jim gave the Lincoln Mark three to Elroy and once
Jim and Alice moved back to Lancaster. He bought a
smaller canary yellow black top VW bug, But that wig
business seemed to drag Jim deeper into a financial hole.
There were stories that I found that said he had
(18:29):
lost a lot of money. Did Jim like invest a
lot in that company? When I asked Acker about how
much Jim might have lost, he told me, quote, I'm
not a money type man, so I can't really say
he lost some money and I lost some money. But
at one point in Jim told a reporter he lost
as much as sixty dollars in that business, which would
(18:51):
have been nearly all of his NFL earnings right there.
I don't want to be accusatory or anything. Did I mean,
did you keep up with him much after the business
to work out? Or did you guys kind of just
go your separate ways. There's a long history of pro
athletes sinking money into failed businesses, often run by their friends.
But when we spoke, Acker clearly disputed any implication he
(19:12):
might have taken advantage of his friend. He told me, quote,
I can tell you without a doubt, there wasn't a
whole lot of money lost in the venture. Hell I
bought as many lunches and dinners as he did. We'll
be back in a moment. For James Edward Duncan and
(19:33):
Alice Marie Young, April fools Day two was no joke.
Alice had become one of the few remaining rays of
light in Jim's life as his football career started spiraling.
By all accounts, Jim lavished gifts on his family and friends,
maybe Alice most of all, and she'll remember the red,
white and blue dress Jim gave her that spring for
(19:55):
the rest of her life. That April one, in Lancaster,
they'd row from the house Jim had built at the
end of Isom Street to the courthouse at the center
of town. Jim and Alice had known each other for
less than a year. Alice was twenty one years old,
and Jim's life had become a whirlwind. Alice told me
that just about the only person at the courthouse that
(20:17):
day was the probate judge. Jim hadn't even told her
why he'd asked her to wear that special dress, or
why he'd brought her to the court house in the
first place. Finally, Alice told me, Jim had simply said
we're going to get married today. As she remembers it,
it wasn't really a question. No. I thought it would
have a witness on her living. Alice showed me their
(20:38):
marriage license. The witness appears to have been that judge's secretary. Okay, Sandra, Yeah,
Sandra Estridge was your witness. Romantic. As rough as the
prior NFL season had been for Jim with the Colts,
according to Alice, he was in rush to report to
(21:01):
the Gulf Coast. So you lived in Lancashire, so in
seventy two, like after you got ready. They had been
living on a street with Jim's family for the previous
few months, which would put a strain on any couple,
but Jim's reluctance to play for the Saints, or maybe
just play football anymore at all, became another source of
(21:21):
ongoing arguments. Alice told me she was far less worried
about Jim leaving football than she was about the two
of them making a life together some place other than
in that family home in Lancaster. But for Jim's family,
his quitting the game would mean the end of those
NFL paychecks for him and the relatives he'd been supporting.
Oh yeah, and and you know you think that your
(21:43):
brother makes four times more than he makes. That's a
simple misunderstanding. Alice told me. She said to Jim, quote,
you make up your mind what you want to do,
lee front of the corner, ducer will come out whatever.
It's fine with me, whether you play football or not,
but let it be your to Asian. The storm clouds
(22:03):
were engulfing Jim's life and the stunning end was approaching
for more than just his NFL career. And I'm part
four of return Man. He made something kind of thing
with about ideas. Never realized I having money would create
so many problems. They're nothing bad that I could tell
you about. What other than he could love one el
(22:27):
Ray had told me that Jim had a kid. Did
you know that he was dating a few of the
local white girls. It was something that some people were
obviously threatened by. I'm working on a story. Have you
got some time to talk? I'm Brett McCormick. Return Man
(22:48):
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 produce surfer I
Heart 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 about Jim Duncan's life or death,
(23:11):
email us at return Man at Harold online dot com.
To continue supporting this kind of work, visit Harold online
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