0:00

Long Shot is a production of McClatchy Studios

0:03

and I Heart Radio. Previously

0:07

on Return Man, It

0:09

is coming to Duncan a real threat.

0:12

You have such a great speed witness he

0:14

could break one of a close game, and you

0:16

went, I want to jafter. Guys

0:19

on the team we run working on the day and don't

0:21

just extra money. You know, they look like we were

0:23

so we were trying to make a living of like by war.

0:26

How can you tell black people to be non

0:28

violently and at the same time condone

0:31

the sinning of white killers as

0:33

well? What are you gonna call this book? Speedy?

0:35

From the cotton fields to Glory? He

0:38

would have done some good things

0:41

in life. I

0:49

was told repeatedly during my reporting that

0:51

Jim Duncan could be quite friendly and generous.

0:54

And you've been led eight kids, got

0:57

going out having been raised in poverty,

1:00

he knew how it felt to go hungry. You

1:02

got the blowing it with what

1:04

you got to do. But

1:06

in all the time I've looked into Jim's life, I've

1:09

been struck by how few people said they

1:11

really knew him that well. I

1:13

just remember you, the lanky cup guy, and

1:17

I do remember being a good guy. H

1:22

Jeff Beaver was the quarterback for the Capitol

1:24

Colts team Jim played on. That

1:30

always seemed a little odd. It's

1:33

a word that came up more than once during interviews

1:35

with his former teammates. Yeah. Ways,

1:38

but I just thought, everybody, you know,

1:40

we all got a long way and

1:43

him on a great way by Jim

1:45

Duncan. As long as he did what he needed

1:47

to do in the field, that's all I was interested in. Eddie

1:50

Hinton was the cultural receiver who faced Jim

1:52

every day in practice. That

1:55

didn't make sense to me, But you know who

1:58

was out of Saint Yeah you thinking, Yeah

2:03

for the next day look out

2:06

at the Kansas City forty nine yard

2:08

line. I knew that Jim had had

2:10

some personal problems, but hey, we all Bill

2:13

Curry was the cold center and team captain

2:15

during Jim's time in Baltimore.

2:17

Really good NFL team. You don't have a bunch

2:20

of really well adjusted Sunday school guys.

2:23

But no one knew just how far Jim

2:25

would fall. Jim had some problems,

2:27

but I didn't remember what they were, and I

2:29

did not get involved. From

2:34

the Herald, McClatchy studios and I

2:36

Heart Radio, this is return man.

2:38

I'm brought McCormick and this is part three

2:41

The Burden nine.

2:47

He's Robs O'Brien. That

2:57

one offseason, Jim's life changed dramatically

3:00

off the field. Over the

3:02

summer, he visited a friend from his college

3:04

days named Lawrence Acker. Duke

3:07

Acker as he was known. Your

3:09

name had come up as a friend of his and wondered

3:12

if he had like a little while to talk about him.

3:14

Acker is in his seventies now and lives

3:17

down in Greenville, South Carolina, not far

3:19

from Lancaster. How did you guys meet?

3:21

Was it in Greenville? You know what I'm talking about? Right?

3:23

Did you call him butch maybe? Or a speedy

3:26

He declined to lend his voice to this podcast,

3:29

but he told me that Jim was a devoted and committed

3:31

friend. He said that even with all

3:33

his football success, Jim turned his attention

3:36

to life outside of sports. He

3:38

and Acker decided they would finance a South

3:40

Carolina franchise of a popular whig

3:42

store Jim had seen in Baltimore. Duke

3:45

knew two women in Greenville he thought would be perfect

3:47

to run the business. So the plan was for

3:49

the women to go to Baltimore for a little while to

3:51

learn the ropes at the store. Then

3:54

they'd returned to open the new franchise in Greenville.

3:56

I found a couple more photos that I

3:59

thought, even one a seat, and I actually emailed

4:01

these two this morning. One

4:04

of those women was twenty year old Alice Marie

4:06

Young, and over time Jim

4:09

began to look at her as more than just a business partner.

4:12

Maryland State has Um had a yearbook

4:15

online that was like, I think

4:17

a sophomore year, so it was younger there. I

4:19

thought it was a great picture him though. Alice

4:22

declined to lend her voice to this podcast,

4:25

but we sat down together multiple times in the

4:27

lobby of a hotel near Greenville, and

4:29

we spoke there for nearly four hours. This

4:31

is a Monday night football broadcast

4:33

from like nineteen and seventy was on

4:36

YouTube. They showed like who he was

4:38

matched up against. I just stopped it

4:40

and took a picture that was interesting. Alice

4:42

is in her seventies now and still lives near

4:44

Greenville. It's the hometown she thought

4:46

she'd be going back to during the fall of seventy

4:48

one after the training in Baltimore was

4:50

finished, But once she got to Charmed

4:53

City, Jim called an audible. He

4:55

lived in Sutton Place in Baltimore. Um

4:57

nice place, looted. Jim

5:00

asked her to stay and move in with him at his Sutton

5:02

Place apartment in Baltimore. The

5:04

two had only known each other for a few months,

5:06

so it may have been an impulsive thing for Jim

5:08

to ask, but Alice was just as

5:10

taken with him and happy to be impulsive

5:13

right back. By

5:20

that fall of seventy one, a new NFL

5:23

season was underway. Jim made

5:25

plenty of money with the Colts, so Alice didn't

5:27

have to work. She waited there in Baltimore

5:29

for Jim to come home from practices and road games.

5:32

One of the things that I've learned about him is that

5:34

he compartmentalized his life. But

5:37

even a love struck twenty year old couldn't help.

5:39

But notice Jim had a funny way of keeping

5:41

her in the dark. Being the time that it

5:43

was, it was easier for him to keep things to

5:45

himself. You guys nowadays

5:47

would have face time, text email.

5:50

Whatever. Whatever

5:53

his issues, it may not have helped that Jim season

5:57

began with sky high expectations. The

5:59

second alright, Jim Duncan, that's the right quarterback

6:02

and immediately fell to earth coming

6:04

up Hart Jim Ducan from his right cornerback

6:07

position. Jim missed almost

6:09

the entire preseason with an ankle injury and

6:11

never seemed to fully recover. Lambs

6:13

trailing to Botall Jim.

6:16

He started the first three games that year, but

6:18

by November Jim was clearly struggling.

6:22

He looked lost trying to cover an l A Ram

6:24

receiver in this Monday night game going

6:27

touchdown. Duncan is complaining

6:30

it was out of bounds. Duncan is complaining

6:32

because he wasn't covering. A

6:35

news story from that year said Jim was beaten

6:37

in one on one coverage six times

6:39

during a close loss to the Cleveland Browns. Jim

6:43

told the reporter quote, after

6:45

that, all the lines started coming together.

6:49

Another alarming story from that season was reported

6:51

by the Philadelphia Inquirer. One

6:54

of Jim's teammates, Roy Hilton, told

6:56

the Inquirer that the two got into an argument

6:58

over a card game that turned into

7:00

a fist fight, which was surprising enough

7:02

for a guy who was said to be so likable. Hilton

7:05

told the paper that Jim left the room after getting

7:08

punched, and when Hilton left soon

7:10

after Jim was waiting for him outside

7:12

with a loaded gun. The

7:14

Inquirer wrote that other Colts players took

7:17

the gun from Jim before anything happened. No

7:22

one I interviewed for this podcast could confirm

7:24

that happened. And Hilton has passed away.

7:27

But I asked Upton Bell about it. He's

7:29

the Colts executive who helped draft both

7:31

players, so he never got

7:33

confirmation from Hilton. Now,

7:35

and I'd asked Eddie Hilton, and by

7:39

Hilton was thought a bullshitter. Yeah, Hilton

7:41

was a man of few words. If Hilton seven,

7:43

I believe it. If

7:46

true, it would mean that by late nineteen

7:48

seventy one, Jim was in a dangerous

7:51

place. We'll

7:55

be right back. Throughout

8:00

the rest of Jim's Ugly V Football

8:03

season, Alice remembers his behavior

8:05

at home becoming increasingly odd.

8:08

Sometimes it was little things like the two

8:11

sets of curtains he insisted on using to

8:13

keep the bedroom pitch black. But

8:15

Alice told me that sometimes the episodes

8:17

were more frightening. It's another one of

8:19

those things that, as much as

8:22

you want to get into it, did he like become

8:24

like abusing? She told me, Jim

8:27

was never abusive, but that he would sometimes

8:29

grab her with a fire in his eyes that came

8:31

out of nowhere. Clearly,

8:35

the Colts noticed it too late.

8:37

That nineteen season, team

8:39

executives told Jim they were sending him to

8:41

a doctor to be tested for something

8:44

that could explain his looking lost on the field

8:46

and his erratic behavior off of it. I talked

8:48

to a ct expert at UM Southern

8:50

count and you know, there are seven

8:54

year old NFL players that have died that they were

8:56

able to do the autopsy on the brain and they found

8:58

that they had ct Today,

9:01

listeners will recognize similarities between

9:03

Jim's worsening mental state in

9:05

a neurodegenerative disease called chronic

9:07

traumatic encephalopathy or

9:10

CTE.

9:13

Researchers at Boston University examined

9:15

the brains of one hundred and eleven deceased

9:17

NFL players. They found signs

9:20

of the disease ct and a hundred

9:22

and ten. Jim's

9:24

confusion on defense, his impulsiveness

9:27

and aggressiveness at home, even light

9:29

sensitivity. They're all symptoms

9:31

broadly associated with CTE,

9:34

which in recent years has become increasingly associated

9:36

with repeated hits to the head that NFL players

9:39

suffered doc getness, but whoting

9:41

it was auto bounds. Dunt get his complaining

9:43

because he wasn't covering. Since

9:49

we've known that people exposed to many

9:51

concussions developed brain

9:53

changes, and those brain changes

9:55

couldn't lead them to be demented, just like someone

9:57

with Alzheimer's disease, but a

10:00

much younger age. Jeff Viktorov

10:02

is an associate professor of clinical neurology

10:05

at the University of Southern California.

10:07

He wrote a groundbreaking textbook on concussions

10:10

and traumatic en cephalopathy.

10:12

Ten years ago, we knew that NFL

10:14

full players or others who exposed multiple

10:16

concussions during adulthood would

10:19

be at risk for various

10:22

kinds of bad brain change.

10:25

In the last ten years, we now

10:27

know that if a kid started playing football

10:30

before age twelve and

10:32

then joined the NFL, he's

10:35

much more likely to suffer those

10:37

brain changes. What that

10:39

means, if you kind of do the

10:41

math, is that almost

10:44

every boy who plays football

10:46

before age twelve has

10:49

to experience some degree

10:51

of permanent brain damage. High

10:55

school football players typically have five brain

10:58

rattling experiences every season. Damas

11:01

today is cheap, we'll kick it off you're

11:03

guys

11:06

had all

11:08

the Baltimore coach number thirty five Jim

11:11

dum ball game is under way.

11:16

Many of Duncan's former college and proteinmates

11:18

told me horror stories about their own football

11:20

related head injuries. You know they wouldn't

11:23

wear those things like the

11:28

corn field Eddie Hitton, the

11:31

Colts receiver Jim Face in practice, talked

11:33

about getting hit so hard in the game for the

11:35

next few downs. He saw two footballs

11:38

on every play, and the quarterback and throw

11:40

the ball. I saw kiland I've reached and maybe

11:42

always seem granted right one. Jim

11:45

would have been especially vulnerable to head injuries.

11:48

Jim Duncan numb the thirty five vat FO Baltimore.

11:51

He played offense, defense, and special

11:53

teams from childhood through college, so

11:56

he was on the field almost the entire game. In

11:58

the NFL, he was best known for returning

12:01

kickoffs, perhaps the game's most dangerous

12:03

play. They hit the sleep under

12:05

the corner that dot, that's time Doting

12:07

will come out with him. Tackler's

12:09

from the opposing team charged sixty yards at

12:11

full speed to hit him as hard as they

12:13

could. He is beyond the point of five Baltimore's

12:16

wall verst than that at their own by seven

12:19

dog. It's almost guaranteed

12:22

any child or adults

12:24

who rattles his brain enough to say,

12:27

WHOA, I lost it there for a second has

12:29

had an injurious

12:32

impact on the part of the brain that controls

12:34

emotions. Your subject

12:37

may have experienced

12:39

significant changes in an ability

12:42

to understand what

12:44

was threatening and not threatening, what he

12:46

should respond with violent behavior

12:49

too, and all that would

12:51

be a normal and expected

12:53

reaction to multiple concussions.

12:59

No one can say for sure that Jim was

13:01

suffering from CTE. Diagnosing

13:04

that requires preserving the patient's brain

13:06

within twenty four hours of their death, and

13:08

no one did that in Jim's case. CTE

13:11

wasn't even a diagnosable condition until

13:13

the early two thousand's. But in hindsight,

13:16

for Alice, that would explain a lot.

13:19

It's completely reasonable. He was twenty six at

13:21

least, probably played fifteen years and may

13:23

have played, you know, probably around there fifteen years

13:25

of football. A lot of things on your brain

13:28

equipment is rudimentary. It

13:30

pains me that there's no way to prove it, but I really

13:32

feel there, and I mean, you've just given me even

13:34

more She told me quote

13:37

that would explain his actions and the changes

13:39

in him. I've heard from other women who

13:42

have husbands who went through the same things, especially

13:44

when the women say that they couldn't live with them anymore.

13:47

They got to the point that they had to move away

13:49

having gone through a lot of things with Jim.

13:52

That is what I saw. All the evidence

13:54

is there.

14:06

Jim played in eleven games for the Colts

14:08

that seventy one season, but he only

14:10

returned three kicks that year, and he fumbled

14:12

twice. The Colts never got

14:14

an official diagnosis for what they thought was

14:16

wrong with him, at least none that Alice

14:18

heard that off

14:21

season. In early nine, the

14:23

Colts traded Jim to the New Orleans Saints

14:25

for an offensive lineman and draft picks.

14:28

In a few months, Jim would report to training

14:30

camp with the Saints, but in the meantime,

14:33

he and Alice headed back to South Carolina.

14:38

In late January two, Jim

14:40

and Alice moved into one of the bedrooms of

14:43

the house he built in Lancaster. His

14:45

mother, Ellerie Clyburne, lived

14:47

there, along with a handful of Jim's youngest brothers

14:49

and sisters, including Moral United

14:52

Clyburne. Jim's youngest brother, who

14:54

recently had been born, Carl mar

14:56

who came off the bench following Andrew D Johnny

14:59

United. He was the last of Jim's

15:01

seven siblings. In honor of the greatest

15:03

season of Jim's life and the two quarterbacks

15:06

who had helped engineer it, Jim chose

15:08

the name for his youngest brother. There's

15:10

a great failing to the side on the wedding side,

15:12

and that I just set about Jim.

15:17

That Orange Bowl in Miami must have felt

15:19

farther away than ever. And Acker,

15:22

Jim's partner in the whig business, told

15:24

me quote, although I felt like

15:26

I was his best friend, I don't know that I knew

15:28

exactly where his head was all the time. For

15:31

months, the two had forged ahead with trying to

15:34

launch that whig shop. They'd

15:36

renovated a storefront in a Greenville strip

15:38

mall and bought inventory, paying

15:40

for at least half of it with Jim's money. Exactly

15:43

how much was spent is another piece of

15:45

this story without an easy answer. It's

15:50

also not clear Jim's family and friends

15:52

understood what his financial situation really

15:55

was, and that it probably wasn't

15:57

as good as they thought. Defense

15:59

that wait for the Baltimore Colt Jim

16:02

doctor on the right side as a

16:04

taxi squad player in nineteen sixty eight.

16:06

Jim was paid so little he needed a second

16:08

job in the off season. In

16:16

Baltimore, Jim made about fifteen

16:18

thousand dollars a season in nineteen

16:21

sixty nine, nineteen seventy and

16:23

nineteen seventy one. That's

16:25

about a hundred thousand a year in today's dollars.

16:29

Jim also earned a fifteen thousand dollar

16:31

bonus for winning the nineteen seventy Super Bowl,

16:34

So in total, Jim was paid a little more than

16:36

sixty thousand dollars by the Colts, or

16:39

a max of about four hundred thousand in today's

16:41

money. We were

16:43

very free with his money. You know, at

16:45

that time he made like a thousand,

16:48

which was a lot of money. In seven

16:53

one of my early conversations with Jim's

16:55

brother, Elroy, underscored how generous

16:57

Jim was and how much confusion there

16:59

was about his finances. He

17:03

most of the time when he was the daddy,

17:06

you know, all arrest I was. He

17:09

took care of me when I was in

17:11

college. You know, in the

17:13

pro whether Jim

17:16

misled people about his money didn't

17:18

have a firm grasp on it himself or

17:20

was just the subject of wishful thinking. He

17:23

had already bought his mother a house in

17:25

Baltimore. Jim had lived in a high rise on Park

17:28

Avenue and bought a Lincoln Mark three luxury

17:30

car. He'd even given away a prize

17:32

possession for any football player, the championship

17:35

ring each Colt received for winning the nineteen

17:37

seventy Super Bowl. That giant

17:39

fourteen carrot gold ring had a nearly one

17:41

carrot diamond on top, surrounded

17:44

by a white gold horse shoe embedded

17:46

with seven blue sapphires. It was

17:48

probably worth about two thousand dollars at

17:50

the time, and Alice said he just gave it to his aunt.

17:53

I really wonder if he was having money problems,

17:55

because I don't think a Super Bowl ring with disappearance

17:58

about at time.

18:00

It was another way Alice was kept in the dark. He

18:03

was able to keep things from his brother, his

18:05

mom, from you, and I think he carried

18:08

all of it, all of it. Jim

18:13

gave the Lincoln Mark three to Elroy,

18:15

and once Jim and Alice moved back to Lancaster,

18:18

he bought a smaller Canary yellow black top

18:20

VW Bug. But that

18:22

wig business seemed to drag Jim deeper

18:25

into a financial hole. There were

18:27

stories that I found that said he

18:29

had lost a lot of money. Did Jim like invest

18:31

a lot in that company? When

18:34

I asked Acker about how much Jim might have

18:36

lost, he told me, quote, I'm

18:38

not a money type man, so I can't really say

18:41

he lost some money and I lost some money. But

18:44

at one point in Jim

18:46

told a reporter he lost as much as sixty

18:49

dollars in that business, which would have been

18:51

nearly all of his NFL earnings right

18:53

there. I don't want to be accusatory

18:56

or anything. Did I mean, did you keep up with him

18:58

much after the business to work out?

19:00

Or did you guys kind of just go your separate ways. There's

19:03

a long history of pro athletes sinking money

19:05

into failed businesses, often run

19:07

by their friends. But when we spoke,

19:10

Acker clearly disputed any implication

19:12

he might have taken advantage of his friend. He

19:15

told me, quote, I can tell

19:17

you without a doubt, there wasn't a whole lot of money

19:19

lost in the venture. Hell I bought

19:21

as many lunches and dinners as he did we'll

19:26

be back in a moment. For

19:32

James Edward Duncan and Alice Marie Young,

19:35

April Fool's Day two was

19:37

no joke. Alice

19:40

had become one of the few remaining rays of light

19:42

in Jim's life as his football career

19:44

started spiraling. By

19:46

all accounts, Jim lavished gifts

19:48

on his family and friends, maybe Alice

19:51

most of all, and she'll remember the red,

19:53

white and blue dress Jim gave her that spring

19:55

for the rest of her life. That

19:58

April one in Lancaster, they'd row

20:00

from the house Jim had built at the end of Islam

20:02

Street to the courthouse at the center

20:04

of town. Jim and Alice

20:06

had known each other for less than a year. Alice

20:09

was twenty one years old, and Jim's life

20:11

had become a whirlwind. Alice

20:14

told me that just about the only person at the courthouse

20:16

that day was the probate judge. Jim

20:19

hadn't even told her why he'd asked her to wear that

20:21

special dress, or why he'd brought

20:23

her to the courthouse in the first place. Finally,

20:27

Alice told me Jim had simply said,

20:29

we're going to get married today. As

20:32

she remembers it, it wasn't really a question.

20:35

I thought it would have a witness on her living. Alice

20:37

show me their marriage license. The witness

20:40

appears to have been that judge's secretary. Okay,

20:42

Sandra, Yeah, Sandra Estridge

20:44

was your witness. Romantic.

20:54

As rough as the prior NFL season had

20:56

been for Jim with the Colts, according

20:58

to Alice, he was in rush to report to

21:01

the Gulf Coast. So you lived

21:03

in Lancashire, so in seventy two,

21:05

like after you've gotten ready. They

21:08

had been living on a street with Jim's family

21:11

for the previous few months, which would

21:13

put a strain on any couple, but

21:15

Jim's reluctance to play for the Saints, or

21:18

maybe just play football anymore at all, became

21:20

another source of ongoing arguments. Alice

21:24

told me she was far less worried about Jim leaving

21:26

football than she was about the two of them

21:28

making a life together some place other

21:30

than in that family home in Lancaster. But

21:33

for Jim's family, his quitting the game

21:35

would mean the end of those NFL paychecks

21:37

for him and the relatives he'd been supporting.

21:40

Oh yeah, and and you know you think that

21:43

your brother makes four times more than he makes. That's

21:45

a simple misunderstanding. Alice

21:48

told me. She said to Jim, quote, you

21:51

make up your mind what you want to do. Leave

21:53

front of the corner. Duckling will come out whatever.

21:55

It's fine with me, whether you play football or not,

21:58

but let it be your to Asian. The

22:02

storm clouds were engulfing Jim's life

22:05

and the stunning end was approaching for

22:07

more than just his NFL career. And

22:10

I'm part four of Return Man. He

22:13

made something kind of thing with about ideas

22:15

never realized and having money

22:18

would create so many problems.

22:21

They're nothing bad that I could tell you

22:23

about what other than he could

22:25

love one el Ray told

22:27

me that Jim had a kid. Did you

22:29

know that he was dating

22:31

a few of the local white girls.

22:34

It was something that some people were

22:36

obviously threatened by. I'm working

22:38

on a story. Have you got some

22:40

time to talk? I'm

22:46

Brett McCormick. Return Man is

22:48

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and I Heart Radio. It's

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For lots more on this story, go to Harold online

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