- Joined
- Aug 13, 2005
- Messages
- 19,298
- Reaction score
- 12,888
Today in Patriots History
Steve Kiner
Steve Kiner
Happy 74th birthday to Steve Kiner
Born June 12, 1947 in Sandstone, Minnesota
Patriot LB, 1971 and 1973; uniform #57
Acquired July 23, 1971 from Dallas in trade for a 1972 fourth round draft pick
Steve Kiner had multiple stints with the Patriots. He started all 14 games after arriving in a 1971 trade with Dallas - but after an offseason arrest for driving without a license and under the influence of narcotics, Kiner was traded to Miami early in the 1972 training camp for an offensive tackle named Bill Griffin (who never progressed on the NFL level beyond the taxi squad). Four weeks later he was released by the Dolphins and claimed by Washington, who released him just prior to the kickoff of the 1973 season.
The Patriots immediately claimed Kiner off waivers, and he again started all 14 games for the Pats. Early in the 1974 offseason the Patriots traded Kiner to Houston for nothing more than an eighth round draft pick; Steve proceeded to start at inside linebacker for the Oilers for the next five seasons, never missing a single game. His next to last NFL game was the New Years Eve playoff game at Schaefer Stadium in 1978, when Houston defeated the Pats in Chuck Fairbanks' final game as head coach for New England.
Overall Steve Kiner played in 114 games with 99 starts, with ten interceptions and eight fumble recoveries; he also played in six playoff games. While with the Pats he started 28 games, with four picks and one fumble recovery.
In his post-football life Steve Kiner earned two master's degrees and became involved in health care, managing emergency psychiatric services for Emory Healthcare at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
The nonconformist 70s icon was a steady influence at outside linebacker for a short while with the Patriots - and also a larger than life folk hero of the times. To start with he had a short commute: Kiner lived in his van in the Schaefer Stadium parking lot.
Check out the following articles, they tell pieces of the story about a good ol' country boy from the outskirts of Tampa far better than I can:
Sherrington: The curious case of former Cowboy Steve Kiner and his missing Cotton Bowl watch
Sherrington: The curious case of former Cowboy Steve Kiner and his missing Cotton Bowl watch
sportsday.dallasnews.com
Steve Kiner isn't sure exactly when he lost it or where. Much of his life in the early '70s - when he was a promising Cowboys linebacker out of Tennessee and a roommate of Duane Thomas, two rogues running themselves right out of the game - exists in a fog now. Could have been the drugs from those days. Could have been the hits.
Could be it was just so long ago he hardly recognizes himself in it anymore.
As best as Kiner can recall, he was wading in the blue waters off Key Biscayne, Fla., casting a net for baitfish. Over and over he flung the net, until all at once it caught on his wrist and there went his watch.
His Cotton Bowl watch. A silver oyster Rolex. Sparkling in flight.
He frantically searched a half-hour in the clear, neck-deep waters. But it was no use. He never found it.
He would lose much more. He once told a reporter that he'd "lost touch" with himself and very nearly his NFL career. But he reclaimed it, then made a successful life out of football. Got married. Raised three daughters. Earned two master's degrees. The last 20 years, he's been in health care.
Get this: Steve Kiner, who once allegedly head-butted an usher at a rock concert, now manages emergency psychiatric services for Emory Healthcare at Emory University in Atlanta.
Or as he put it, chuckling at his own joke, "They gave the crazy guy the keys to the asylum."
. . . . .
The funny thing about Kiner's Cotton Bowl watch is that it's not a fond reminder of the game. In its first season running the Wishbone, Texas stampeded Tennessee, 36-13. The Longhorns pounded Tennessee's proud defense and its leader, a fast 6-1, 220-pounder who would one day be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, a linebacker so talented that Bear Bryant once called him "the best in this league since Lee Roy Jordan played for us."
The Cowboys took that linebacker in the third round in 1970. They had no idea what they were getting.
His rookie season, Kiner pulled up to the Cowboys' practice facility in his old VW during a pouring rain and, unable to find a space, parked in the head coach's.
A dripping Tom Landry later spied Kiner and said, "I admire a man with courage."
Other than Kiner's skill and physical nature, there wasn't much else Landry liked about him.
Kiner was a new breed, brash and fearless. He smoked pot, which didn't make him different from several Cowboys, except that he smoked a lot of pot. He also roomed with Duane Thomas. An integrated living arrangement was enough of a culture shock to the Cowboys, much less the likes of Thomas and Kiner.
In a '73 Texas Monthly story, Gary Cartwright wrote that Kiner was the Cowboys' resident hippie, "... shaggy hair, groovy mustache, delighted grin belying the fact that he was the headhunter on the Dallas kick-off team. In those days, it was Kiner, not Thomas, who was considered the enigma."
Kiner and Thomas didn't last long in their apartment out by Love Field. Unhappy sitting behind Chuck Howley, even on a Super Bowl team, and hardly a player the Cowboys could depend upon, Kiner all but forced a trade after his rookie season to the Patriots.
He lasted two seasons. His next camp with the Dolphins, he told a Tennessee newspaper, "I'm off drugs, completely. I've had my hair cut ... about like it was in college, and I've changed my way of life."
Miami cut him anyway. So did Washington. He finally stuck with Houston, where he played five productive seasons, the last four under a position coach named Wade Phillips.
He looks back fondly on his football career. He loved Wade's dad, Bum, for supplying the Oilers with tubs of iced-down beer in training camp. He loved Landry for crying and apologizing to his players after one loss. He loved D.D. Lewis for his commitment to Christianity without trying to "dump that on my plate."
And he loved Duane Thomas, whose own career never realized its potential.
"Duane was really a good person," Kiner said. "He just put himself in a bad position with the media. Somebody implied he was stand-offish, and he played to that. He'd make nonsensical comments to the media and they wouldn't mean anything.
"He was a real gentle soul."
He could be describing himself. Once noted for trying to separate players from their senses, he tries to help people put their lives back together now. When a potential patient shows up in need of psychiatric care, he tries to get it. One of his projects was a former Tennessee teammate, Walter Chadwick, who suffered irreparable brain damage in an automobile accident. For two years, Kiner worked until he finally got Chadwick a job at Emory Healthcare.
If old-time Cowboys fans might be surprised how he's turned out, the 62-year-old grandfather identified in medical stories as "Steven Kiner" really can't believe it, either.
"My life is just rich," he said, softly. "More than I imagined it would be."
And if he doesn't get his Cotton Bowl watch back? As Kiner told one of the people who had it, it's all right. But, yes, he wants it back. He'd love to wear it. When people ask, he could tell them who he used to be. They might be surprised.
Concussions and the NFL: Steve Kiner
Driving home from work one night about 15 years ago, Steve Kiner found himself in his car...
www.chron.com
Driving home from work one night about 15 years ago, Steve Kiner found himself in his car in the middle of the interstate's grassy median, pointed in the wrong direction. He had no idea how he got there. The good news was he hadn't hit anyone, and nobody had hit him.
"I thought I was just tired from work and had dozed off," Kiner said.
The former Tennessee Vol and College Football Hall of Famer, who spent nine seasons in the NFL and started every game for the Oilers in 1977-78, also remembers playing golf with a trio of high school friends when, all of a sudden, he looked at one of them with startled amazement.
"I thought, 'Who is that guy?' " Kiner said. " 'What are we doing here?' "
Although a brutal tackler, Kiner never suffered an officially diagnosed concussion. But he estimates he got his bell rung "a dozen times a season," saying: "As long as my skull wasn't cracked, I figured it was OK to keep playing. They'd stick some ammonia under your nose and ask, 'How many fingers I'm holding up?' If you guessed right, they'd send you back out for the next play."
That's what sticks in his craw and why he has joined a suit seeking damages from the NFL.
"I was naïve," he said.
At least Kiner, 63, has been well-situated to deal with his problems. As the manager of psychiatric services for the Emory University hospital system in Atlanta — he entered the medical profession in the late 1980s - he has come in contact with many people who can help him.
A bit more on Kiner's football career below:
Kiner Sheds Tag; New Start in Houston
Steve Kiner: University of Tennessee Athletic Hall of Fame
Steve Kiner - University of Tennessee Athletics
Elected 1999 Steve Kiner's outstanding play at linebacker fits the tradition Tennessee holds for the position. And while playing for the Volunteers,
utsports.com
Steve Kiner: State of Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame
College Football Hall of Fame: Steve Kiner
Steve Kiner (1999) - Hall of Fame - National Football Foundation
footballfoundation.org
