No One Believed These Joe Delaney Stories! Until They Watched This!
Legends of the Game of Inches
302 views
No One Believed These Joe Delaney Stories! Until They Watched This!
Joe Delaney was a Kansas City Chiefs Pro Bowl running back who drowned at 24 saving three boys from a pond — even though he couldn't swim.
In just two NFL seasons, Delaney rushed for 1,501 yards, set four franchise records, and earned AFC Rookie of the Year honors in 1981. Elvin Bethea compared him to O.J. Simpson, Gale Sayers, and Walter Payton. Marv Levy called him one of the five best players he ever coached.
On June 29, 1983, at Chennault Park in Monroe, Louisiana, three boys waded into a man-made pond with no lifeguards and no warning signs. None of them could swim. Delaney — who couldn't swim either — handed his wallet to a stranger, said the most famous sentence in Chiefs history, and went in after them.
He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by Ronald Reagan, the Carnegie Medal, and the NCAA Award of Valor. No Kansas City Chief has worn number 37 since.
His widow Carolyn and their three daughters now run the Delaney 37 Foundation, providing mentorship and swimming lessons to children in underserved Louisiana communities.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Cold Open
0:43 A Cattle Truck Driver's Son Who Ran Like Wind
2:29 299 Yards in a Single Afternoon
4:21 The Rookie Who Made Kansas City Forget Its Misery
6:17 The Night Elvin Bethea Saw Greatness with a Capital G
7:55 A Detached Retina and a Strike-Shortened Ghost Season
9:42 The Shirt Off His Back and a Teacher's Funeral
11:41 A Pond That Should Never Have Existed
13:11 One Sentence at the Edge of the Water
14:56 3,000 Mourners and a President's Medal
17:17 The Number That Nobody Wears
#JoeDelaney #KansasCityChiefs #NFLHistory
No One Believed These Joe Delaney Stories! Until They Watched This!
Legends of the Game of Inches
302 views
No One Believed These Joe Delaney Stories! Until They Watched This!
Joe Delaney was a Kansas City Chiefs Pro Bowl running back who drowned at 24 saving three boys from a pond — even though he couldn't swim.
In just two NFL seasons, Delaney rushed for 1,501 yards, set four franchise records, and earned AFC Rookie of the Year honors in 1981. Elvin Bethea compared him to O.J. Simpson, Gale Sayers, and Walter Payton. Marv Levy called him one of the five best players he ever coached.
On June 29, 1983, at Chennault Park in Monroe, Louisiana, three boys waded into a man-made pond with no lifeguards and no warning signs. None of them could swim. Delaney — who couldn't swim either — handed his wallet to a stranger, said the most famous sentence in Chiefs history, and went in after them.
He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by Ronald Reagan, the Carnegie Medal, and the NCAA Award of Valor. No Kansas City Chief has worn number 37 since.
His widow Carolyn and their three daughters now run the Delaney 37 Foundation, providing mentorship and swimming lessons to children in underserved Louisiana communities.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Cold Open
0:43 A Cattle Truck Driver's Son Who Ran Like Wind
2:29 299 Yards in a Single Afternoon
4:21 The Rookie Who Made Kansas City Forget Its Misery
6:17 The Night Elvin Bethea Saw Greatness with a Capital G
7:55 A Detached Retina and a Strike-Shortened Ghost Season
9:42 The Shirt Off His Back and a Teacher's Funeral
11:41 A Pond That Should Never Have Existed
13:11 One Sentence at the Edge of the Water
14:56 3,000 Mourners and a President's Medal
17:17 The Number That Nobody Wears
#JoeDelaney #KansasCityChiefs #NFLHistory