Derek Stingley Jr. carries on his family’s football tradition
FRISCO, Texas – The last name rings a bell to anyone who remembers the hit.
Derek Stingley Jr. is the grandson of Darryl Stingley, a wide receiver for the New England Patriots who became a quadriplegic in a 1978 preseason game after a brutal hit by Oakland Raiders safety Jack Tatum.
The hit ended Darryl Stingley’s NFL career and likely shortened his life (he died in 2007 when he was 55), but that didn’t stop his son Derek Sr. from playing college football, minor league baseball and Arena League football, nor does it concern Derek Jr., who was one of the top defensive backs this past week at Nike’s The Opening football camp.
“I was always going to play football,” Derek said. “You can’t think about getting hurt like that because you can’t play scared.”
Stingley is a 6-foot-1, 185-pound LSU commit from Dunham (Baton Rouge, Louisiana). He is considered one of the top defensive backs in the 2020 class and was named Class 2A first-team AllState last season after having 64 tackles and 11 interceptions.
He has been effective this past week at The Opening. Most of the time, opponents threw away from him.
“I felt like I did pretty good,” Derel said. “It was great going against the best people in the country.”
Derek Sr., now a coach with the Shanghai Skywalkers of the China Arena Football League, said he was never concerned for his son’s safety.
“My dad always said that what happened to him was a freak accident,” Derek Sr. said. “My son loves the sport. He understands that something could happen, but we always look for the positives, no matter what.”
When Derek Sr. was coaching in the Arena Football League, Derek, then in grade school, already showed promise.
“He was always better than other guys his age because he would always play up,” Derek Sr. said. “Then, when I was a head coach for Arena teams, he would come in and practice and work out when he was little.
“He was eight or nine, doing one-onones with 26-year-old guys. He would lose out, but when he came up against guys his own age, they couldn’t compete.”