Chuck Muncie, Troubled N.F.L. Star, Dies at 60
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: May 14, 2013
Chuck Muncie, who blended speed and power to become one of theN.F.L.’s leading running backs of the late 1970s and early ’80s, but whose career was cut short by drug abuse, died on Monday at his home in Perris, Calif. He was 60.
National Football League, via Associated Press
Chuck Muncie was a Pro Bowl running back. He went to prison in 1989 in a drug case, and later created a youth foundation.
A family spokesman, Vintage Foster, said the cause was a heart attack.
Muncie went to prison in 1989 in a drug case, but he turned his life around and helped disadvantaged children through a foundation he created.
Starring at the University of California, Muncie was a runner-up to Archie Griffin of Ohio State for the 1975 Heisman Trophy, awarded to college football’s leading player. The New Orleans Saintsselected him as the third pick in the 1976 N.F.L. draft.
At 6 feet 3 inches and 227 pounds, Muncie broke through defensive lines, chugging ahead in his distinctive square goggles, and he teamed with Tony Galbreath in the Saints’ running attack known as Thunder and Lightning. They provided another dimension to an offense that had relied on the passing of Archie Manning.
Muncie’s breakout season came in 1979, when he ran for a Saints-record 1,198 yards.
“Chuck was one of those backs who come along every 8 or 10 years,” Manning told Jeff Duncan in “Tales From the Saints Sideline” (Sports Publishing LLC, 2004). “He could have been one of the all-time greats. He was that big and that fast.”
But there were signs of trouble.
“He basically slept through every meeting,” Manning said. “We’d break the huddle and I would just time it where I walked by him and told him exactly what he was going to do. I don’t know what he was doing during the week, but he wasn’t thinking about football.”
The Saints traded Muncie to the San Diego Chargers for a draft pick early during the 1980 season. He ran for 1,144 yards and 19 touchdowns in 1981, and was selected to the Pro Bowl three times.
But after the first game of the 1984 season, Muncie was suspended by the N.F.L. for the rest of the season after testing positive for cocaine. He had run for 6,702 yards and 71 touchdowns and had caught 263 passes for 2,323 yards and 3 touchdowns, but he never played pro football again.
In the late 1980s, a police officer in Berkeley, Calif., found Muncie unwashed and homeless outside Cal’s Memorial Stadium, the Ventura County newspaper The Star reported. In February 1989, Muncie was sentenced in San Diego to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to intending to sell two ounces of cocaine to a friend.
His time in prison proved a turning point.
After that, he pursued business interests and began telling of his drug problems in meetings with youths who were at risk. In 1997 he created the Chuck Muncie Youth Foundation, based in Antioch, Calif.
“It was almost like an epiphany,” Muncie told The Union-Tribune of San Diego in 2004, recounting his time in prison. “I was behind bars, pointing fingers at everybody but myself. I finally realized that I’m in charge, that it’s me with the addiction.”
Harry Vance Muncie was born on March 17, 1953, in Uniontown, Pa. As a youngster, he was struck by a truck while playing outside his home, leaving his left leg shorter than his right. But he played football and basketball wearing a shoe with an extra-thick sole, and won an athletic scholarship to California. He gained 1,460 yards and ran for 13 touchdowns in his senior season at Cal. After his playing days he mentored athletes there.
Muncie, who also had a home in Laguna Beach, Calif., is survived by a daughter, Danielle Ward, two sisters and three grandchildren.
“He was a star on the football field, but his most impressive work was done in the second chapter of his life,” Muncie’s former wife Robyn Hood said in a statement. “He changed the lives of hundreds of kids.”
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