Two men have worn No. 37 for the Kansas City Chiefs, and even Tim Collier shouldn't mind if we move on past him. The cornerback out of East Texas State was drafted in 1976 and played for four seasons in K.C. before moving on to St. Louis to continue a respectable career.
That's the entire story at No. 37 that isn't related to Joe Delaney, and if you've been reading along through our 1 to 99 Chiefs history series, you'll know a few of these numbers get treated as untouchable. Usually, that's because a player was great. This one's different. Delaney was better than most fans remember, but the number belongs to him for reasons that have nothing to do with football.
The complete history of Chiefs players to wear No. 37
Let's start with Joe Delaney as a player, because the way his life ended tends to erase the fact that he could really cook. The Chiefs selected Delaney in the second round in the 1981 NFL Draft, at No. 41 overall, out of little Northwestern State, and dropped him onto a team that hadn't finished above .500 in eight years. He ran for 1,121 yards and 3 touchdowns as a rookie and caught 22 passes for another 246 yards. The end result for the Chiefs was a 9-7 record under head coach Marv Levy. They missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker, but still gave the franchise its first winning record since 1973. As for Delaney, he made the Pro Bowl.
The 1982 season was a mess for everyone, since the players went on strike and the league's schedule shrank to only nine games. A detached retina cut into what Delaney could do on top of that. None of it changed what the Chiefs thought they had.
After going home for the summer before his third season in Louisiana, Delaney was in Monroe for a "Kids Day" event, about 100 miles from where he grew up. He was playing in a softball game near a man-made pond that had been dug out and left to fill with rainwater. Three boys waded in and hit the spot where the bottom fell away. As others stood by, Delaney ran in. Somebody asked if he could swim, and Delaney felt he had to try, adding that if he didn't come back up, to go get help. One of the boys clawed his way back to the shallow end, but the other two did not, and neither did Delaney. At only 24 years old, Delaney left behind a wife and three daughters.
The entire country took notice. Two and a half weeks later, on July 15, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Delaney the Presidential Citizens Medal, and Vice President George H.W. Bush handed it to the family inside the Haughton High gym, the same room where 3,000 people had packed in for the funeral days before.
The Chiefs played the entire 1983 season with a gold-eagle patch and the number 37 stitched over their hearts. The number was never formally retired, but no Chief has worn it in more than four decades. Delaney went into the Ring of Honor and the team Hall of Fame in 2004.
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