Chuck Latourette—A Special Special Teamer

 By John Turney 

Chuck Latourette was a name that ardent NFL fans barely know, and who can blame them? He had a short but interesting career as a punter and punt returner and a short but interesting life.

Nicknamed "Frenchy," he played pro football for five years -- four in the NFL, one in the WFL -- became a doctor and died in 1982 with a single gunshot to the eye.

Patricia, his wife, was charged and acquitted of his murder.

More on that later.

Since he was 12, Latourette wanted to become a doctor. So he took pre-med classes at Rice University where he played offense and defense on the football team and was named All-Conference as a senior and voted second-team AP All-American.

He would've been chosen in the first combined AFL-NFL draft, but he told scouts he was going to graduate school. So no team drafted him. But when he received a couple of offers from pro teams, he decided to take a shot at the NFL while seeking his medical degree at the University of Tennessee Colleges of Medicine in Memphis.

He played football in St. Louis during the fall and attended medical school in the off-season. And he did both well.

What made him interesting -- unique even -- is that he is one of two players in NFL history to punt more than 200 times, return 50 or more punts and 50 or more kicks.

Two. 

In a league with over 100 years of history, inclusion on a list of two for anything is notable. Ask him to punt, he could do it. Return a kick? He could do that, too. Punt return? No problem. Fill in at safety? No sweat. And he did it all lacking elite speed - with 40 times between 4.6 and 4.7 seconds.

In the early years of the NFL there were plenty of players who did it all - running, passing, kicking and returning - and several are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But they didn't do it with the frequency that Chuck Latourette did in just four NFL seasons, missing one with a knee injury.

But it wasn't just the quantity; it was the quality. He wasn't average in everything. He was superb at it.

In 1968, he led the NFL in punt-return (12.3) yardage ... kickoff-return yardage (26.9) ... and all-purpose yardage, setting then-NFL records for kick returns (46) and return yardage (1,237). He also returned a punt for a touchdown, an 86-yarder against the Saints, which was then the third-longest in Cardinals' history. 

It was the margin for their only win in the first month of the season.

Latourette could do it all, starting two games at safety and ranking third in punting average (41.6) and fourth (unofficially) in net punting average.

More on that in a bit.

After a 1–3 start that season, the Cardinals went on an 8–1–1 tear the final 10 games to finish 9–4–1. In a season where their leading rusher had just over 800 yards, the leading passer threw for a bit over 2,000 yards and the leading receiver was just under 800 yards, "Frenchy" was invaluable.

But it was punting where he excelled. His gross punting averages were nothing special (he was third in the NFL in 1968, for example), but he launched kicks high, not allowing return yards -- a style that produced solid net punting numbers before they became official statistics.

That came five years later.

With the league's official website, NFL.com, posting a spate of statistics recently, net punting leaders can be calculated in the years when Latourette played. What they tell us is that he ranked high nearly every year.

In 1967, for instance, his 62 punts were returned for just a total of 79 yards. His gross average was 40.8, but his net of 38.3 ranked third. Plus, he had a satisfying 17-4 inside-the-20-to-touchback ratio.

After missing 1969 with a knee injury, he returned one year later to produce more high, hanging kicks that were returned for a total ... total ... of 90 yards -- resulting in a 38.3 net average that led the NFC and was fifth in the NFL. A Cardinals' punter would not exceed 38.3 net yards until 1991-- a generation later --when Rich Camarillo led the NFL with a 38.9 average.

Latourette concluded that season by recovering a Larry Brown fumble and scoring in the season finale against Washington. 

His 1971 season was not as stellar, and by August 1972, Latourette had had enough. He told the Cardinals he planned to graduate from school that December, would attend fall classes and miss the season. The only way he could play, he said, was to punt on the weekends. 

He told the Cards that he'd take a pay cut from $30,000 to $14,000 for such an arrangement, but they declined the offer. So he was off to Memphis to finish his degree in radiology, saying it was not a "crossroads decision".

Nevertheless, he had one more foray into pro football, playing for the Houston Texans of the WFL in 1974. He was in Houston for his medical residency, so why not make a few extra dollars on the side?

He also took up flying and hang gliding, with the latter producing broken arms and ribs. Along the way, he was divorced, remarried and divorced again.

In 1981, he married Patricia, his third marriage and her third as well. They met through a mutual friend and started a radiology practice together. But, less than a year into the marriage, tragedy struck.

On Dec. 22, 1982, Mrs. Latourette said that she and he husband were awakened when they'd heard a noise that led them to believe a burglar may be in the house. While Chuck was pulling a .25-caliber pistol from a box on a bedside table, it went off, striking him in the left eye..

He would die 10 hours later at the age of 37.

Upon investigation, Patricia Latourette was indicted and charged with murder a month later. However, on Jan. 27, 1984, she was acquitted after the judge instructed the jury to find the defendant not guilty as a matter of law due to lack of evidence.

"All findings were consistent with accidental death and homicide," he said.

Apparently, the police had conducted metal tests on her hands to see if she fired a guy that day, and she hadn't. In addition, they neglected to test Chuck Latourette's hand for metal traces, and his wife's fingerprints weren't found on the gun.

In 1988, Latourette was named the punter on the all-time St. Louis Cardinals team (spanning from 1960 through 1987) and was the Cards' co-Rookie of the Year in 1967.

He ended his NFL career with a 40.5 yards-per-punt average and a net average of 36.9 which, though unofficial, would have been the Big Red record until Camarillo came along. It still ranks fifth, with three of those ahead of him playing 37 or more years after he did in an era when teams focused on what Latourette did --  net punting and avoiding touchbacks.

That's significant. But so is this: Neither Camarillo nor Andy Lee (the Cards' punter today) returned a punt or played safety.

Latourette still ranks fifth in kick return average in the Cardinals' record books with a 25.3-yard career average and is 10th in punt-return average (both among players with 50 attempts in each).

In short, Chuck Latourette was an all-around special teamer, a throwback to players like Bill Dudley or Charley Trippi. He will never be a Hall of Famer or even a member of the PFRA's Hall of Very Good. His career was short and life ended far too soon. But he is certainly a player worth remembering.