Remembering Charles Long

Football hero from Fyffe played a decade for the Boston Patriots

By Tim Eberhart

A new generation of football fans don't remember the New England Patriots before their current superstar quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, helped make them a Super Bowl contender. They may not know that before the Patriots moved to Foxboro, Mass., the team was known as the Boston Patriots, and a Fyffe High School football hero was a prominent Patriot from 1961 to 1970.

He was tough as nails. Hard-hitting Charles Long, a 1956 Fyffe graduate, was as rugged as they come. The lineman's toughness was obvious when he played at Fyffe. During his junior and senior Red Devil seasons, Long didn't miss a single game due to illness or injury.

He wanted to play football before his junior year according to his younger brother, Euless Long.

"Daddy wouldn't let him play," Euless says. They played with little or no face guards on their helmets back then. "Charles came home after his first game with his upper lip sewn back on."

He went on to become a four-year starter at the University of Chattanooga, where, against tough NCAA competition, he, again, never missed a game.

"It was extremely rare for a college freshman to start in the 1950s," says Euless. Long compiled a continuous starting streak which was, at the time, a feat no one had equaled in NCAA history. Confirming his tremendous toughness, Long later went a remarkable seven years in one stretch of his pro career without missing a game.

Always determined to keep the streaks going, he played hurt at times. While playing offense and defense in college, he once kept the streak going by playing even though he was suffering from pneumonia.

"He averaged 58 minutes of playing time a game his last two years in college," says Euless. At Boston, he played a portion of one season with a separated shoulder.

Long was unquestionably tough, but, also very talented. While at Chattanooga, Long earned All American honors in 1960. That year, he played nose guard in the All-American Bowl in Arizona, an all-star game for the nations top seniors. In 1961, he was drafted in the eighth round by the Patriots, a brand-new franchise in the brand-new American Football League (AFL). He was also drafted by the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL that year, but saw the AFL as a better opportunity to become a starter right away.

Following his first pro season, he was runner up in the AFL Rookie-of-the-Year voting. His Patriot teammates and the fans of Boston quickly embraced him as their own, and he became known by a new nickname ­ Choo Choo Charlie. The nickname referred to his college city, Chattanooga, home of the famous Choo Choo, rather than the way he played ­ although he was one of the fastest big players around. And, as opposing players would tell you, he hit like a freight train.

In 1963, the Patriots won the Eastern conference title and played the San Diego Chargers in the AFL Championship Game.

Long was the epitome of the pulling guard of the era. According to the 1967 Patriots game program, defensive tackle Buck Buchanan of the Kansas City Chiefs once claimed Long was the hardest hitting player he had faced. Before his career was over, Long earned All-Pro honors two different seasons.

Long was elected a charter member of the DeKalb County Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.