Philly’s Frank Wycheck had a football career full of miracles — until concussions derailed his life

Against the odds, Frank Wycheck found a second act.

He had poured his body and soul into a bruising, 11-year career as an NFL tight end, a journey that ended abruptly in 2003, when Wycheck retired at age 32.

Plenty of former athletes struggle to find an occupation that can approach the thrill of playing a professional sport.

Wycheck, though, proved to be an exception.

The Northeast Philadelphia native launched a new career that he loved, hosting a popular sports-talk radio show in Nashville.

He did anything for a good radio bit: He cracked jokes, won a walking race, chugged milk, chomped his way through a doughnut-eating contest, claimed he didn’t know Peppermint Patty was a girl, and looked the fool against a professional softball pitcher.

Privately, though, Wycheck was tormented by a constellation of neurological issues: migraines, memory loss, anxiety, depression. He once estimated that he had endured as many as 25 concussions during his playing career, most of which was spent with the Tennessee Titans, in addition to hundreds of thousands of collisions with other players.

The likely fallout from those brain injuries — incessant headaches, widening memory gaps — cast a shadow over Wycheck’s personal and professional lives. He told journalists that he believed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease that researchers have found in the brains of hundreds of former football players.

His successful radio career started to fade. He was distant on air, missed shows, and became unreliable.

“I remember listening one time and he forgot what he was saying,” said his older brother, Teddy. “He goes ‘That’s my scrambled eggs, again.’”

In the summer of 2017, Wycheck was recording a radio broadcast at the Titans’ training camp, and spotted Les Steckel, who had been the team’s offensive coordinator in the 1999 season, when Wycheck and the Titans went to Super Bowl XXXIV. Steckel was Wycheck’s position coach when he joined the organization, helping Wycheck blossom from an NFL castoff to the conductor of the Music City Miracle.

“He said, ‘Coach, do you have a minute?,’” Steckel said. “I said, ‘Sure.’ He said, ‘I have to tell you that I’m struggling a little bit with this CTE stuff.’”

The contours of Wycheck’s story are familiar. More than 4,500 former players sued the NFL more than a decade ago, alleging that league officials minimized or concealed information about the potential health risks of sustaining repeated head injuries, which have been linked to depression, loss of cognitive function, and degenerative brain disease. Many retired players continue to grapple with dementia and movement disorders.

Family, friends, and former teammates have each described to The Inquirer how the Wycheck they once knew — “a breath of fresh air, always lighthearted, never down, always optimistic,” as former Titans running back Eddie George put it — grew isolated, depressed, and undependable. He quit his radio show just weeks after talking to Steckel.

Deanna Wycheck Szabo, Wycheck’s older daughter, said he became unable to follow through on simple plans, such as meeting friends for golf.

“Then when he bailed,” she said, “more anxiety, shame, and guilt started creeping in. It was kind of a cycle.”

In December 2023, his family found Wycheck dead inside his home in Chattanooga, Tenn.

He was 52.

His death marked a stark and tragic end to what had once been a heartwarming tale of a Northeast Philly kid who had managed to achieve the near-impossible, to rise from playing football on city streets to performing in a Super Bowl.

Later this year, though, there will likely be a postscript.

Scientists in Boston will tell Wycheck’s family whether his fears were correct — whether he was another football player whose love of the game had exacted a heavy price, and left him with CTE.

“He died because of football,” said Zach Piller, Wycheck’s teammate with the Titans from 1999-2003.

The character that would one day help Wycheck mature into an NFL star was rooted in his childhood, which was largely spent in a pocket of the city where residents were more likely to tell you which parish they belonged to than which street they lived on.

In 1979, the Wycheck family — Theodore, a Philly cop, and Marie, a customer service representative at a school-uniform company, and their children, Frank and Teddy — moved from Olney to Patrician Drive, and Our Lady of Calvary parish. Football was part of the fabric of the neighborhood, where kids painted yard lines in the street, to make the asphalt resemble a football field.

Wycheck began playing for Calvary Athletic Association, and developed a reputation as a hard-hitting linebacker and bulldozing running back. At other schools, Wycheck’s name became one that youth athletes feared.

“He was bigger than everybody. He was just a tank,” said Tim Wade, who grew up in St. Martha’s, a neighboring Northeast Philly parish.

Wade grew close to Wycheck in high school. Both attended Archbishop Ryan, where Wycheck was twice an All-Catholic running back and graduated as the school’s all-time leading rusher. Wycheck’s running style was simple — he lowered his head, and barreled up the middle, collecting yards and big hits.

“We never talked about concussions,” Wade said, “never heard about them.”

In 1988, Wycheck led the Ryan Raiders to the Catholic League championship game, where they battled Archbishop Carroll at Villanova Stadium. Wycheck carried the ball 24 times, for 177 yards, and the team eked out a 6-0 victory, with all of its points coming from field goals kicked by Matt Knowles, a future professional soccer player.

College recruiters flooded Wycheck’s home with offer letters. He and his parents toured universities, and met coaches from big-time programs.

“My husband and I were just working-type people,” Marie Wycheck said. “There were no expectations that he was going to be a superstar.”

After graduating high school, Wycheck would achieve his dream of playing professional football faster than anyone anticipated — and then see it all unravel.

Wycheck enrolled at the University of Maryland, and switched from running back to tight end. The new position was a perfect fit; Wycheck led the Terrapins in receptions as a freshman and sophomore. But his production dipped as a junior after a new coach brought in an offensive system that had no use for a tight end.

Off the field, Wycheck’s life had grown more complex. He and his future wife, Cherryn, had a child, Deanna, who was born in 1991. His decline in production and new responsibilities at home compelled Wycheck to leave college a year early and enter the 1993 NFL draft. Wycheck even called Mel Kiper, ESPN’s draft guru, for advice. Kiper agreed that Wycheck’s stock wouldn’t rise any higher in college and told him to go pro.

When draft day arrived, Wycheck returned to his parents’ home in Northeast Philly, and waited to learn his fate. The first five rounds came and went without a team drafting Wycheck.

Finally, in the sixth round, he received a phone call: Washington had selected him with the 160th overall pick.

Wycheck’s elation was tempered with the reality that, as a late pick, there was no guarantee he would make the team.

“Philadelphia has that underdog mentality, and that’s just how my dad operated in his career,” Deanna said. “He always put in the work like he was going to get cut the next day. His work ethic was tied into his identity and personality.”

Wycheck won over Washington coaches with strong training camp performances. But during the team’s final preseason game, he suffered a concussion, and needed to be hospitalized.

There was little sense, at the time, that such injuries were a harbinger of future crises, for both Wycheck and the NFL.

That same year, a Pittsburgh neurosurgeon began a quiet experiment, enlisting 27 members of the Pittsburgh Steelers to complete neuropsychological tests after they sustained concussions, journalists Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru would later recount in their book, League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth. The thought, at the time, was that the baseline data might allow players to return to action even sooner after sustaining a concussion.

“Back then, you never thought about the consequences,” Teddy Wycheck said. “[Frank] played in the Wild West days. Concussion protocol was smelling salts, and rubbing dirt on it.”

Wycheck earned a spot on Washington’s roster. He went on to start seven games as a rookie, and carved a role for himself in the team’s offensive scheme. Wycheck’s outlook with Washington seemed promising. But he caught just 23 passes during the 1994 season, and was slowed by injuries. Then he tested positive for steroids, and the NFL suspended Wycheck for the final four games of the 1994 season.

Wycheck retreated to Philadelphia, wondering whether his career was finished.

While he was back in the city, his father suffered a heart attack, and died.

Theodore Wycheck was 53.

“When I didn’t make it, he always stood by me,” Wycheck once recalled, “and said I’d make it if I worked hard enough.”

During the summer of 1995, Wycheck participated in a training camp scrimmage that would change his life.

He was still hanging on — barely — with Washington, and the team was practicing against the Houston Oilers. Steckel, then the Oilers’ tight ends coach, instructed the team’s general manager to keep an eye on Wycheck.

“I said, ‘If they let him go, jump on him,’” Steckel remembered.

A week later, Washington decided Wycheck’s time with the team had run out. The Oilers claimed him on waivers for $100.

Wycheck was desperate to prove he deserved to be a starter. At team practices, he became the first person to line up in front of a JUGS machine, which Steckel used to zip 40 footballs in hard-to-catch spots.

Steckel gave Wycheck a nickname: “Philly.”

Wycheck assumed a new role with his new team, mentoring younger players who had to bear the weight of being first-round draft choices: running back Eddie George, a fellow Philadelphia native, and wide receiver Kevin Dyson.

“He was the perfect teammate,” George said. “He was always a guy who could go into any [locker room] pocket, Black or white, rich or poor, and related to you on a human level, heart to heart. He would jump on a grenade for you.”

Wycheck formed a connection, too, with quarterback Steve McNair.

The two often found success with a play called “Tiger,” which relied on Wycheck freelancing a route, and McNair reading his tight end’s body language to know where to throw the ball.

Wycheck’s career began to blossom. He would be named to three Pro Bowls, and catch more passes than all but one tight end in the NFL between 1993 and 2003.

His team, too, was on the rise. The Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1997, and were renamed the Titans in 1999. The triumvirate of McNair, George, and Wycheck propelled the Titans to a 13-3 regular-season record that year, setting the stage for a wild-card playoff matchup against the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 8, 2000.

More than 66,000 fans crammed into Nashville’s Adelphia Coliseum, hoping to see the Titans extend their magical run. But late in the fourth quarter, the stadium had fallen silent. A field goal had given the Bills the lead, 16-15, and the team prepared to kick off a final time to the Titans.

Deanna, 8 years old at the time, watched the game at home with a babysitter. She turned off the TV after the Bills went ahead, ran to her parents’ bedroom, and cried by herself.

Just 16 seconds stood between the Titans and crushing disappointment.

“Everyone on the sideline,” recalled former Titans fullback Lorenzo Neal, “is thinking it’s over.”

Neal marched over to Wycheck. As hulking players who were used to absorbing big hits, the two were especially close; Wycheck affectionately referred to Neal as “Lo Daddy.”

It was time for a daring play that the team had practiced throughout the regular season: Home Run Throwback.

“I said, ‘Frank, they’re gonna kick me this ball. Come and get it,’” Neal said. “He said, ‘I got you, Lo Daddy.’”

Neal caught the kickoff at the Titans’ 24-yard line, and immediately tucked the ball into Wycheck’s arms. Wycheck darted to his right, stopped, spun, and fired a lateral across the field to Dyson, who sprinted with the ball along the sideline, his arms and legs a blur, the fans’ screams rising so loud that they drowned out the voices of ABC Sports broadcasters calling the game.

The thrilling touchdown, which gave the Titans a 22-16 victory, became known as the Music City Miracle. The NFL would later rank it as the fourth most exciting play in the league’s history.

“It was such a glorious time,” said George. “If you could see the smiles on our faces — we’d been through so much together.”

Tennessee advanced to Super Bowl XXXIV, before losing, 23-16, to the Dick Vermeil-coached St. Louis Rams when the Titans were stopped a yard shy of the end zone as time expired.

Wycheck had made it to the biggest stage in professional sports. Yet he still returned often to Northeast Philly, and reconnected with old pals.

“We would go out with all the guys, drinking or golfing or whatever,” said Jeff Burke, who had known Wycheck since childhood.

“He was never a storyteller about himself. He was always more interested in hearing stories about other people. For how good he was, for the Pro Bowls he made, he would never talk about himself.”

On Aug. 16, 2003, during a Titans preseason game, Wycheck suffered another concussion, an unfortunate echo of how his career had started in Washington. He sat out two games and was cleared to play in the Titans’ first regular-season game, on Sept. 7 — and suffered yet another concussion.

“A sprained ankle was worse than a sprained brain when we played,” said Piller, the former Titans offensive lineman. “There was no concussion protocol.”

When the Titans’ season ended, Wycheck retired.

Like many former professional athletes, he was at first unsure how to fill his hours, now that he was free from the familiar rhythms of training camps, practices, games, and traveling.

“There was just this loss of identity,” Deanna said. “You hear it all the time with everyone, post-NFL. His whole life, ever since he was 5 years old in little league, was dedicated to football. He never took a summer or a season off.”

Wycheck found his way to rewarding, football-adjacent jobs, as a color commentator for the Titans’ radio broadcasts, and the host of the Wake Up Zone.

“He was terrific on air, in his prime. It was a great show,” said Paul Kuharsky, a longtime Titans beat reporter for the Tennessean, who later joined Wycheck on the radio show.

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In 2008, Wycheck was contacted by Chris Nowinski, a former professional wrestler and Harvard alumnus who retired from the WWE at age 24 after suffering four concussions.

Nowinski had written a book, Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis, and heard comments Wycheck had made about the concussions he sustained while playing football.

Public interest in the link between contact sports and concussions was growing, and Nowinski was recruiting former athletes to donate their brains to Boston University’s newly created Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center.

Nowinski asked Wycheck whether he, too, would allow his brain to one day be studied by Boston researchers.

Wycheck agreed.

Before long, more than 4,500 former players would sue the NFL, accusing league officials of minimizing the potential health risks of concussions. In 2014, as part of the settlement, which was hashed out in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, the NFL established a billion-dollar compensation program for players who had retired before July 7 that year.

Ex-players can receive compensation if doctors, appointed by a third-party administrator, determine that they have developed neurocognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Some athletes and their families have complained that the settlement program is rife with delays and diagnosis standards that make it difficult to obtain timely or fair compensation.

In a 2014 interview with the Tennessean, Wycheck complained that his symptoms didn’t qualify him to receive any money from the program.

“I know how bad I have been suffering, and I am not eligible to receive a dime,” Wycheck said. “ … I find it hard to believe there will be a lot of guys eligible for it, because there’s not a lot of guys worse than me.”

Cracks started to form in Wycheck’s normally amiable persona.

His memory problems deepened, and his on-air performances suffered. He began to skip work, complaining of headaches.

In 2016, Wycheck fell at home, in his bathroom, and slammed his head against the floor. He’d suffered another concussion, and sought help at a local hospital.

“I hardly remember speaking to the medical people,” he later told a reporter, “but I kind of told them that there was really no need for me to stay, because I’ve been through this like millions of times.”

Ultimately, he quit his radio job.

“It got complicated at the end,” Kuharsky said. “He was a less reliable workmate in a complicated situation. It was just tough all around.”

Dyson recalled two instances when Wycheck had agreed to appear with him at public events, but then didn’t show up, without explanation.

“He became very secluded,” Neal said. “I reached out and called him, and he wouldn’t call back.”

Sometimes, Wycheck went so long without responding to friends’ calls that Piller asked Nashville police to perform a wellness check on his former teammate.

Neal sympathized with Wycheck. The former fullback said that he had “hundreds” of concussions during his playing career, and now experiences memory lapses, and sometimes isolates himself.

“It’s scary at times,” Neal said.

Wycheck arrived at another crossroads in 2019.

He expressed an interest in coaching high school athletes, and reached out to Steckel, his old coach, for guidance.

“I said, ‘Philly, I’ll take you to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I want to talk football with somebody,’” Steckel recalled.

Wycheck said he would get back to Steckel.

“I never heard from him or spoke to him again,” Steckel said.

Wycheck decided to move from Nashville to Doylestown. Despite being closer to his Northeast Philly roots, he seemed to grow even more disconnected.

“He had a bunch of friends up here who he would play golf with. He loved golf,” said his mother, Marie. “But sometimes, he wouldn’t go. I remember him saying, ‘Mom, I got all dressed and showered. I had my bag and I got to the door and stopped.’ He wouldn’t go out. ‘Come on, Frank. We’re going to get together.’ ‘OK. I’ll be there.’ No. It all stemmed from his head. I just felt so bad for him.”

In 2023, Wycheck moved back to Tennessee, and purchased a home in Chattanooga, near his daughters Deanna, 32, and Madison, 27.

Wycheck’s inner turmoil seemed to briefly recede.

His relationship with his daughters had soured after he and his wife divorced while the girls were in high school. Now, he had dinner once a week at Deanna’s house, with her two children, and visited Madison, and her child, often. Wycheck texted photos to friends of him playing with his three grandchildren.

He made plans to go in a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert with Piller, and discussed with his brother, Teddy, what their mother needed for Christmas.

“He was on the road to getting better. I think his grandkids gave him a new life,” Teddy said. “ … He was happy down there.”

Wycheck had scheduled a handyman to do some work at his home on Dec. 9.

When the man arrived, he called Wycheck.

Wycheck didn’t answer.

Later that afternoon, he was found dead in his bedroom.

His funeral was held in Tennessee. Jeff Burke, Wycheck’s long-ago friend from Northeast Philly, delivered the eulogy.

In the days following Wycheck’s death, a group of former Titans gathered together at Neighbors, a bar Piller owns in Tennessee, to mourn.

“We just wanted to get around one another and connect,” Eddie George said. “Create a locker room atmosphere to talk, to cry, to let it out, and try to make sense of it.”

Piller went to that concert in February, and wore Wycheck’s No. 89 jersey in the mosh pit.

“Losing Frank is devastating. It still is pretty surreal,” said Piller, who spoke to Wycheck days before he died. “I love the guy and I’m grateful I stayed in contact with him.”

Wycheck’s old teammates will confront his absence again next January, when they mark the 25th anniversary of the Music City Miracle.

His relatives, meanwhile, are bracing themselves for answers they expect to receive later this year about Wycheck’s tumultuous post-NFL years, and what felled a man who once seemed so indestructible.

Researchers at Boston University’s CTE Center will likely tell Wycheck’s daughters whether their father had the same disease that the university has found, so far, in the brains of 345 other former NFL players.

Once that study ends, a medical examiner in Tennessee will finish work on Wycheck’s autopsy report. A preliminary inquiry by the medical examiner, Deanna said, suggested Wycheck died from a cardiac event.

“He would tell you still that he would do it all over again,” she said. “He loved football and everything he did.”

The test results won’t make Wycheck’s death any less painful for his family.

But if his mind truly was ravaged by an unforgiving disease, Wycheck’s daughter hopes the news of the diagnosis spreads far and wide, to people who cheered for her father when he had a ball in his arms, and criticized him when he lost his way:

Let them know what happened to Frank Wycheck, the kid from Our Lady of Calvary who just wanted to play football.