Charlie Sanders obit

Charlie Sanders, Hall of Fame tight end in NFL, dies at 68

He was not on the list.

Charlie Sanders, a sure-handed pass catcher who helped revolutionize the position of tight end in the NFL and who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007, died July 2 in Royal Oak, Mich. He was 68.

The Detroit Lions, with whom Mr. Sanders was associated for more than 40 years, announced the death. The cause was cancer.

Mr. Sanders played 10 seasons for the Lions from 1968 to 1977 and finished his career with 336 catches for 4,817 yards and 31 touchdowns. He retired as the team’s all-team leader in receptions. He was named to seven Pro Bowls and was a first-team all-pro three times.

When his playing career ended in 1977, a year after he suffered a serious knee injury, Mr. Sanders remained with the Lions organization, first as a broadcaster, then an assistant coach and, since 1998, as a member of the personnel department.

As a player, he was a dynamic pass catcher in an era of blocking tight ends. He never had more than 42 receptions in a season or 656 yards, but he made seven Pro Bowls and wowed teammates with his hands and athleticism.

 Former Detroit Lions tight end Charlie Sanders during his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007. (Phil Long/AP)

“Just a tremendously great athlete,” said Hall of Fame cornerback Lem Barney, a teammate of Sanders’s for 10 years. “He made some acrobatic catches. I’m telling you, one-legged, one arm in the air, floating through the air almost like a Superman. If you threw it to him he was going to find a way to catch it.”

A third-round pick out of Minnesota in 1968, Mr. Sanders was selected to the all-decade team of the 1970s and the Lions’ 75th anniversary team.

Mr. Sanders suffered an injury to his right knee in a preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons in 1976 that ended his career. In November, doctors found a malignant tumor behind the knee while Mr. Sanders was being prepped for knee-replacement surgery. He underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy afterward.

After his playing career, Mr. Sanders joined the Lions’ radio broadcast team for seven seasons as color commentator (1983-1988, 1997) and spent eight years as an assistant coach (1989-1996).

In 1995, he coached a receivers group that included Herman Moore and Brett Perriman, the first two teammates in NFL history to catch 100 or more passes in the same season.

Mr. Sanders joined the Lions’ front office as a player personnel scout in 1998 and was moved to assistant director of pro personnel in 2000.

Charles Alvin Sanders was born Aug. 25, 1946, in Richlands, N.C. He starred in both football and baseball at the University of Minnesota.