Columnist Ron Kantowski: Ex-Lions’ deaths baffling

Thursday, July 13, 2000 | 10:48 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

Forget about who's killing the great chefs of Europe.

I want to know who or what's killing the marginal quarterbacks of Detroit.

During a two-week period that only Rod Serling or somebody with a fascination for journeyman pro football QBs could appreciate, three former Detroit Lions passers have perished -- including one right here in Las Vegas. Two were from less-than-natural causes.

Weird stuff.

On June 27, Tobin Rote died of a heart attack in his Saginaw, Mich., home two weeks after undergoing back surgery. Rote shared the quarterback duties with swashbuckling Bobby Layne during the Lions' 1957 championship season, but it was Rote who guided the team to a memorable comeback victory over San Francisco in the playoffs after Detroit fell behind 24-7 at halftime.

It was the last time the Lions won anything.

Rote was 72 when he died, but at least the cause of his death was somewhat normal -- if a heart attack can be classified as such.

That wasn't the case with longtime Las Vegas blackjack dealer Karl Sweetan, who died July 2 at Desert Springs Hospital as a result of complications from vascular surgery on his legs. He was only 57.

Sweetan, who was the Lions' quarterback off and on during the late 1960s and early '70s, holds a record that never will be broken (at least on U.S. soil) -- in a 1966 game against Baltimore, he threw a 99-yard touchdown pass to Pat Studstill. Still, trivia buffs may recall Sweetan more for trying to sell one of his old LA Rams playbooks to Saints head coach J.D. Roberts for $2,500 in 1972 and being arrested by the FBI and charged with espionage.

After Sweetan's sudden death, a co-worker from Detroit and I chatted about the coincidence of the two ex-Lions QBs dying virtually simultaneously. "Who's next?" we wondered. "Bill Munson?"

That was Monday -- the same day Munson, 58, who quarterbacked the Lions through the early '70s, drowned in his swimming pool in Lodi, Calif.

Cue eerie Twilight Zone piano riff here.

Not to make light of their deaths, but having played quarterback for the Lions suddenly is the most doomed occupation since drummer for the fictional rock group Spinal Tap.

Longtime Las Vegas radio talk show host Lee Pete briefly played with Rote, knew Sweetan and knew of Munson. He, too, found the coincidence of their deaths startling.

"Tobin Rote and I roomed together in training camp with Green Bay in 1951," Pete recalled. "I'll always remember his size 13 1/2 cowboy boots next to his bunk."

Whereas Pete called Sweetan a "buccaneer" who always had a few deals going in the background of his life, he said Munson was a quiet, family man.

In other words, unless conspiracy buff Oliver Stone weighs in on the topic or you subscribe to the theory that bad things come in threes, there's really no explaining the deaths of the three Lions QBs.

So if I'm Greg Landry or Gary Danielson or Eric Hipple or even "Paper Lion" author George Plimpton, who played one forgettable series as a Lions QB in a preseason game during the same era, I'd spend the next few days looking both ways before crossing the street.