A glance through the Chiefs’ retired numbers usually tells a straightforward story. Derrick Thomas, Len Dawson, Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan - those names need no introduction.
But No. 33 is different. It belongs to a player who never appeared in a regular-season game, and the story attached to it is one of the darkest in franchise history.
Stone Johnson was already a national track name before he ever got to Chiefs training camp. The Dallas native matched the world record in the 200 meters with a 20.5 in the semifinals of the 1960 U.S. Olympic Trials, earned a spot on the American team for Rome, finished fifth in the 200-meter final, and ran on the 400-meter relay team that finished first before being disqualified for an illegal baton exchange.
His speed was the headline, but he was more than just a burner. Johnson starred at Grambling under Eddie Robinson and was considered a real NFL prospect. The AFL’s Redshirt Draft gave teams a way to claim future rights to college players who still had NCAA eligibility, and that’s how Johnson ended up with the Chiefs - then still the Dallas Texans - in 1962.
The tragedy came in a preseason exhibition in Wichita in 1963, the Texans’ final game before the move to Kansas City and the birth of the Chiefs. Instead of a routine tune-up against the Houston Oilers, the team and its fans watched a nightmare unfold.
Johnson was blocking on a return unit when, according to former teammate Chris Burford, he “dipped his head before contact,” then lay motionless on the 18-yard line after the play. He told Abner Haynes, “I can't move my legs.
My career's over. I was just getting started.
Oh my God.”
He was taken by stretcher to a Wichita hospital, where doctors performed emergency surgery for a neck fracture and spinal cord injury. He was initially paralyzed below the neck, and 10 days later he was pronounced dead in that same hospital.
Len Dawson summed it up this way: “What happened to Stone was tremendously tragic. He was just getting started.”
No. 33 also has a quieter footnote in franchise history. Before Curley Johnson became a punting record-setter for the New York Titans-turned-Jets, he spent the 1960 season with the Dallas Texans as a do-everything player.
He had just 3 punts for 110 yards that year, but he made more of an impact on offense, finishing with 217 yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns. By 1961, he had taken over as the Jets’ punter and would go on to pile up 534 punts for more than 22,000 yards over eight seasons, earning AFL All-Star honors in 1965.
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