lit a candle 1h agoMy dad texted me before I even saw it, just the score and the year, 1962, like I'd know what he meant. I looked it up, the Unitas hit, the broken neck, two championship rings before he was 25. Then he became a judge for fifteen years in a town I'd never heard of. That's a whole life in one clip.
Their story
Nelson Toburen was an American football linebacker who won two NFL championships with Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers before a broken neck, suffered in his first career start, ended his playing days. He went on to practise law in Pittsburg, Kansas, and served for 15 years as a district judge.…
Nelson Toburen was an American football linebacker who won two NFL championships with Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers before a broken neck, suffered in his first career start, ended his playing days. He went on to practise law in Pittsburg, Kansas, and served for 15 years as a district judge. He died on 4 October 2026, aged 87.
Nelson Edward Toburen was born on 24 November 1938 in Boulder, Colorado, to Harold Edward Toburen and Vida Uell Toburen, and grew up in Thomas County in north western Kansas. At Colby High School he became only the fourth athlete in the school's history to earn twelve letters, graduating in 1957. He went to Wichita University, now Wichita State, on a football scholarship, played freshman basketball and became an all-conference end.
The Packers drafted him in the 14th round of the 1961 NFL draft. As a rookie he played in all 14 regular season games and in the 37 to 0 championship win over the New York Giants, and in 1962 he was the backup at all three linebacker spots on one of the strongest defences in the league. On 18 November 1962, starting in place of the injured Dan Currie against the Baltimore Colts in Green Bay, he hit Johnny Unitas, forced a fumble that Ray Nitschke recovered and helped preserve a 17 to 13 win. The tackle broke and dislocated vertebrae in his neck. Team orthopedist Dr James Nellen held his head still from the field to the hospital, and Toburen later said Nellen saved his mobility and maybe his life. Lombardi paid him another year's salary, and Hall of Fame cornerback Herb Adderley said Toburen would have been an All-Pro.
Told by doctors not to play again, he enrolled at Washburn University School of Law in 1964 and earned his law degree in 1967. He joined the Paul Wilbert law firm in Pittsburg, later Wilbert and Towner, and in 1987 the Governor of Kansas appointed him judge of the Eleventh Judicial District Court, sitting at Pittsburg. He served as district judge and later chief judge for 15 years before retiring.
He married his high school sweetheart, Helen Louise Ziegelmeier, in 1959, and they were married for 67 years until her death in August 2026. Their son Chris, a linebacker at the University of Kansas and later a Marine Corps helicopter pilot, was killed in a training crash in 1987. Toburen remained a devoted Packers fan all his life.
He died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Pittsburg, surrounded by family. He was survived by his daughter Leigh, his brother Robert, five grandchildren and ten great grandchildren.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Green Bay Packers (packers.com, October 2026); FOX 11 WLUK; obituary via Brenner Mortuary and The Morning Sun. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“I always say Dr. Nellen saved my mobility and maybe my life.”
Toburen on the Packers team physician, quoted by packers.com
“I looked at it as a rather tragic incident in my career at the time, but I guess it has worked out pretty well in the long run.”
Interview late in life, quoted by packers.com
Photos
1Nelson Toburen
by People Forever
the footage of that tackle still gets passed around every few years, wild how it holds up