ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Mike Haynes already had a Super Bowl ring, won with the Los Angeles Raiders following the 1983 season.
He also had a gold jacket, having entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997, after 14 seasons in the NFL split evenly between the Raiders and New England Patriots, who drafted him fifth overall in 1976.
Indeed, the cornerback had lived a charmed professional life ... until reality, in the form of a diagnosis of prostate cancer, intruded in 2008.