Nelson Toburen’s football story was brief, brutal and unforgettable. He was a reserve linebacker on championship Green Bay Packers teams, but his career was defined by one collision at City Stadium on November 18, 1962 — the kind of moment that ends a life in one uniform and begins another somewhere far away from the field. Toburen died of pancreatic cancer on October 4, 2026, at age 87, closing a remarkable arc that took him from Packers champion to lawyer to judge.
That is the part history should remember first: he was not just a football name attached to a medical tragedy. He was part of the Green Bay Packers teams that won consecutive NFL championships in the Lombardi era, contributing as a reserve linebacker after the team selected him in the 14th round of the 1961 NFL Draft, 194th overall. He was also a man who rebuilt his life after football, earning his law degree from Washburn University School of Law in Topeka in 1967 and later serving as a judge. The football career was short. The rest of it was anything but.
The play that changed everything
Toburen’s first NFL start was against the Baltimore Colts at Green Bay’s City Stadium, and it became his final one. He later described the moment with the kind of blunt clarity that only a survivor can manage: Johnny Unitas dropped back, then started to run; Ray Nitschke came straight on; Toburen came from the side and made the tackle. He said he hit Unitas squarely in the hip, but admitted the mechanics went wrong because his head was down when it should have been up.
He never dressed that play up as anything other than reckless. Toburen said his emotions were high because it was his first start and that he was playing recklessly that day. He also remembered the emotional whiplash of it all: it was the greatest thing, he said, to have that first start in front of his wife and father, and then in an instant one moment he was on top of the world and the next he was not.
The injury was severe. Toburen suffered a broken neck — specifically involving the fifth and sixth vertebrae — and spent six weeks in a body cast at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Jerry Kramer later said Dr. James Nellen realized immediately what had happened and that he preserved Toburen’s functions and maybe his life. Toburen himself never sounded anything but grateful. He said Doc Nellen saved his bacon and explained that Nellen realized what was wrong and did not let him get up. Toburen said he felt his arms were on fire and knew something was badly wrong.
More than a football ending
There is a temptation, whenever a career ends this abruptly, to flatten the whole story into one sad moment. That would be a mistake here. Toburen was part of a Packers team that won the NFL championship in 1961 and then won a second straight title in 1962, first since 1944 for the franchise before that run of success. He was inside one of the defining dynasties in NFL history, even if his own on-field role was limited.
And he never seemed to resent the strange way it all unfolded. He even joked later that he broke his damn neck against a Hall of Fame quarterback like Johnny Unitas, but added that he did what he set out to do: make the tackle and cause a fumble. Most importantly, he said, the Packers won the game. He also liked to remind teammates that the next week they lost their only game at Detroit because he wasn’t there. That line carries the right mix of pride and mischief. It sounds like a man who understood football’s absurdity without letting it define him.
That may be Toburen’s real legacy. Not just the injury, and not just the championships, but the refusal to let the worst moment become the only one that mattered. He left football early, but he did not stop building a life after it. For a player whose first start became his last, that is a surprisingly complete ending.
