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There are sadly many stories involving professional athletes who had their careers derailed by substance abuse. That includes former Bengals fullback Stanley Wilson, whose career came to an end after missing the Super Bowl due to an incident involving crack cocaine.
Wilson initially made himself at the University of Oklahoma before the Cincinnati Bengals selected him in the ninth round of the 1983 NFL Draft. The FB played in 10 games during his rookie season but saw it cut short after entering rehab to address his cocaine addiction.
He would end up bouncing in and out of treatment four different times in the year that followed, and only appeared in a single game in 1984 before being suspended for the rest of the season and the entirety of the 1985 campaign due to his drug use.
In 1986, the NFL instituted a new substance abuse policy that led to Wilson being suspended for a full season yet again after testing positive for cocaine, but in 1988, he got a shot at redemption after claiming he’d been clean for a year.
It initially looked like Wilson was going to make the most of that opportunity, but that unfortunately did not turn out to be the case due to what unfolded the night before he was slated to play in the Super Bowl.
Bengals RB Stanley Wilson went missing for days after doing too much cocaine the night before Super Bowl XXIII
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Wilson was a pretty solid contributor over the course of the season that led to the Bengals earning the right to play in The Big Game. He appeared in 15 contests while racking up 398 yards on 112 carries and also added to the cause during the playoffs by scoring a couple of touchdowns en route to the championship showdown.
It seemed like he’d managed to put his off-the-field issues behind him, but things took a fairly tragic turn when the team arrived in Miami to face off against the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIII on January 22, 1989.
In 2017, some of Wilson’s teammates and coaches spoke with the Cincinnati Inquirer to reflect on what unfolded the night before that matchup. The Bengals had scheduled a team meeting to go over the last-minute details, but the fullback was nowhere to be found when it began.
Offensive coordinator Bruce Coslet recalled the scene a group of staffers were treated to when they headed to Wilson’s room after learning he’d refused to leave, saying:
“They found him in the bathtub naked, coked out of his mind. so they got him dressed, called the paramedics, we’re taking him to the hospital, and he ran away.
He literally ran down the steps of the hotel and gone before he got in the ambulance. I never saw him again. They didn’t find him for three or four days, I guess.”
According to The Los Angeles Times, Wilson contacted the team three days later to inform them he’d reunited with his parents in Miami. The article also says the room in the Holiday Inn where he’d holed up was home to evidence that suggested he’d smoked crack cocaine prior to their arrival.
Wilson was nowhere to be found when the Super Bowl kicked off, and some of his teammates believed his absence was a factor in a game where they fell by a score of 20-16.
If you’re hoping for a happy ending, you’ve picked the wrong story. Wilson (who was eventually diagnosed as bipolar) never played another snap in the NFL and continued to struggle with addiction issues. In 1999, he was arrested for stealing $130,000 worth of items from a home in Beverly Hills and was sentenced to 22 years in jail after being convicted of burglary.
His son Stanley Wilson Jr. followed in his footsteps and played cornerback at Stanford before a brief stint with the Lions. However, his career was cut short by an injury, and he also battled with addiction and mental health issues (which may be linked to CTE) before he died under mysterious circumstances while in police custody in 2023.
If there is any silver lining, Wilson says he is currently drug-free and “more stable than I’ve ever been” thanks to the medicine he takes to treat his bipolar disorder, but he and his wife continue to search for answers after filing a wrongful death lawsuit in the wake of their son’s passing.