Dwayne Haskins is latest Pittsburgh athlete to die during playing career

Dwayne Haskins was trying to get his once-promising NFL career back on track with the Pittsburgh Steelers when he died Saturday at age 24 after being struck by a vehicle in Florida.

The former first-round draft pick had completed his first season with the Steelers and was planning to compete for the starting quarterback job this season when he died.

Haskins sadly joins a list of athletes on Pittsburgh sports teams whose lives ended prematurely while they were still playing.

The most famous is Pirates’ Hall of Fame outfielder Roberto Clemente, who died on Dec. 31, 1972, in a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission. Clemente was aboard a flight taking relief supplies to Nicaragua when it crashed shortly after takeoff from Puerto Rico.

Clemente was 38 and in the twilight of a career that produced 3,000 hits when he died.

Penguins forward Michele Briere was just 21 when he died in 1971 from injuries suffered in a car accident following his promising rookie season.

Briere finished third on the Penguins with 44 points during the 1969-70 season. After leading the Penguins in scoring in the playoffs, he returned to his native Quebec to get married. While on a ride with two friends May 15, Briere was involved in a single-car accident and was ejected from the vehicle.

Doctors performed four brain surgeries on Briere, who spent 11 months in a coma before dying. His number 21 is one of only two retired by the Penguins.

Export native Bob Moose was a relief pitcher for the Pirates when he was killed in a car accident. On Oct. 9, 1976, his 29th birthday, Moose died from injuries suffered in a two-car accident in Martins Ferry, Ohio.

Moose threw a no-hitter for the Pirates in 1969, and he also uncorked the wild pitch that enabled George Foster to score the winning run for the Cincinnati Reds in the fifth game of the 1972 National League Championship Series.

Former Pirates infielder Jose Castillo still was involved in organized baseball when he died in a car accident in his native Venezuela in 2019. Castillo was 37 and was returning from a winter league game when his car was ambushed by highway robbers. The driver of the car attempted to flee the robbers but struck a rock, and the car overturned, killing Castillo and another man.

Castillo earned the starting second base job as a rookie in 2004 and spent four of his five MLB seasons with the Pirates.

Linebacker Marquis Cooper was 26 when he presumably drowned after a 2009 boating accident off the coast of Clearwater, Fla. Cooper’s body was never found. He appeared in five games with the Steelers during the 2006-07 seasons.

Although he never played for the Steelers, wide receiver Chris Henry played for the AFC North-rival Cincinnati Bengals after attending West Virginia.

Henry was 26 when he died after falling out of the back of a moving truck that was being driven by his fiancee. Henry reportedly was involved in a domestic dispute at the time of his death, but his fiancee was never charged in the accident.

Pittsburgh native Mose Kelsch was an inaugural member of the Steelers franchise, then known as the Pirates, when he was killed in a car accident in 1935 at age 38. Kelsch was 36 and the oldest player in the NFL when he joined the Pirates in 1933. He was the team’s kicker, though he also was listed as a running back.

Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. was a pall-bearer at Kelsch’s funeral.

Rookie defensive lineman Randy Frisch was 23 and in training camp with the Steelers when he was killed in a three-vehicle collision near Irwin in 1977. Frisch and teammate David Grinaker, the driver of the car, were headed back to Saint Vincent in Unity following a preseason game against Buffalo. Frisch was a standout player at Missouri.

Eugene “Big Daddy” Lipscombe, a two-time All-Pro defensive tackle, was 31 when he died of a heroin overdose in 1963. Lipscombe spent the final two years of his 10-year NFL career with the Steelers.