Cuban NFL Star: From Prison to Recovery

Luis Sharpe at an NFL game in 1992. Photo: George Gojkovich/Getty Images.

Cuban athletes are known worldwide for their talent in sports such as baseball, wrestling, boxing, volleyball, athletics or judo. Also in other disciplines such as basketball, sports shooting or canoeing, the results of a few exponents have gained more prestige to that quarry that is the Greater Antilles.

On the other hand, there are competitions where it is extremely rare to find the presence of a native of the Island. Such is the case of American football, a practice that emerged in the United States in 1869 and became a media reference thanks to the championship of the National Football League (NFL) founded in 1920.

In 1982 the career of the most famous Cuban to ever set foot in NFL stadiums began. That year, Luis Sharpe, born in Havana on June 16, 1960, was chosen by the Cardinals, a team that at that time had its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sharpe would become one of the tacklers (tackle) of the cast and for 13 seasons he wore the number 67 on his back. He was a key piece of the franchise’s offensive line, which would later move through Phoenix and finally settle in Arizona in 1994.

His debut with the Cardinals was so good that that season his teammates chose him as the MVP of the campaign, while the Professional Football Writers Guild of the United States (PFWA) selected him as part of the NFL All-Rookie Team.

Throughout his career in the league, the man from Havana was characterized by being a tackleador very dominant and a specialist in protecting the blind side of his quarterback against the attacks of opposing defensive ends and linebackers. Specialists described him as a very fast player despite measuring 1.96 meters and weighing 124 kilograms.

Although he always played on teams with poor results, his individual merits led him to participate in the Pro Bowl three times (1987, 1988 and 1989), the NFL’s all-star game, and make the Second All-Pro Team on another occasion (1990).

In total, he played 189 games, all as a starter, and added up to 6 fumblesa play consisting of gaining possession of the ball after the previous carrier has been unable to retain it.

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Luis Ernesto Sharpe Jr. was quite young when he came to live in Detroit, Michigan, with his family.

“I was 6 years old when I arrived (…) and being an immigrant made me different. “The transition to a different culture and language (from Spanish to English) was difficult. “They bothered me, spoke badly to me and persecuted me every day,” revealed in 2024 during an interview for the website Freep.

He studied at Jeffries Elementary School and then at Southwestern High School, where he became interested in American football, a sport in which he was a fan of the Detroit Lions and his idols, Mel Farr, Altie Taylor and Steve Owens.

His talent for this discipline earned him a full scholarship to study at UCLA and play for the Bruins. However, he never finished his degree in Police Science, as he abandoned it in ’82 after signing with the Cardinals, when he still had 16 credits left to graduate.

In parallel to his successful career as a professional athlete, Sharpe fought a long battle against drugs. At one point, he described himself as a “functional addict.”

“Being young and dumb, and not knowing what I know today, many players at the time used substances, and the lifestyle with women, the notoriety, etc. It’s easy to get carried away with things that you shouldn’t. So that’s where my addiction problem started, at the beginning of my career in the NFL,” he confessed in a 2022 interview.

After his retirement, everything got worse and Luis was arrested and imprisoned several times, to the point of spending around a decade in prison. During those years, he was shot twice, severely beaten in prison, and one of his daughters died in a drug-related incident.

Despite the enormous damage he did to himself and his family, Luis entered several rehabilitation centers but failed to stay away from that “poison.”

In 1995 he was selected to act in the film Waiting To Exhalestarring Angela Basset, Whitney Houston, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, Wendell Pierce, Gregory Hynes and Denis Haysbert. According to the podcast website Sharpe Talk Showwhich he created with his daughter Rebekathe Cuban filmed all his scenes drugged.

After a thousand tribulations, in 2013 he was released from his last imprisonment. Still, it took him four more years to become completely sober, a goal in which his Christian faith helped him.

Over time, Sharpe and his family became ambassadors for Hall of Fame Health, an organization affiliated with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, through which they seek to help people affected by substance abuse.

After eight years redeemed and away from the substances that caused so many problems for him and his family, this extraordinary athlete and human being died of a heart attack on July 11 in Michigan, as his wife, Tameka Williams-Sharpe, reported at the time..