Biloxi loses a ‘hometown hero.’ He played in the NFL, returned home to mentor generations
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When Lionel Antoine Sr. was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1972 as the team’s first pick and the NFL’s third overall selection, Biloxi held a parade in his honor and gave him a key to the city.
It was an accomplishment no Biloxian before him had achieved, as far as his family knows.
Antoine always cherished the honor from his hometown. The graduate of all-Black Nichols High School would play for the Bears as No. 79 from 1972-1979, when bad knees finally sidelined him and he returned to the Mississippi Coast, his family having moved back a year ahead of him to care for his ailing mother.
The father of six, including first-born twins, would spend the rest of his life on the Coast, where he worked numerous jobs, mentored young people and enjoyed his family. His high school sweetheart and wife of 53 years, Betty Elizabeth Antoine, died of COVID-19 in July 2020.
Lionel Antoine was heartbroken but picked himself up and carried on knowing she was in a better place, his children said. Antoine died in his sleep Tuesday night at age 71.
A neighbor arrived at his home the next morning to go to breakfast with Antoine and found his body. Word spread quickly through East Biloxi, where he was well-known.
Antoine is being remembered as a hometown hero, not only because of his athletic prowess but because of the life he led and the example he set for the young people in his community.
“We’re not the only people who lost something,” his oldest daughter, Denise Antoine said, speaking of his family. “All of East Biloxi did.” She said she has been overwhelmed by the phone calls, messages and Facebook comments that have showered the family since his death.
“Some people say they lost a hero, they lost a legend,” she said, “so everybody in East Biloxi is hurting. East Biloxi has always watched out for him, helped him out and helped us out.”
Football, basketball and baseball standout
Antoine’s children — twins Jintrin and Denise Antoine, Shilda Antoine-Lett, Nicole Jordan, Lionel Antoine Jr. and Blaine Dennison — are left with fond memories and the lessons their father taught them: Love the Lord, respect others, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something, aim higher than your parents and try your best.
From a young age, Antoine’s natural abilities and size made him a standout athlete. He ran fast and reacted quickly. He excelled at football, basketball and baseball. His school friends called him “Handy” because his hands were so large. Antoine was 6 feet 7 inches tall and weighed around 258 pounds by the time he joined the NFL.
His children said the St. Louis Cardinals wanted to draft him out of high school to play baseball, but he was set on football. On graduation, he received scholarship offers for all three sports but settled on football at Southern Illinois University, where he was inducted in 1990 into the Saluki Hall of Fame.
He injured his knee in his first year playing with the Bears as offensive left tackle, his children said. At first, he turned down the morphine that was offered for his pain but eventually gave in and took it. But the injury limited his playing time and ended his career.
“When he was playing, football was real,” Jintrin Antoine said. “Football was hard-headed. Back then, if you got hurt, they put a Band-Aid on you, patched you up and sent you back out there.
“He didn’t like it, but he said that was the job.”
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Antoine widely know, respected in Biloxi
When he retired and moved home, his family had settled in Gulfport, but eventually wound up back in East Biloxi. Eventually, the Antoines and their youngest children moved back into his childhood home.
Everyone in the community knew him, or knew of him. Antoine had a great sense of humor, his children said. He used to shuck and sell oysters outside his house. He composed a song and sang it on those occasions. “I’m the oysterman,” it started out.
He also loved to barbecue and eat wild game of all kinds, his oldest son, Jintrin, usually tagging along to hunt or fish. Family and neighbors always knew Antoine was cooking up something good when they saw the smoke from his grill wafting through the neighborhood.
He also sold barbecue plates at a street-corner store owned by his friend, giving away meals to those unable to pay.
When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, Antoine’s family evacuated but he insisted on staying, riding out the storm on his roof when the house flooded and losing all his NFL memorabilia, as he recounted for chicagonow.com.
NFL career left him with memory problems, injuries
Neighborhood children always looked up to Antoine. He acted as a father figure to many, his children said.
Lionel Jr. remembers getting into some trouble with a friend when they were young. His father retrieved them and talked to them about the error of their ways.
“He told me we were going down the wrong path, for me not to be a follower,” Lionel Jr. said. “He said he taught me to go the right way and I was going the wrong way. He wanted me to be a leader.”
In his father’s later years, his children’s friends still sought his advice. He always tried to set an example for others, his children said.
Antoine asked that his body be donated to science so it could be studied for concussions and other injuries from his NFL career. He had gone through two knee replacements and was planning to have hip replacements.
Antoine felt like he had memory loss, even before he aged.
“He was just saying he could see a change in himself,” Denise Antoine said. “He said he wasn’t the same as he was before playing football.”
His family did not expect to lose him, but they have been comforted by the community’s support.
“Just watching all the love pour in has really, really helped us,” Denise Antoine said.
This story was originally published December 11, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
