Disaster strikes, but a photographer's prized Pat Tillman photo negative survives

Of all the photos documenting the life of former Arizona Cardinals defensive back Pat Tillman, one stood out so vividly that it inspired a statue outside the team’s stadium honoring Tillman after his 2004 death while serving with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan. Tillman’s story has been told and retold, but rarely does the public get to know the story of photographers such as Gene Lower, who is responsible for that iconic image of Tillman celebrating a tackle 26 years ago.

A recent hurricane and devastating flood in Florida are just the latest, stunning turns for Lower, whose teenage son died last year. The flood wiped out most of his family’s belongings, including nearly the entire archive of film negatives from Lower’s early career. An extraordinary twist of fate, however, gave this story an uplifting trajectory.

As a young photographer in 1998, Lower was covering Cardinals games from various angles when he decided to focus on one particular rookie whose performance he summed up in a single word: “Passion.” This was back in the age of film photography, pre-digital, and Lower used up a lot of rolls trying to capture the spirit behind that NFL newbie with the No. 40 jersey.

When he got the shot at Sun Devil Stadium, Lower recalled, he was confident he had nailed it. But he wouldn’t know for sure until the film was developed. The negatives came back, and there it was:

Hair flowing up and out.

Helmet in raised right hand.

Eyes clenched.

Mouth agape.

Lower captured the essence of Pat Tillman, at the time an intense defensive back on the rise, who made the most of his skills delivering bone-crunching hits while firing up his teammates. The description — passion — that Lower attached to Tillman on and off the field closely resembles the way Tillman’s Ranger platoon mates describe him in Afghanistan. Tillman enlisted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I caught him in stride, giving that primal scream of passion and excitement,” Lower recalled recently. “Ripping his helmet off and just that explosion of emotion that rained from him after that play.”

“It couldn’t have come out any better if I planned it that way,” he added.

It became one of the most precious shots in his portfolio, but there was almost no outside interest in it for more than five years.

Then Lower heard the news of Tillman’s death in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. He exchanged shocked glances with his wife, Taryn, and recalled thinking that, of all the images from the former Cardinal’s life, “this one photo screams, ‘I am Pat Tillman.'”

Having done some work for Sports Illustrated, Lower said he contacted an editor there, who told him not to notify anyone else about it, adding, “We’ll take care of you no matter what, even if we don’t use the photo.”

The magazine didn’t just use the photo; it went on the cover of the May 3, 2004, issue.

The photo now is featured on the Pat Tillman Foundation web page, alongside a Tillman quote: “To err on the side of passion is human and right and the only way I’ll live.”

At Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza in Glendale, Arizona, outside of where the Cardinals have played since 2006, now stands a bronze statue inspired by the photo.

Lower, 50, said he advanced from freelance status to Cardinals staff photographer, a position he still holds today. The family made a home in Chandler, Arizona.

A year ago, Lower’s son, Ryder, a high school junior and lacrosse player who had overcome Type 1 diabetes to become an ambassador for a support group, was struggling emotionally. Despite efforts to get help for him, Ryder, 16, took his own life on Aug. 11, 2023.

This summer, having decided they needed what Lower described as a fresh start, he, Taryn and their daughter, Skye, moved from Arizona to Florida, where Skye is a college freshman.

Only two months after moving, as they settled into their St. Pete Beach home, the Lowers had to contend with a new, terrifying and uncontrollable challenge: Hurricane Helene.

The powerful September storm sent flood waters surging through their house. When they were able to return from evacuation to inspect the damage, the Lowers discovered that almost all of their belongings were destroyed.

Remarkably, though, the one possession that meant the most to them was intact. That was an urn with Ryder’s ashes.

Lower soon realized that thousands of negatives he had saved for decades were ruined. But he had kept one in particular stored apart from the rest.

Just before the move east, Lower had placed the Tillman negative in a shoebox for safekeeping with a few other valuables such as his passport and his 2009 NFC championship ring from the only season Arizona reached the Super Bowl.

“Unfortunately, when I did find it,” Lower said of the negative, “it was submerged in water, and I was heartbroken to think that it might be lost forever.”

The ring was fine. The waterlogged passport will have to be replaced. And to Lower’s surprise, the flood damage to the negative turned out to be largely on its edges, although a sticky substance covers all of it.

Lower is not sure whether it can be restored, but the essence of what he preserved on a December Sunday in 1998 remains, regardless. “I feel like it needs to survive and be passed down from generation to generation, like Pat’s story,” he said.

It’ll be a few months more of work on the Lowers’ house before the family can move back in. Just about everything inside had to be discarded.

As busy as he has been with urgent matters, Lower is only now starting to focus on what can be done to maximize the impact of the salvaged negative. “I’m thinking of trying to make prints from it, raising money for charity,” he said.

“It kind of has a cool unique look in its current shape, kind of how I thought of Pat — not buttoned-up, preppy and pristine; more laid-back, rough and tough.”

Gene Lower appears in “Pat Tillman: Life. Death. Legacy.” on E60 Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. ET, and streaming afterward on ESPN+.