Steelers wide receivers coach Darryl Drake dies at 62

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh Steelers wide receivers coach Darryl Drake has died. He was 62.

The team said Drake, who joined the coaching staff in 2018, died early Sunday morning.

“Darryl had such an impact on the players he coached and everyone he worked with throughout his entire career,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said. “He was a passionate coach and had a tremendous spirit toward life, his family, his faith and the game of football.”

Drake, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, played collegiately at Western Kentucky. He spent one season in the Canadian Football League and participated in a pair of NFL training camps before returning to Western Kentucky to pursue a master’s degree. He went into coaching as a graduate assistant at Western Kentucky in 1983, the beginning of a career that included stops in the college ranks at Georgia, Baylor and Texas.