(Updated 4/13/2014) Former National Football League (NFL) player Warren Christopher Banks died April 9 at his home in Abingdon, Md., according to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office.
Police officers responded to a call at Banks’ home on the 1200 block of Chelmsford Court at around 8:23 a.m. and met paramedics already working to resuscitate the 41-year-old, a sheriff’s spokesman said. The former professional athlete was pronounced dead at the scene and officers found no signs of foul play.
He was a Transportation Security Administration agent at BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein told the AFRO.
Banks, who matriculated at the University of Kansas, was the Denver Broncos’ seventh-round pick in the 1996 NFL draft.
“The Denver Broncos are deeply saddened with the news that former offensive lineman Chris Banks has passed away,” the NFL team said in an e-mailed statement to the AFRO. “Our hearts go out to his family and friends.”
Raised in Lexington, Mo., a small town of about 4,000, Banks, who went by “Chris,” overcame a tear to his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his first NFL training camp, and after a stint playing in the NFL Europe, became a guard on the 1998 Broncos team that won Super Bowl XXXIII.
Banks’s wife, Marie Banks, recalled the determination that propelled him to the NFL in an interview with the AFRO.
“What I will always remember about him, at that point in our friendship, was never to give up on myself, even when it looks like I should,” she said. “That’s what I admired most about him as a friend.”
It was Banks’ giving spirit that turned her relationship with him into something more, she said.
“He was so giving to the kids in my church,” she added, detailing how Banks would bring game tickets to the children at her church in her hometown of Boston whenever the Broncos were in town to play the New England Patriots.
Banks is survived by his wife, Marie; his two daughters, Christen and Lauryn; his parents, Warren and Florence Banks; his sister, Constance Brue; his brother-in-law, Stan Brue; his nephew, Aaron Casey; his parents-in-law. Glenn and Evelyn Worsham; and his sister-in-law, Celeste Worsham.
Banks was a loving father who drove his two girls to school every day before work at BWI-Thurgood Marshall Airport, according to his wife.
He is remembered by his family as a man who loved his parents, his sister, and the town of Lexington, Mo.
“That was his home and he was very proud to be from there,” said Marie Banks.
Asked how else she would want her husband to be remembered, Marie said, “He was a good man. He did what he said he was going to do. He meant what he said. He wasn’t a liar, he wasn’t a cheat. He was honest, he was loyal. I want people to know that men out there exist. That support their wives, support their family. He was humble, and he loved us.”
Roberto Alejandro contributed to this article.
Funeral arrangements for Warren Christopher Banks are as follows::
Viewing Wednesday, April 16
Wylie Funeral Home
Thursday, April 17
11:00 a.m.—Family Hour
11:30 a.m.–Service
Pennsylvania Avenue AME Zion Church
Baltimore, MD
