1987 Draft : Palmer Unable to Share Happiness

What began as a happy day for Paul Palmer when the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs made him their top draft pick turned tearful later Tuesday with the death of his great grandmother, the woman who turned his life around.

“My family and I, we really don’t know whether to laugh or whether to cry,” Palmer said in an interview with WUSA-TV.

Frances Palmer, 78, died of heart failure at Suburban Hospital less than three hours after Palmer, a running back at Temple, was picked on the first round.

She had been in a coma since suffering a heart attack Saturday and a stroke Sunday.

“I got into quite a bit of trouble when I was young. She was always pounding my head making sure I stayed out of trouble,” said Palmer at his suburban Washington home. “For me to turn out the way I did . . . I think she’ll take most of the credit for all the good stuff that’s happening to me now.”

“Kind of hard to really cut loose and to really show the happiness that I have because I wanted my grandmother to be here,” he said. “She said she wanted to be here for it.”