Thursday, July 6, 2000 | 10:21 a.m.
Karl Sweetan was an only child, his best friend Bill Nuhn recalls, "and he was always out to prove it."
"For him it was 'my way...or the highway.' " said Nuhn, a retired casino marketing coordinator at the Stratosphere.
If the statistics he racked up during his National Football League career or his movie career are any barometer, he often got his way.
He is in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing the longest pass completion in Detroit Lions franchise history, when he passed for 99 yards to Pat Studstill at Baltimore on Oct. 16, 1966.
"It was in his rookie year, and I think it was his first touchdown pass in the NFL," his daughter Virginia Sweetan said.
And he won the role to play himself in the 1968 movie "Paper Lion," starring Alan Alda and based on George Plimpton's best-selling book of the same name.
Karl R. Sweetan Jr., a Las Vegas resident of 27 years, died Sunday at Desert Springs Hospital from complications after vascular surgery on his legs. He was 57.
"In life Dad was confident, strong-willed and self-motivated," Virginia Sweetan said. "And he was really funny about it. He would look in the mirror and say 'I'm getting more good-looking every year.' "
Sweetan was born in Dallas on Oct. 2, 1942. He attended Wake Forest University and played pro football for the Detroit Lions, the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams.
In Las Vegas, Sweetan was a baccarat shift boss at the old MGM Grand before it became Bally's. He also worked at the Horseshoe, Frontier, Stratosphere and Las Vegas Hilton.
Ironically, he seemed more concerned with making others the beneficiaries of his strong will than himself, his daughter said.
"He had a great relationship with his five children," she said. "He instilled in all of us his sense of pride and self-motivation, which helped me through the Navy.
"Wherever we were, he'd call us every Sunday. And even when he was recently in the hospital, he got someone to call us for him.
"And he was always thinking of his co-workers. He would often buy two bags of candy on his way to work, where he would hand it out to them. They called him 'the candyman.'"
When Nuhn met Sweetan on the job at the Stratosphere, "He stood out because he was very much a gentleman, very smooth: 'yes sir,' 'no ma'am,' " he said.
"He liked everyone, but he had few friends. I was glad that he opened up to me. I guess it was my interest in football. He hadn't seen the movie he had made for a long time. So recently I got hold of it, and we watched it together.
"Even in his later years he would get goosebumps watching games. He was a huge Cowboys fan."
Tommy Lopez, former reporter for the Review-Journal who met Sweetan in 1968 during his pro football career, said Sweetan moved to Las Vegas for health reasons.
In addition to Virginia, Sweetan is survived by three other daughters, Christina Ann Bryan of Whitney, Calif., Heather Sweetan of Las Vegas and Robin Sweetan of Las Vegas; and one son, Karl R. Sweetan III of Las Vegas.
A wake will be held 2 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. Saturday at Instant Replay, 9495 Las Vegas Blvd. South.
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