By Mark Maynard
Kentucky Today
Mark Pike, a standout on the Buffalo Bills special teams units of the 1990’s AFC champions and the son of a Kentucky Baptist pastor, died Wednesday after a battle with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Pike played his entire 13-year NFL career with the Bills after coming to the team with a seventh-round pick out of Georgia Tech in 1986. He graduated from Dixie Heights High School in Edgewood.
He was the son of Rev. Harold Pike, who was recognized during the Kentucky Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in November with the Lifetime Evangelism Award.
Rev. Pike, who is 86 and the senior pastor at First Baptist Dayton (Ky) since 2011, was standing with his wife Martha when he became emotional talking about the loss of one son to cancer 11 months ago and now a second son, Mark, who also had cancer and COVID-19. He said on Nov. 16 that Mark was on a ventilator and had been in a coma for the past 23 days.
“I really, really want you to help us to pray that we will not lose another son,” said Pike, his voice cracking. “As moms and dads, we assume we’ll die before our kids (but) it’s been the other way around, I know for a lot in this room, that may be true, too.”
A brilliant athlete, Mark Pike played a dozen years for the Buffalo Bills in the NFL, including being on all four of Buffalo’s Super Bowl teams. He was a special teams dynamo with more special teams tackles (255) than even the more acclaimed Steve Tasker, who was a perennial All-Pro special teams selection.
“He was a big man who played special teams which was a matchup nightmare for our opponents,” said Tasker, one of his longest-tenured teammates, on the Buffalo Bills website. “He was a unique specimen. His ability to run and play special teams with his versatility was unbelievable.”
As he battled cancer this fall, Pike recently attended the Week 4 home game against Houston to serve as the club’s Crucial Catch honoree, which is the NFL’s program to fight cancer through early detection and risk reduction.
Mark Pike is survived by his wife Sharon, their two sons, Ezekiel and Malachi, and their daughter Kramer. He was 57.