JUPITER, Fla. -- A former Miami Hurricanes and NFL player died after he was blown off his fishing boat by a gust of wind and struggled in the water until other boaters found him face down.

Stanley Shakespeare, 42, a 6-foot wide receiver with the 1983 national champion Hurricanes team and a 1987 strike replacement player with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was about three-quarters of a mile off Jupiter Inlet when he went overboard Tuesday.

His fishing companion didn't know how to operate the 17-foot boat and couldn't throw a life vest close enough when the boat drifted away, said Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller.

Other boaters came to his aid. Pattie Hidy said she and two companions were flagged down by Shakespeare's boat mate. She said they searched for 30 minutes before finding Shakespeare face down, sunglasses clenched in his hand.

"Seeing him there honestly broke my heart," she said.

The trio pulled the Palm Beach Gardens man onto their 22-foot rental boat and followed a sheriff's boat to a Jupiter marina. Shakespeare was pronounced dead at Jupiter Medical Center.

Sea conditions went from calm in the morning when Shakespeare left shore to windy and rough when he was blown out of his boat in the afternoon.

"I can't believe it," said Eric Peterson, a Jupiter charter boat captain who did some fishing with Shakespeare, a supermarket manager. "He was a very strong person, very physical."