While at Missouri Southern he was voted a football All-American at tight end and punter, leading the nation in punting average.
Over the next few years Joyce attended training camps with the Detroit Lions, L.A. Rams and San Francisco 49ers, but never made the final team rosters.
[5] In a 2008 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joyce said the biggest thrill of his playing days was being a teammate of three NFL Hall of Famers Dan Dierdorf, Roger Wehrli, and Jackie Smith.
He was one of at least 345 NFL players to be diagnosed after death with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is caused by repeated hits to the head.
[6][7] His death came less than a year after the murder of son Brandon Joyce, who was shot during a robbery on Christmas Eve, 2010 and died four days later.