It was announced today that Simpson died at the age of 76.
His life and times should not be erased. They should be put in the context of the fact he was not a great man who did great things. He was a man playing a boys’ game. He became a man paid to play pretend. For this he was put on a pedestal and paid far more money than men and women who actually help people.
I do not plan to deify him or glorify his accomplishments, but describe what I recall about him growing up. No matter what that was, it did not excuse the actions that later hastened his massive fall from grace.
Football
By the time I started watching football, O.J. Simpson was just a shadow of himself, hobbled by injury. In fact, I read a “Sport” Magazine that had an NFL preview for the 1978 season. It talked about how the Bills had traded Simpson to the San Francisco 49ers. He retired after the 1979 season, and I never saw him play.
By the time I started watching football, O.J. Simpson was just a shadow of himself, hobbled by injury. In fact, I read a “Sport” Magazine that had an NFL preview for the 1978 season. It talked about how the Bills had traded Simpson to the San Francisco 49ers. He retired after the 1979 season, and I never saw him play.
He was regarded as one of the greatest runningbacks in history. The accomplishment I heard about a lot growing up in the ‘80s was the season he set the NFL single season rushing record with 2,003 yards. That record was broken by Eric Dickerson, who still holds it. However, Dickerson took 16 games to do it. Simpson did it in 14 games.
He was also a most valuable player, offensive player of the year, league rushing leader multiple times, scoring leader, All-Pro, Pro Bowler, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.
Simpson would then move to the silver screen, where I remember him best.
The small screen
It was a natural transition for Simpson to become a football broadcaster. He started out on NBC from 1978 to 1982. He then joined ABC’s “Monday Night Football”, staying from 1983 until 1985 when he was dropped after that season. He returned to NBC in 1989 as an analyst for “NFL Live!”. However, was replaced in 1994 after he was accused of his ex-wife’s murder.
It was a natural transition for Simpson to become a football broadcaster. He started out on NBC from 1978 to 1982. He then joined ABC’s “Monday Night Football”, staying from 1983 until 1985 when he was dropped after that season. He returned to NBC in 1989 as an analyst for “NFL Live!”. However, was replaced in 1994 after he was accused of his ex-wife’s murder.
He had a lot of television credits as well, starting in “Medical Center” in 1969. He was also in “Roots” in 1977; hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1978; was in the TV movies “Goldie and the Boxer” in 1979 and “Cocaine and Blue Eyes” in 1983; had a guest spot in “In the Heat of the Night” in 1989; and much more.
Simpson appeared in a lot of theatrical releases starting with “The Towering Inferno” in 1974, a movie about people trapped in a skyscraper on fire and trying to get out.
The first time I really saw him as an actor was in “Capricorn One”. He plays one of three astronauts on their way to Mars, but the mission is aborted. However, the space program doesn’t want to admit failure, so they stage a fake landing. Meanwhile, the astronauts go on the run, hunted by agents from the space program who want to silence them and keep the conspiracy a secret.
The next time I saw O.J. Simpson was in “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” in 1988. It was a spoof of police shows starring Canadian Leslie Nielsen. Simpson played Detective Nordberg, one of the inept, bumbling police officers who manage to stop an assassination plot against the Queen of England.
Simpson would appear in some other movies, most notably reprising the role of Detective Nordberg in “The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear” in 1991, and “The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” in 1994.
Everything stopped around then, as the murder trial, and the three-ring circus around it, took hold.
Parting thoughts
It’s kind of tough to write about O.J. Simpson, but he did have a place in pop culture. It cannot be erased, especially because the great actors he appeared alongside, the directors, producers and crew who worked with him, do not deserve to be erased.
It’s kind of tough to write about O.J. Simpson, but he did have a place in pop culture. It cannot be erased, especially because the great actors he appeared alongside, the directors, producers and crew who worked with him, do not deserve to be erased.
Interestingly, as great a football player as I heard he was, he really wasn’t that great an actor. In fact, when I hear his name, it reminds me of the stuff he was in, but not really him.
That’s probably for the best.
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