lit a candle 5h agoMy sister called me about it, didn't know what to say. 2,003 yards in '73, I still remember my dad losing his mind over that game.
Their story
Orenthal James Simpson, known from birth as O.J. and nicknamed "the Juice", was born on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, California, and died of prostate cancer at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 10, 2024, at the age of 76. He was one of the greatest running…
Orenthal James Simpson, known from birth as O.J. and nicknamed "the Juice", was born on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, California, and died of prostate cancer at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 10, 2024, at the age of 76. He was one of the greatest running backs in the history of American football, a Heisman Trophy winner, the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, a film and television actor and a broadcaster. His sporting achievements are widely considered to be overshadowed by his trial for the 1994 killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, of which he was acquitted, and by a later civil verdict that found him liable for their deaths.
Simpson grew up in the Potrero Hill housing projects of San Francisco. His mother, Eunice (née Durden), worked as an orderly on a psychiatric ward, and his father, Jimmy Lee Simpson, was a custodian and cook. His parents separated when he was four and his mother raised him and his siblings. As a small child he had rickets and wore leg braces until he was five. In his early teens he joined a street gang and was briefly held at the San Francisco Youth Guidance Center. He later said a chance meeting with baseball star Willie Mays helped persuade him to change course. At Galileo High School he played tackle and then fullback, and he became friends with Al Cowlings.
Poor grades kept major colleges away at first, so Simpson enrolled at City College of San Francisco in 1965, where he was a Junior College All-American. In 1967 he transferred to the University of Southern California. He led the nation in rushing in both of his seasons with the Trojans, scored the famous 64-yard touchdown that beat UCLA in 1967, helped USC to the 1967 national title and won the Heisman Trophy in 1968 by what was then the largest margin in its history. He also ran on a USC relay team that set a world record in the 4 x 110-yard relay in 1967.
The Buffalo Bills took Simpson first overall in the 1969 draft. After three slow seasons he became the centrepiece of coach Lou Saban's offence. In 1973 he rushed for 2,003 yards, the first player ever past 2,000, and won the NFL Most Valuable Player award. He led the league in rushing four times, made five straight Pro Bowls and first-team All-Pro selections from 1972 to 1976, and set a then record of 273 yards in a single game on Thanksgiving Day 1976. Traded to his hometown San Francisco 49ers in 1978, he retired after the 1979 season because of knee problems. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, his first year of eligibility, and into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Away from the field Simpson became one of the first Black athletes to be a mainstream advertising star, running through airports in Hertz commercials from 1975. He acted in Roots, The Towering Inferno, The Cassandra Crossing and Capricorn One, and played Detective Nordberg in all three Naked Gun comedies. He was an NFL analyst for NBC and for ABC's Monday Night Football.
Simpson married Marguerite Whitley in 1967. They had three children, Arnelle, Jason and Aaren; Aaren drowned in the family pool in 1979, and the couple divorced that year. He married Nicole Brown in 1985 and they had two children, Sydney and Justin. In 1989 he pleaded no contest to spousal abuse, and Nicole filed for divorce in 1992. On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were stabbed to death outside her Los Angeles home. Days later Simpson was the subject of a slow, televised police pursuit in a white Ford Bronco watched by about 95 million people. His 1995 criminal trial became one of the most watched events in American history and deepened racial divisions in the country. On October 3, 1995, the jury found him not guilty. In 1997 a civil jury found him liable for the wrongful death of Goldman and for battery against both victims, and ordered $33.5 million in damages, most of which went unpaid in his lifetime. He maintained that he was innocent.
In 2007 Simpson led a group of men who took sports memorabilia at gunpoint from a Las Vegas hotel room. He was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in 2008 and sentenced to 33 years, with parole possible after nine. He was paroled in 2017 and discharged from parole early in 2021. In his final years he lived in Las Vegas, played golf and posted videos to a large following on X.
Simpson announced in 2023 that he was being treated for cancer. His family announced on April 11, 2024, that he had died the day before, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He was cremated in Las Vegas. Reactions were deeply divided, mixing praise for one of football's greatest runners with renewed grief from the Brown and Goldman families.
Biography adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson.
In their own words
“I've got to tear down that picture of O.J. Simpson, the clean-cut athlete, to get believability into whatever part I happen to be playing.”
On his acting choices in the 1970s
“The Oscar or the Emmy says you've reached a level of competence in this business, and I would love to have one.”
Said in 1980
“I have days I can't find words. I literally cannot find words or the name of somebody I know. That gets a little scary.”
On suspecting he had CTE, 2018
“I can't think of anyone historical or someone that we may have known where the first chapter and the second chapter of their lives are such a stark contrast.”
Bob Costas, after Simpson's death in 2024
Photos
1O.J. Simpson in 1990
Nov 1990 · by People Forever
Thanksgiving '76 against Detroit was the one that got me, 273 yards.