football player; sports commentator
Personal Information
Born Orenthal James Simpson, July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, California; one of four children of Jimmy Simpson (custodian and cook) and Eunice Simpson (hospital orderly); married Marguerite Thomas, 1967; divorced, 1979; children: Arnelle (son), Jason, Aaren (son; d. 1979); married Nicole Brown, 1982; divorced, 1992; children: Sydney (daughter), Justin.
Education: City College of San Francisco, 1965-1967; University of Southern California, B.S., sociology, 1969.
Career
Buffalo Bills, halfback, 1969-1977; San Francisco 49ers, halfback, 1977-1978; actor in several movies, including The Towering Inferno (1974), The Klansman (1974), Killer Force (1975), Cassandra Crossing (1976), Capricorn I (1977), Firepower (1978), Hambone and Hilly (1983), The Naked Gun (1989), The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991); ABC-TV Sports, 1969-1977; commentator, Monday Night Football, 1983-86; Rose Bowl commentator, 1979, 1980; Summer Olympics commentator, 1976; NBC- TV Sports, 1978-82; NFL Live, co-host, 1989-1994; starred in several TV commercials.
Life's Work
O. J. Simpson came out of the projects of San Francisco in the 1960s to establish a stellar college football record, first at San Francisco's City College and then at the University of Southern California (USC) where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. The following year the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) selected him with the first draft pick. As a running back for the Bills from 1969 to 1977, Simpson had a glorious career, shattering all previous records for most yards gained in a season, most games in a season with 100 yards or more, and most rushing attempts in a season. He established a concurrent acting career beginning in 1974 with a role in the film, The Towering Inferno. His congenial celebrity also brought him work in television commercials--most visibly as a spokesperson for Hertz--and as a color commentator on Monday Night Football.
The way in which the public viewed Simpson changed dramatically in 1994 when he was arrested and tried in Los Angeles for the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The jury acquitted him in 1995 after a highly-publicized year-long trial that became known as the "Trial of the Century." Following his acquittal in the criminal trial, the Brown and Goldman families filed a wrongful-death civil suit against Simpson. This time the jury found Simpson responsible for the deaths and awarded the victims' families $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Although Simpson's attorneys claimed that he had incurred more than $12 million in debt, the plaintiffs still believed he could make sufficient earnings to provide the reparations despite his new notoriety.
Born July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, Orenthal James Simpson was one of Jimmy and Eunice Simpson's four children. Needless to say, his childhood on Connecticut Street in the Potrero Hill section of San Francisco--one of the city's black ghettos--proved to be less than idyllic. Biographer Dick Belsky noted in The Juice: Football's Superstar, O. J. Simpson that as a baby Simpson suffered from a calcium deficiency. As a result, he had to wear leg braces for several years. Simpson's father, a bank custodian and cook, left Eunice to rear the four children on her own when Simpson was only five. On a lighter note, Simpson hated his name, Orenthal, which had been suggested to his mother by an aunt, so he took to calling himself "O. J." As a result his friends began calling him "Orange Juice," a practice that may have led to his pro football nickname "The Juice." In Belsky's book, Simpson maintained that the name resulted from his high energy level, from being "juiced up." Steven V. Roberts's U.S. News & World Report article supported that theory by stating that as a youth Simpson "joined gangs, stole hubcaps, picked fights, crashed dances, shot craps, snubbed school." According to Roberts, Simpson told biographer Bill Libby, "I had a lot of hatred and defiance in me. I could easily have come to a bad end if I hadn't gotten a break."
Roberts identified three significant factors that helped Simpson turn his life around. His mother's steady and determined presence provided a secure home base even though the pain of his father's abandonment lingered. She worked many long, hard hours as a hospital orderly to support the family. Willie Mays, the famous outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, gave the young Simpson a much needed shot of confidence in his teenage years. When Simpson was 15 and in jail following a gang fight, the supervisor of the local recreation center arranged for him to spend a day with the local sports legend. Roberts quoted Simpson as saying, "To have that hero pay attention to me, it made me feel that I must be special, too. He made me realize that we all have it in ourselves to be heroes." High school football occupied Simpson's time productively and the coaching staff at Galileo High worked hard at developing his remarkable athletic abilities while changing his bad attitude.
Simpson became a star football player at Galileo, winning All-City honors his senior year. Simpson's grades, however, failed to meet admission requirements for four-year schools, so he attended junior college in San Francisco. At City College he amassed one of the most outstanding records in the history of junior college football. In only two seasons Simpson scored 54 touchdowns and gained 2,445 yards rushing. Given this impressive performance, several major universities recruited him seriously. Simpson chose the University of Southern California, a school steeped in football tradition. He majored in sociology. In 1967 and 1968 he led the Trojans to two Rose Bowl berths, scored 35 touchdowns, and gained 3,295 yards rushing in 22 games. In his final season he set a college record for yardage gained, 1,709. Sportswriter Pete Axthelm commented in Newsweek that "O. J.... has done more than his share.... [H]e has led the Trojans, inspired them, and, when necessary, carried them."
Simpson had been a serious contender for college football's highest honor--the Heisman Trophy--in his first year at USC. In fact, he finished second in the voting to University of California-Los Angeles quarterback Gary Beban. In 1968, he won the trophy. Belsky wrote that Simpson "was generally acclaimed . . . [as] the finest and most explosive running back to come out of college football in a decade. Some thought he might be the most prized collegian in football history." Belsky also noted the irony that, "Under the rules of the draft, the NFL team that finishes the season with the worst record chooses first in the collegiate draft. O. J. Simpson would go to the worst team in pro football." The worst team turned out to be the Buffalo Bills, so Simpson headed for New York. Sport magazine named Simpson its Man of the Year in February of 1969, thereby marking the first time in the 22-year history of the award that it had gone to a college player.
In Buffalo Simpson soon cemented his reputation for elusive speed on the field. In 1973, a few short years into his professional career, he set several records that would remain on the books for decades. Early in the season he had set two records: one for 250 yards rushing in a single game, against the New England Patriots, and the other for carrying the ball 39 times against the Kansas City Chiefs. On December 16, in the last game of the regular season, the Bills played the New York Jets, and Simpson broke more records. In the first quarter, he surpassed the legendary Jim Brown's single-season rushing record of 1,863 yards, a record that had stood since 1962. Simpson finished the day and the season with 2,003 yards. Ron Fimrite wrote in a 1973 Sports Illustrated article that Simpson "finished the season with 332 attempts [also an NFL record], an average of nearly 24 a game. He had gained 200 yards for the second game in succession and for the third time in a season, both records, and he enabled the . . . Bills to become the game's first 3,000-yard rushing team, replacing . . . [the] Miami Dolphins as the NFL's all-time top rushers." Fimrite further observed, "What is perhaps most remarkable about Simpson's record spree is that it was made possible by two games played on fields of such Siberian frigidity that they were fit only for evading wolves."
Simpson played for Buffalo until 1977, had one uneventful season with the San Francisco 49ers, and then retired in 1979. Simpson had established a second career as an actor beginning in 1974. He did several commercials, most notably for Hertz. As Steven Roberts observed in 1994, "Today, almost 20 years later, the image of O. J. sprinting from an airplane to his Hertz rental car is still embedded in the popular culture." He appeared in several movies, including The Towering Inferno, Capricorn I, Firepower, and the Naked Gun series. Although Simpson had high hopes for his acting career, it stalled around the end of the 1970s.
To the sporting world, however, Simpson might be known best as a football and Olympics commentator for ABC-TV and NBC-TV from 1969 through the 1980s. He provided color commentary for ABC from 1969 to 1977 and for NBC from 1978 to 1982. In 1983 he rejoined ABC as a member of the highly-rated Monday Night Football production, but that position only lasted until 1986. After a short hiatus from working televised football games, Simpson became a co-host for NBC's NFL Live beginning in 1989.
Simpson's personal life also encountered some troubles. His wife, Marguerite Thomas, whom he had known in high school and married in 1967, divorced him in 1979. In their 12 years of marriage they produced three children: Arnelle, Jason, and Aaren. Shortly after the divorce, 23-month-old Aaren died in a tragic swimming pool accident. Simpson met his second wife, Nicole Brown, when she was 18. They eventually married in 1982 and had two children, Sydney and Justin. The marriage was a stormy one, with police often being called to their home to settle domestic altercations. In 1989 Simpson pled no contest to charges of spousal battery. The couple divorced in 1992. In June of 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and a friend, Ronald Goldman, were brutally murdered in front of her home in Brentwood, California.
Suspicion immediately fell on Simpson. As police arrived to arrest him at the home of a friend, Simpson eluded them, leading authorities on a 60-mile, slow-speed chase with friend Al Cowlings behind the wheel. Alexander Cockburn described the scene in New Statesman & Society by saying, "A carnival atmosphere prevailed along the freeways as Simpson, Cowlings and their police cortege swept by. Signs proclaimed 'Go, Juice, Go' and onlookers outside the house proclaimed sympathy and love." Simpson eventually surrendered that evening. He and his lawyers endured a year-long courtroom media spectacle that dominated the news and provided endless fodder for talk shows and tabloids. The predominately African American jury acquitted Simpson of the murder charges in 1995. The verdict prompted many to speculate on whether the decision was racially motivated and sparked much disagreement along racial lines over the question of his guilt.
Following the criminal trial, the families of Brown and Goldman sued Simpson in civil court. This time a predominately white jury decided that Simpson was liable for their deaths, a finding that intensified the discussions about racial division. Writer Ellis Cose debunked several popular opinions generated by the outcomes of the two Simpson trials. He noted in Newsweek, "In reality, neither the trials nor the verdicts tore the races apart. The breaches the trials brought to light existed long before the murders in Brentwood." He added that, "It would be ridiculously naive to say that race was not a factor in either trial. It is equally simplistic, however, to see it as the only factor, and to conclude, on that basis, that some monumental racial chess game was at stake."
The civil trial jury determined in 1997 that Simpson had to pay $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Although lawyers for Simpson claimed that his "Dream Team" of defense attorneys in the criminal trial had drained his once-considerable assets, the plaintiffs did not agree. They argued that Simpson's name--despite its disrepute--could raise the money on ventures such as autographed trading cards, speeches, and possible book deals. Meanwhile, the civil court judge ordered Simpson to turn over several items of value, including his Heisman Trophy. When authorities arrived to seize the property, the Heisman could not be found. A 1997 article in the Riverside, California, Press- Enterprise noted that Simpson was "resigned to a future clouded by public disdain and financial ruin, but he is buoyed by loyal friends and the challenge of raising two children."
Awards
Junior College Football All American, 1965-66; National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) All American, 1967-68; world record 440 yard relay team, 1967; Heisman Trophy, 1968; United Press International and Associated Press College Athlete of the Year, 1968; Sport magazine's Man of the Year Award, 1969; voted College Player of the Decade, 1972; NFL Most Valuable Player, 1975; AFC Most Valuable Player, 1972, 1973, 1975; NFL Pro Bowl, 1972, 1974-1976; named NFL Player of the Decade, 1979; inducted to College Football Hall of Fame, 1983; third leading rusher in NFL history; inducted to Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1985.
Further Reading
Books
- Belsky, Dick, The Juice: Football's Superstar, O. J. Simpson, Henry Z. Walck, Inc., 1977.
Periodicals- Jet, February 24, 1997.
- New Statesman & Society, July 1, 1994.
- Newsweek, January 13, 1969; February 17, 1997.
- Orange County Register (CA), March 28, 1997.
- People Weekly, July 4, 1994.
- Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA), March 28, 1997; March 29, 1997; June 8, 1997.
- Sport, February 1969.
- Sports Illustrated, June 27, 1994 (reprint of 1973 article).
- U.S. News & World Report, June 27, 1994.
— Ellen Dennis French
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