When Legends Die

 OJ Simpson's death is not breaking news. Orenthal James Simpson, The Juice, has been dead to me for thirty years. I understand this is a cruel assessment of a situation that had effectively nothing to do with me. But I made up my mind right about the time that Mister Simpson's life became a media circus that did not include football, rental cars, or limp attempts at acting in major motion pictures. All of that, prior to the low-speed chase that became the new media mode that would surround him for the rest of his stay here on Planet Earth. 

As a junior at the University of Southern California, OJ rushed for 1415 yards, scoring eleven touchdowns in a ten game season. For his effort, he was awarded second place in the race for the 1967 Heisman Trophy. The next year, he ran for 1709 yards and scored twenty-two times. In 1968 he was awarded the Heisman Trophy. This success allowed him to be the first selection in the 1969 NFL draft. He spent nine years playing for the Buffalo Bills. In 1973, he rushed for 2003 yards in fourteen games, becoming the first running back in the National Football League to eclipse the two thousand yard mark. After that high water mark, his production remained impressive for a few more years, but in 1977 an injury kept him sidelined for most of the season, and the next year saw him traded to San Francisco, where he played two more less than glorious years. In all those years, OJ Simpson played in a grand total of one playoff game with the Buffalo Bills, scoring one touchdown. 

All of which suggests that OJ was a great college athlete, and then played on some very mediocre teams in Buffalo who relied on him for his star power and efforts. Until he was unable to perform. But he was able to parlay his successes on the football field into becoming a celebrity spokesrunner for Hertz Rent-A-Car. He was part of the galaxy of stars who appeared in The Towering Inferno. He had a little part in Roots. He played a doomed astronaut in one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Capricorn One. Then after he was officially retired from professional football, his screen appearances were limited to playing a slapstick foil to Leslie Nielsen in the Police Squad Trilogy. 

By 1994, fame had slipped away from OJ Simpson. Then came the Trial Of The Century. If you missed the end of that one, one of the most expensive and coordinated defense teams in history managed to get the former football star acquitted. Which would have been sensation enough, but then he had to go and get himself mixed up with a bunch of thugs who needed his "help" stealing a bunch of sports memorabilia. For his part in this crime, The Juice was sent to prison for nine years. He was released in October 2017. Fifty years after his initial gridiron fame. 

Did OJ Simpson stomp on the Terra? Well, it's kind of a mixed bag. Certainly the mess he made was caused by all the stomping he did. Does he deserve to be remembered? I will go ahead and say yes, but primarily as a cautionary tale. Will he be missed? I'll leave that to you.