It just happened to be that a few of note all happen to have played football in the 70s or 80s, so it's a football-related post this time.
Goodbye to Willie Spencer at the age of 68.
Spencer had a strange career that saw him win "Mr.Ohio" in 1971 as a high school player, turn down all the major colleges and sign with the CFL's Ottawa Rough Riders in 1972, only to be released in training camp.
After playing minor league football in 1973, Spencer would play for the Memphis Southmen in the 1974 and 75 seasons in the World Football League, where he would rush for over 1,300 yards for the Southmen.
Spencer's five touchdowns in a 1974 game against Jacksonville set the WFL record for scores in a game and would not be broken before the league's end midway through the 1975 season.
After the demise of the WFL, Spencer would play three seasons in the NFL, one with the Vikings and two with the Giants.
Goodbye to Russ Washington at the age of 74.
The five-time Pro Bowler spent his entire career with the San Diego Chargers after being selected fourth overall in the 1968 draft.
Washington was named All-Pro twice and was the left tackle protecting Dan Fouts for the "Air Coryell" Chargers but was also memorable for his long beard on all of his 1970s football cards from Topps.
Goodbye to Bo Scott at the age of 78.
The former Buckeye and Cleveland Brown was drafted in the third round in 1965 but looked at a Cleveland running back stable of Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly, and Ernie Green and signed with the Ottawa Rough Riders and would play in Canada for three seasons including helping Ottawa win the 1968 Grey Cup before starting his Browns career in 1969.
Scott would rush for over 2,000 yards in his six seasons in Cleveland before his career ended with a release before the 1975 season.
Goodbye to Rick Arrington at the age of 74.
Arrington spent four seasons with the Eagles from 1970-73 in what might have been the worst four-season run in Eagles history as the Eagles would win only sixteen games out of a possible fifty-six.
Arrington would start five games of those games at quarterback, finishing 1-3-1 in those starts, and wouldn't have been memorable to a four-year-old TRS had he not been placed in the 1972 Sunoco Stamps set, which I collected even then.
That set made several unremarkable players memorable to me that never had cards in the Topps set.
Sidebar- I believe that the 1972 Sunoco set is the only set of the 1970s to be licensed by the NFL and the NFLPA, which makes the only release to have both the players and the team logos.
Arrington was the father of former NFL and NCAA sideline reporter Jill Arrington, who was voted sexiest female sportscaster (try pulling voting for that off today) by Playboy in 2001 but what I didn't know until compiling this post is that Arrington was the grandfather of actresses Dakota and Elle Fanning.
Goodbye to Gordon Hudson at the age of 59.
Hudson was the NCAA career leader for receiving yards for a tight end during his years at BYU from 1980-83 during the Steve Young era with the Cougars and still holds the NCAA record for yards for a tight end in a game when he finished with 259 yards receiving in a 1981 game against Utah in a game not quarterbacked by Young but by BYU senior Jim McMahon.
Hudson would sign a contract with the USFL Los Angeles Express with Young in 1984 and would be named to the all-USFL in 1985, the final season for the league, and was the first-round selection of the Seattle Seahawks in the famous USFL supplemental draft.
Injuries would plaque Hudson, who would only play one season for the Seahawks, catching only thirteen passes and one touchdown before leaving football.
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