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The death of O.J. Simpson The family made the announcement on social media on Thursday.a reminder not only of the infamous double murder he was accused of, but also of his San Francisco roots and his status as a hero before his ties to crime turned him into an outcast.
Orenthal James Simpson was born in San Francisco in 1947 and grew up in the housing projects of the city’s Potrero Hill neighborhood. His parents, Jimmie Darden Simpson and Eunice Darden Simpson, separated when Simpson was young. He suffered from rickets and had homemade braces on his legs until he was five years old, giving him a bowlegged position.
This condition did not hinder his early development as an athlete who quickly rose to national consciousness. It was at the Potrero Hill Recreation Center that he first demonstrated his athletic ability.
“Black kids were welcome in that gym, and most of them spent their time there,” one resident told CNN in 1995. “The first 15 years of OJ’s formative years were spent playing sports at the project and gym.”
At Galileo High School, Simpson was an All-City halfback and appeared to be on track to earn a football scholarship. However, Simpson was a member of a street gang called the Persian Warriors, and he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1977 that he had been arrested three times as a teenager, the last time in 1964. After his arrest, Simpson met his idol, the San Francisco Giants star. Wiley Mays, who spent a day with Simpson and changed his life by encouraging him to change his ways.
“He said, ‘You have so much talent,’ and I really wanted to be a professional baseball player or a football player,” Simpson told Rolling Stone. “What came through to me was, ‘Hey, Willie came from Alabama and didn’t have anything. And he said to me, ‘Your ability alone will get you through. You have the ability. Don’t ruin it, dude.”
After subpar grades in high school, college recruiters told him of his football talent, so Simpson enrolled at City College of San Francisco, where he would later be selected to the All-American Junior College Team. He parlayed his success into starring roles at the University of Southern California in 1967 and 1968, winning a string of awards including the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Trophy, two unanimous All-American honors, and two All-Pac-8 honors. Awarded. , he is a two-time UPI Player of the Year. USC also retired number 32.
While rising to stardom during the turmoil of the late 1960s, Simpson tried to avoid controversy. In an interview KPIX conducted with Simpson in 1967, Simpson said that college contemporaries Lou Alcindor (before he became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and San Jose State University track and field athlete Tommie Smith participated in the 1968 Olympics. He was asked about his reaction to political comments he made about a possible boycott. Olympic.
“Hmm, um, I don’t know… Well, I guess Ryu can participate. I don’t know. [if it’s] “I think you have to go with what they believe is right,” Simpson said. “I don’t want to get involved in it because I’m not on track. I do track and field, but come Olympic time I’ll be playing soccer. So I have no comment on this matter.”
Shortly after leaving the University of Southern California for the National Football League in 1969, Simpson returned to his alma mater at Galileo High School, where the school named its football stadium after him and retired his No. 28 football jersey. did.
Simpson was the No. 1 pick in the 1969 AFL-NFL Draft and traded to the Buffalo Bills, where he had a Hall of Fame career for nine seasons, winning nearly every award there was to win and setting the NFL’s single-season rushing record. It broke. By 1977, injuries began to take a toll on Simpson’s body, but he would play two more seasons with his beloved hometown 49ers.
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Simpson returned to San Francisco in exchange for a series of draft picks in what would later be considered one of the worst trades in NFL history. The man who once stole 49ers tickets outside Kezar Stadium was a shell of his former Niner self. In 1979, the 49ers held “OJ Simpson Day” at Candlestick Park as their final home game before retiring. In his last game in Atlanta, he carried the ball just twice for 12 yards.
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By that time, Simpson had already appeared in films and television, and had started his own film production company. He was becoming just as famous for his ubiquitous Hertz rental car commercials. Among his many film roles was the role of the chief security officer of a San Francisco high-rise in the 1974 disaster film. towering inferno.
LMPC
After the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in 1994, Simpson’s legacy as an athlete and actor was forever changed. The San Francisco native will always be remembered more for his infamous low-speed chase, his acquittal in the trial of the century, and his subsequent finding of liability in a death than for his accomplishments on the football field or in the movies.
Simpson was ultimately sentenced to prison after being convicted of breaking into a hotel room at gunpoint with an associate and stealing sports memorabilia from a dealer. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison, but He was paroled after less than nine years..
In 1995, a resident of Simpson’s Potrero Hill neighborhood told CNN, “To be treated so well by a man of his stature and to see the warmth that had lived within him for so many years… Then it’s hard to think of him as anything else.” ”
At one point, a mural celebrating Potrero Hill at the intersection of 17th Street and Connecticut Street depicted Simpson in a 49ers uniform. At various points after the acquittal, vandals poured red paint on the figure and painted horns on Ms. Simpson’s head. Eventually, he was smeared with paint, figuratively removing him from the neighborhood’s history.
A familiar figure on social media platform He appeared in a video predicting a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. LVIII. In the video, he thanked people who asked about his health, saying he was “dealing with some issues” but was in good health and expected to return to the golf course in the next few weeks. He said he was deaf.
Mr. Simpson’s death was noted by lawyers for the Goldman family, who said they would continue to seek recovery of a $33.5 million civil judgment against him.
“He died without remorse. We don’t know what he has, where it is, who is in charge of it,” attorney David Cook told The Associated Press. “We’re going to get back to where we are and continue to do that.”
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