Autry Beamon Jr. (born November 12, 1953) is a former professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

who played for three

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) teams.

College career

Beamon played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

East Texas State University East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

, now

Texas A&M University-Commerce Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

, and is in the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame citation says that at age 16 he was the youngest college player in the country in 1970. He is still the only player in his college’s history to be a four-time first team All-Lone Star Conference selection. He is in both the Lone Star Conference Hall of Honor and the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame.

Professional career

In the 1975 NFL draft the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

chose Beamon in the 12th round (draft pick 311 overall). He was on the Vikings team that played in

Super Bowl XI Super Bowl XI was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Oakland Raiders and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Minnesota Vikings to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...

, losing to the then

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

in January 1977. In the course of his seven-year NFL career Beamon made 13 interceptions for 132 yards including a career best six picks in the 1977 season for the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

. The following season he had four interceptions for the Seahawks. Only two players in the NFL —

Rolland Lawrence Rolland Derenfro "Bay" Lawrence (born March 24, 1951) is a former professional American football cornerback who played his entire National Football League, NFL career for the Atlanta Falcons from 1973 to 1980. He was selected All-Pro with the 197 ...

of the Atlanta Falcons and

Mario Clark Mario Sean Clark (born March 29, 1954) is an American football cornerback who played for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Oregon. Playing for the B ...

of the Buffalo Bills — had more interceptions in each of those two seasons, 1977 and 1978. Beamon had at least one fumble recovery in all but one of his seven NFL seasons for a career total of eight: three for the Vikings, three for the Seahawks and two for the Browns. In 1977 Beamon scored his only NFL touchdown, returning a blocked punt in a Seahawks home game against the

Baltimore Colts The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from its founding in 1953 to 1984. The team now plays in Indianapolis, as the Indianapolis Colts. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breed ...

. His only other points in the NFL also came from a blocked punt for the Vikings in a home game against the

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

in 1975, resulting in a 2-point safety. In both the 1978 and 1979 seasons he was the special teams captain for the Seahawks. https://static.www.nfl.com/league/apps/league-site/media-guides/2021/SEA.pdf. See p. 303 under Captains/Special Teams

References

1953 births Living people Players of American football from Texas American football cornerbacks Seattle Seahawks players Minnesota Vikings players Cleveland Browns players Texas A&M–Commerce Lions football players People from Terrell, Texas {{defensiveback-1950s-stub