Robert Babich (May 5, 1947 – April 4, 2022)Former Chargers linebacker Bob Babich dies at 74
/ref> was an American professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who was a

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

for nine seasons in the

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) with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

and the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

. He 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 ...

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

Oxford, Ohio Oxford is a city in Butler County, Ohio, United States. The population was 23,035 at the 2020 census. A college town, Oxford was founded as a home for Miami University and lies in the southwestern portion of the state approximately northwest ...

, and was elected to the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

in 1994. Babich played high school football for

Campbell Memorial High School Memorial High School is a public high school in Campbell, Ohio, United States. It is the only high school in the Campbell City School District. Athletic teams compete as the Campbell Red Devils in the Ohio High School Athletic Association as a memb ...

Campbell, Ohio Campbell (; ) is a city in eastern Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, along the Mahoning River. The population was 7,852 at the 2020 census. Located directly southeast of Youngstown, it is a suburb of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area. ...

. He was a first-team All-America linebacker for Miami University, known then as the Redskins. He graduated in 1969. He was voted the "Most Valuable Player" award twice by his teammates and selected as Miami's "Athlete of the Year" for the 1968-69 academic year. A two-time unanimous all-

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

linebacker, he was also voted the "Defensive Player of the Year" in the MAC as he captained the 1968 team. Babich was selected First-team All-America by the

American Football Coaches Association The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) is an association of over 11,000 American football coaches and staff on all levels. According to its constitution, some of the main goals of the American Football Coaches Association are to "mainta ...

, ''

The Sporting News The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...

'' and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine. He played in the American, North-South and Senior bowls. He was a first-round draft choice of the San Diego Chargers in the

1969 NFL Draft The 1969 National Football League draft was part of the common draft, the third and final year in which the NFL and American Football League (AFL) held a joint draft of college players. The draft took place January 28–29, 1969. The draft beg ...

, the 18th selection overall and the second linebacker taken. In three seasons for the Chargers, he saw action in all 42 regular-season games. On September 6, 1973, he was traded to the Cleveland Browns for a first-round draft choice in 1974 and a second-round pick in 1975. He played six seasons for the Browns, missing only three games (in 1975) during those seasons. It was that season in which he started every game he played—the only games he started in his career. Babich was inducted into the Miami University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1975. His 1994 election to the College Football Hall of Fame made him the first Miami (Ohio) player to be enshrined.

References

External links

NFL.com player page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Babich, Bob 1947 births 2022 deaths American football linebackers Cleveland Browns players Miami RedHawks football players San Diego Chargers players College Football Hall of Fame inductees Players of American football from Youngstown, Ohio American people of Serbian descent