Bruce Jarvis (born November 3, 1948) 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 wi ...
player, an
offensive lineman for four seasons for the
Buffalo Bills of 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 ...
.
Early years
Born in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, Jarvis graduated from its
Franklin High School and played
college football at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
in Seattle under head coach
Jim Owens
James Donald Owens (March 6, 1927 – June 6, 2009) was an American football player and coach. He was the head coach at the University of Washington from 1957 to 1974, compiling a record of in 18 seasons.
Owens played college football at the U ...
. As a senior center in
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
, he snapped the ball to sophomore quarterback
Buffalo Bills
Jarvis was chosen 53rd overall in the
1971 NFL Draft
The 1971 National Football League draft was held January 28–29, 1971, at the Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York City, New York. The Boston Patriots, who did not officially change their name to New England Patriots until after the draft, used th ...
by the
Buffalo Bills, the first pick of the
third round
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (disambiguation)
* Third Avenue (disambiguation)
* Hig ...
on January 28.
As a rookie in
1971, Jarvis immediately became the starting center, replacing
Frank Marchlewski
Frank Marchlewski (October 14, 1943 – October 27, 2016) was a professional American football player who played offensive lineman for six seasons for the Los Angeles Rams, Atlanta Falcons, and Buffalo Bills.
Buffalo Bills
As a member of the ...
. The Bill had an awful season, winning only 1 of 14 games, the worst offense in the entire NFL, with 184 points (13.1 points/game). Jarvis was injured in the opening game of
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...
season;
he was succeeded by
Remi Prudhomme and the Bills had a season, their last on the natural grass of
In
1973
Events January
* January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 15 – Vietnam War: ...
, the Bills opened the new
Rich Stadium
Highmark Stadium is a stadium in Orchard Park, New York, in the Southtowns of the Buffalo metropolitan area. The stadium opened in 1973 as Rich Stadium and is the home venue of the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL). It was ...
in
Orchard Park, with
artificial turf, and Jarvis partly got his job back, starting 8 of 14 games. He split time with
Mike Montler, centering between
Reggie McKenzie at left guard and
Joe DeLamielleure
Joseph Michael DeLamielleure ( ; born March 16, 1951) is an American former professional football player who was a guard in the National Football League (NFL). He was an All-American playing college football for the Michigan State Spartans. ...
at right guard, for a much improved team, when running back
O. J. Simpson became the first to rush for over During Simpson's rushing success in the mid 1970s, the Bills' offensive line was nicknamed "
The Electric Company
''The Electric Company'' is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now known as Sesame Workshop). It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The ...
," as they "turned on Montler started all 14 games at center in
1974 and the Bills repeated at and made the
playoffs
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...
as a wild card team.
Jarvis retired from the NFL at age 26, during the Bills' training camp in July
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
.
References
External links
*
1948 births
American football offensive linemen
Buffalo Bills players
Washington Huskies football players
Living people
Franklin High School (Seattle) alumni
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