Robert Matheson (November 25, 1944 – September 5, 1994) was an

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 ...

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, ...

who played 13 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). He played in three

Super Bowls The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

for the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

, including their 1972 and 1973 championships. A linebacker at Duke University, he was drafted in 1967 by the Cleveland Browns in the first round of the NFL Draft, was the first year of the common draft between the AFL and NFL. He was then acquired by the Dolphins prior to the 1971 season, after Miami defensive coordinator

Bill Arnsparger William Stephen Arnsparger (December 16, 1926 – July 17, 2015) was an American college and professional football coach. He was born and raised in Paris, Kentucky, served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, and graduated from Mi ...

requested head coach Don Shula to do so. Miami gave up their second round draft pick in 1972 in exchange. Matheson went to Miami one year after the Dolphins acquired

Paul Warfield Paul Dryden Warfield (born November 28, 1942) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) from 1964 to 1977 for the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins, except for a year in ...

from Cleveland. Matheson was often used by the Dolphins as a fourth linebacker in passing situations. This defensive alignment was often referred to as the "53" defense, named for Matheson's No. 53 jersey. This is also referred to as a

3–4 defense In American football, the 3–4 defense is a common defensive alignment consisting of three down linemen and four linebackers. It is a called a "base defense" because it is the default defensive alignment used on "base downs" (1st and 2nd downs ...

, with three linemen and four linebackers. After leaving the Dolphins in 1979, Matheson returned to Duke as an assistant coach. He later coached special teams and linebackers for five years with the Miami Dolphins. He then joined Duke alumni

John Gutekunst John Gutekunst (born April 13, 1944) is an American former college football coach and player. He served as the head football coach at the University of Minnesota from 1985 to 1991, compiling a record of 29–37–2. Gutekunst came to Minnesota in ...

as an assistant coach at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

. In 1993, he returned to Duke to work at its Comprehensive Cancer Center. Matheson died on September 5, 1994 at

Duke University Hospital Duke University Hospital is a 957-acute care bed academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for the Duke University Health System, a network of physicians and hos ...

from complications of Hodgkin's disease, which he had had for 13 years.

References

1944 births 1994 deaths American football linebackers Cleveland Browns players Duke Blue Devils football coaches Duke Blue Devils football players Miami Dolphins coaches Miami Dolphins players Minnesota Golden Gophers football coaches People from Boone, North Carolina Coaches of American football from North Carolina Players of American football from North Carolina Deaths from Hodgkin lymphoma Deaths from cancer in North Carolina {{linebacker-1940s-stub