Eugene Frank Selawski (November 28, 1935 – May 11, 1993) 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 ...

player. He was a first-team All-American tackle at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

in 1958 and played three years of professional football for the Los Angeles Rams (1959),

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 (A ...

(1960) and San Diego Chargers (1961).

Early years

Selawski was born and raised in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, and graduated from John Adams High School. He then attended Purdue University where he played college football at the tackle position for the

Purdue Boilermakers football The Purdue Boilermakers football team represents Purdue University in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of college football. Purdue plays its home games at Ross–Ade Stadium on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. ...

team from 1956 to 1958. He was selected by the Football Writers Association of America as a first-team tackle on its 1958 College Football All-America Team.

Career

Selawski was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in the ninth round of the

1958 NFL Draft The 1958 National Football League draft had its first four rounds held on December 2, 1957, and its final twenty-six rounds on January 28, 1958. Both sessions were held at the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia. This was the 12th and final year in ...

and played for the Rams in 12 games during the

1959 NFL season Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of ...

. In 1960, he returned to Ohio to play in 12 games for his hometown

. In 1961, he jumped to the American Football League, appearing in eight games for the San Diego Chargers.

Death

Selawski died May 9, 1993, at age 57, in

Duluth, Georgia Duluth is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. Located north of Interstate 85, it is approximately northeast of Atlanta. As of the 2020 census, Duluth had a population of 31,873, and the United States Census Bureau estimated the ...

References

1935 births 1993 deaths American football tackles Oakland Raiders players Purdue Boilermakers football players John Adams High School (Ohio) alumni Players of American football from Cleveland {{Offensive-lineman-1930s-stub