Ralph Gregory Sampson (born October 25, 1950) 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 ...

player.

College and professional career

Sampson graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1972, where he starred as a defensive end, playing on two Rose Bowl-winning teams (1971 and 1972). Sampson grew up in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

and graduated in 1968 from

Millikan High School Robert A. Millikan Senior High School is a high school in Long Beach, California, United States, administered by the Long Beach Unified School District. It is located near the intersection of Spring Street and Palo Verde Avenue in the Los Alto ...

, where he first joined the football team his junior year as the kicker. In 1972, he was drafted in the first round by the

Houston Oilers The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston from its founding in 1960 to 1996 before relocating to Memphis, and later Nashville, Tennessee becoming the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers began play in 1960 as ...

as a defensive end. In 1974, he switched to offensive tackle and steadily improved, until he became second-team ALL-AFC in 1978. But then during a 1979 pre-season drill with his teammates, his helmet was struck and a blood clot in the brain developed. A surgical intervention removed it, probably saving his life, but he could no longer play and retired after the 1979 season. In 2010, Sampson was voted by the ''Corpus Christi Caller-Times'' as the Houston Oilers best offensive lineman in the history of the team.

External links

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Despite a short career, Sampson still a great one for Oilers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sampson, Greg 1950 births Living people American football offensive linemen Stanford Cardinal football players Houston Oilers players