James Patrick Beirne (October 15, 1946 – May 28, 2021) 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 wide receiver. 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 ...

at Purdue University, where he was an All-American. He played professionally for the Houston Oilers of the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

(AFL) and was named an

AFL All-Star The American Football League All-Star game was the annual game which featured each year's best performers in the American Football League (AFL). The game was first played in 1961 and the final AFL All-Star game occurred in 1969, prior to the leagu ...

in 1969. He later played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Oilers and

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 ...

. Beirne lived in Fredericksburg, Texas. His son, Kevin Beirne, was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher from 2000 to 2006.

References

1946 births 2021 deaths American football wide receivers Purdue Boilermakers football players Houston Oilers players San Diego Chargers players American Football League All-Star players Sportspeople from McKeesport, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania American Football League players {{widereceiver-1940s-stub

See also

References