Joseph Walker Carroll (born May 29, 1950) is a former

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 ...

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, p ...

. He played for the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

in 1972-1973. Carroll attended

Warren G. Harding High School Warren G. Harding High School is a public high school in Warren, Ohio, United States. It is the only high school in the Warren City School District. Sports teams are called the Raiders, and they compete in the Ohio High School Athletic Associatio ...

Warren, Ohio Warren is a city in and the county seat of Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Located in northeastern Ohio, Warren lies approximately northwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 39,201 at the 2020 census. The his ...

. In his junior year he made the first team, All-Ohio

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

defensive team as a

defensive end Defensive end (DE) is a defensive position in the sport of gridiron football. This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formation (American football), formations over the years have substantially ...

. After graduating, he went to Pitt, where he played

, and was a starter as a

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. In ...

. However he was injured in mid-October during the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

game and missed the remainder of the season. The following year he was back in the starting line-up and considered one of the top defensive prospects in the country. During the

1972 NFL Draft The 1972 NFL draft was held February 1–2, 1972, at the Essex House in New York City, New York. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Buffalo Bills selected defensive end Walt Patulski. Player selections Round one Round two ...

, Carroll was selected in the 11th round by the

, the 277th pick in the draft. He was the only college player from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

picked in the draft. After beginning the 1974 season with the Raiders, he was cut in September, as they pared their roster back to 47.

References

1950 births Living people Players of American football from Ohio American football linebackers Pittsburgh Panthers football players Oakland Raiders players Warren G. Harding High School alumni {{Linebacker-1950s-stub