Leon Bender (August 8, 1975 – May 30, 1998) was an
American football defensive tackle
A defensive tackle (DT) is a position in American football that will typically line up on the line of scrimmage, opposite one of the offensive guards, however he may also line up opposite one of the tackles. Defensive tackles are typically the la ...
, was selected in the second round of the
1998 NFL Draft
The 1998 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 18–19, 1998, at the Theater at M ...
(31st overall) by 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 ...
.
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
Washington State under head coach
Mike Price
Michael Bruce Price (born April 6, 1946) is a former American football coach. He was the head coach at Weber State College from 1981 to 1988, Washington State University from 1989 to 2002, and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) from 2004 ...
; in his senior season of
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
, the Cougars won the
Pac-10
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
title and played in the
Rose Bowl, WSU's first return to the game in
67 years.
He graduated in 1993 from
Santana High School in
Santee, California, east of
San Diego.
Death
Six weeks after the draft, Bender unexpectedly died at age 22 before gaining the opportunity to play an
NFL
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 major ...
game. He was found dead in the home of sports agent Terry Bolar in
Marietta, Georgia,
[ and was in Georgia to train for an upcoming Raiders' mini-camp.][
The Cobb County medical examiner's office confirmed on June 10 that a seizure disorder was the cause of death. Bender had been previously diagnosed with epilepsy, known by Washington State and the Raiders, but not publicized; his Cougar teammates were not aware of it.][ He was buried in California at Singing Hills Memorial Park in El Cajon.
]
References
External links
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1975 births
1998 deaths
People from Ontario, California
Players of American football from California
Sportspeople from San Bernardino County, California
American football defensive tackles
Washington State Cougars football players
Neurological disease deaths in Georgia (U.S. state)
Deaths from epilepsy
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