Richard Anthony McKenzie (born April 15, 1971) 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 ...

. An All-American linebacker in

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

, McKenzie starred at

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

and left the team after the 1992 season though a dominant linebacker and considered by some to be the best athlete on that year's football team, Mckenzie was benched in the final bowl game after discipline issues with Coach Joe Paterno. As his off-the-field issues scared off many NFL teams, McKenzie was not selected until the sixth round of the

1993 NFL Draft The 1993 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 25–26, 1993, at the Marriot Ma ...

. After three years and only eight game appearances he left the NFL.

References

1971 births Living people American football linebackers Penn State Nittany Lions football players Cleveland Browns players Orlando Predators players Chicago Rush players {{Linebacker-1970s-stub