Robert Lee "Sam" Huff (October 4, 1934 – November 13, 2021) was an American professional
football player who was a
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, ...
in the
National Football League
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 ...
(NFL) for the
New York Giants and the
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
. He played
college football for
West Virginia University
West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...
. He was a member of both the
College Football Hall of Fame and the
Pro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coa ...
, the latter of which he became a member in 1982.
Early life
Huff was born and grew up in the No. 9 coal mining camp in
Edna, West Virginia. The fourth of six children of Oral and Catherine Huff, he lived with his family in a small rowhouse with no running water.
Huff grew up during the
Great Depression while his father and two of his brothers worked in the
coal mines
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...
loading buggies for Consolidated Mining.
Huff attended and played
high school football
High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...
at the now-closed Farmington High School, where he was both an
offensive and
defensive lineman.
While he was there, Huff helped lead the team to an undefeated season in 1951.
He earned All-State honors in 1952 and was named to the first-team All-Mason Dixon Conference.
College career
Huff attended and played
college football for
West Virginia University
West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...
, where he majored in
physical education
Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorat ...
.
He started at guard as a sophomore, then as a tackle his next two years, after winning a letter as a backup guard during his freshman season.
He was a four-year
letterman and helped lead West Virginia to a combined four-year mark of 31–7 and a berth in the
Sugar Bowl.
In 1955, Huff was voted an
All-America
The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...
n
and served as co-captain in both the
East–West Shrine Game and the
Senior Bowl
The Senior Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game played annually in late January or early February in Mobile, Alabama, which showcases the best NFL Draft prospects of those players who have completed their college eligibility. Pr ...
. Huff was also named first team
Academic All-American
The Academic All-America program is a student-athlete recognition program. The program selects an honorary sports team composed of the most outstanding student-athletes of a specific season for positions in various sports—who in turn are giv ...
for his outstanding efforts in the classroom.
Professional career
New York Giants (1956–1963)
Huff was
drafted in the third round of the
1956 NFL Draft by the
New York Giants. In
training camp A training camp is an organized period in which military personnel or athletes participate in a rigorous and focused schedule of training in order to learn or improve skills. Athletes typically utilise training camps to prepare for upcoming events, ...
, head coach
Jim Lee Howell
James Lee Howell (September 27, 1914 – January 4, 1995) was an American football player and coach for the National Football League's New York Giants. Howell was born in Arkansas, and played college football and basketball at the University of ...
was having a hard time coming up with a position for Huff.
Discouraged, Huff left camp, but was stopped at the airport by assistant (offensive) coach
Vince Lombardi
Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized a ...
, who coaxed him back to camp.
Then,
defensive coordinator Tom Landry
Thomas Wade Landry (September 11, 1924 – February 12, 2000) was an American professional football player and coach. He was the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL), a position he held for 29 seasons. Dur ...
came up with the new
4–3 defensive scheme that he thought would fit Huff perfectly.
The Giants switched him from the line to
middle 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, ...
behind
Ray Beck. Huff liked the position because he could keep his head up and use his superb peripheral vision to see the whole field.
On October 7, 1956, in a game against the
Chicago Cardinals
The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons.
Roots ...
, Beck was injured and Huff was put into his first professional game. He then helped the Giants win five consecutive games
and they finished with an 8–3–1 record, which gave them the Eastern Conference title.
New York went on to win the
1956 NFL Championship Game
In the 1956 NFL Championship Game was the league's 24th championship game, played at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in New York City on December 30.
The New York Giants (8–3–1) won the Eastern Conference title and hosted the Chicago Bears (9� ...
and Huff became the first rookie middle linebacker to start an NFL championship game.
In
1958
Events
January
* January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
* January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
* January 4
** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...
, the Giants again won the East and Huff played in the
1958 NFL Championship Game
The 1958 NFL Championship Game was the 26th NFL championship game, played on December 28 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first NFL playoff game to be decided in sudden death overtime. The final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New ...
.
The championship, which became widely known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", was the first National Football League (NFL) game to go into
sudden death overtime
Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways:
*by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society) ...
. The final score was
Baltimore Colts 23,
New York Giants 17.
In
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
, Huff and the Giants again went to the
NFL Championship Game
Throughout its history, the National Football League (NFL) and other rival American football leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champions, including a period of inter-league matchups to determine a true national c ...
, which ended in a 31–16 loss to the Colts. Also that year, Huff became the first NFL player to be featured on the cover of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine
on November 30, 1959. He almost passed up the magazine appearance, demanding money to be interviewed, but relented when ''Time'' agreed to give him the cover portrait.
Huff was also the subject of an October 31, 1960
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
television special, "The Violent World of Sam Huff",
broadcast as an episode of the
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...
-hosted anthology series ''
The Twentieth Century
''The Twentieth Century'' was a documentary television program sponsored by the Prudential Insurance Company that ran on the CBS network from 20 October 1957 until 4 January 1970. It was hosted by Walter Cronkite. The opening and closing theme ...
''. The network wired Huff for sound in practice and in an exhibition game.
The Giants then visited the championship under new coach
Allie Sherman
Alex "Allie" Sherman (February 10, 1923 – January 3, 2015) was an American football player and coach who played 51 games in six seasons in the National Football League (NFL) as a quarterback and defensive back, and afterward served as head coa ...
in
1961
Events January
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015).
** Aero Flight 311 (K ...
,
1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...
, and
1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...
, but lost every one of them.
To improve what he thought was a defensive problem, Sherman then traded many defensive players, including
Cliff Livingston
Clifford Lyman Livingston (July 2, 1930 – March 13, 2010) was an American professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants, the Minnesota Vikings and the Los Angeles Rams. He w ...
,
Rosey Grier
Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier (born July 14, 1932) is an American actor, singer, Protestant minister, and former professional football player. He was a notable college football player for Pennsylvania State University who earned a retrospective plac ...
, and
Dick Modzelewski
Richard Blair Modzelewski (February 16, 1931 – October 19, 2018) was an American football defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL) for the Washington Redskins, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, and the Cleveland Browns. He al ...
. After these trades, Huff went to owner
Wellington Mara
Wellington Timothy Mara (August 14, 1916 – October 25, 2005) was the co-owner of the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL) from 1959 until his death. He was the younger son of Tim Mara, who founded the Giants in 1925. Wellingto ...
and was assured he would not be traded.
But in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...
, Giants head coach
Allie Sherman
Alex "Allie" Sherman (February 10, 1923 – January 3, 2015) was an American football player and coach who played 51 games in six seasons in the National Football League (NFL) as a quarterback and defensive back, and afterward served as head coa ...
traded Huff to the
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
for
defensive tackle Andy Stynchula and
running back
A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball,
and block. Ther ...
Dick James
Dick James (born Leon Isaac Vapnick; 12 December 1920 – 1 February 1986) was a British music publisher and singer. He and Brian Epstein established the Beatles' publisher Northern Songs. Later, with his son Stephen, James founded the DJM re ...
.
The trade made front-page news in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
and was greeted with jeers from Giants fans, who crowded
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, New York City. It is the home field of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and New York City FC of Major League Soccer.
Opened in April 2009, the stadium replaced the orig ...
yelling "Huff-Huff-Huff-Huff."
Huff played in four consecutive
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
s with the Giants from
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
through
1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...
. He was named most valuable player of the 1961 Pro Bowl.
Washington Redskins (1964–1967, 1969)
Huff joined the Redskins in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...
and they agreed to pay him $30,000 in salary and $5,000 for scouting, compared to the $19,000 he would have made another year with New York.
The impact Huff had was almost immediate and the Redskins' defense was ranked second in the
NFL in
1965.
On November 27, 1966, Huff and the Redskins beat his former
Giant
In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...
teammates 72–41, in the highest-scoring game in league history.
After an ankle injury in
1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
ended his streak of 150 straight games played
Huff retired in
1968
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide.
Events January–February
* January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
* Janu ...
.
Vince Lombardi
Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized a ...
talked Huff out of retirement in
1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
when he was named Washington's head coach.
The Redskins went 7–5–2 and had their best season since
1955 (which kept Lombardi's record of never having coached a losing NFL team intact). Huff then retired for good after 14 seasons and 30 career interceptions.
He spent one season coaching the Redskins' linebackers in
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
following Lombardi's death from
colon cancer.
After football
Business
After leaving the NFL, Huff took a position with
J. P. Stevens in New York City as a textiles sales representative. He later joined the
Marriott
Marriott may refer to:
People
*Marriott (surname)
Corporations
* Marriott Corporation, founded as Hot Shoppes, Inc. in 1927; split into Marriott International and Host Marriott Corporation in 1993
* Marriott International, international hote ...
Corporation as a salesman in 1971, rising to vice president of sports marketing before retiring in 1998.
While with Marriott, Huff was responsible for selling over 600,000 room nights via a partnership between the NFL and Marriott that booked teams into Marriott branded hotels for away games. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he was a spokesman for Marlboro cigarettes.
Commentator
After retiring from football, Huff spent three seasons as a
color commentator
A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main ( play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and ...
for the Giants radio team and then moved on in the same capacity to the
Redskins Radio Network, where he remained until his retirement at the end of the 2012 season, calling games alongside former Redskins teammate
Sonny Jurgensen
Christian Adolph "Sonny" Jurgensen III (born August 23, 1934) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins. He was inducted int ...
and play-by-play announcers
Frank Herzog
Frank Herzog is a former American sportscaster known for his role as a play-by-play announcer for Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Comma ...
(1979–2004) and Larry Michael (2005–2012).
He was also a broadcaster for a regionally syndicated TV package of Mountaineer football games in the mid-1980s.
Honors
In 1982, Huff became the second WVU player to be inducted into both the
College
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
and
Pro football Halls of Fame.
In 1988, he was inducted into the WVU School of Physical Education Hall of Fame and, in 1991 he was inducted into the WVU Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1999, Huff was inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame
and was ranked number 76 on the ''
Sporting News'' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.
In 2001, Huff was ranked number six on ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...
''s list of
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...
's 50 Greatest Athletes. In 2005, Huff's uniform number 75 was retired by
West Virginia University
West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...
.
Horse breeding and racing
In 1986 Huff began breeding
thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are ...
racehorses
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...
at Sporting Life Farm in
Middleburg, Virginia
Middleburg is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 673 as of the 2010 census. It is the southernmost town along Loudoun County's shared border with Fauquier County.
Middleburg is known as the "Nation's Horse ...
. His
filly,
Bursting Forth, won the 1998
Matchmaker Handicap. He also helped establish the
West Virginia Breeders' Classic
The West Virginia Breeders Classic is a thoroughbred horse race for West Virginia breeds run at a distance of one and one/eighth mile on the dirt. Open to three-year-olds and up, it takes place each year at the Charles Town Races in Charles Town, ...
.
Politics
In 1970, Huff ran for a seat in the
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
,
but lost in the West Virginia Democratic primary
for
the 1st district against
Bob Mollohan by more than 19,000 votes.
Illness and death
Huff was diagnosed with
dementia
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
in 2013.
He died at the age of 87 at a hospital in
Winchester, Virginia
Winchester is the most north western independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Frederick County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Winchester wit ...
, on November 13, 2021.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huff, Sam
1934 births
2021 deaths
American football linebackers
American racehorse owners and breeders
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League announcers
New York Giants announcers
New York Giants players
People from Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
People from Farmington, West Virginia
Players of American football from Pennsylvania
Players of American football from West Virginia
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Sportspeople from Morgantown, West Virginia
Sportspeople from Pennsylvania
Washington Redskins players
West Virginia Mountaineers football players
Washington Redskins announcers
Deaths from dementia in Virginia