Alfred Terance "Terry" Kinard (born November 24, 1959) is a former American college and professional
football player who was a
safety
Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.
Meanings
There are two slightly dif ...
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 eight seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. He played
college football at
Clemson University
Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enr ...
, and was a two-time consensus
All-American. Kinard was selected in the first round of the
1983 NFL Draft
The 1983 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 26–27, 1983, at the New York Sh ...
, and played professionally for the NFL's
New York Giants and
Houston Oilers
The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston from its founding in 1960 to 1996 before relocating to Memphis, and later Nashville, Tennessee becoming the Tennessee Titans. The Oilers began play in 1960 a ...
.
Early years
Kinard was born in
Bitburg,
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
. He attended
Sumter High School in
Sumter, South Carolina, graduating with the class of 1978.
College career
He attended Clemson University, where he played for the
Clemson Tigers football team from 1979 to 1982. Kinard was a two-time consensus first-team All-American for two years in a row. He was the
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 ...
National Defensive Player of the Year in 1982 and selected to the ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'' All-College Football Team in the 1980s. Kinard is the all-time Clemson leader in
interception
In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team ...
s with seventeen and
tackles
Tackle may refer to:
* In football:
** Tackle (football move), a play in various forms of football
** Tackle (gridiron football position), a position in American football and Canadian football
** Dump tackle, a forceful move in rugby of picking u ...
by a
defensive back with 294.
His college career did not start smoothly. He suffered a
separated shoulder
A separated shoulder, also known as acromioclavicular joint injury, is a common injury to the acromioclavicular joint. The AC joint is located at the outer end of the clavicle where it attaches to the acromion of the scapula. Symptoms include no ...
in his first game and was out the rest of the season. He later said that having to
redshirt
Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi
* Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after ...
turned out to be a good thing, as he was not physically ready to compete as a freshman.
Kinard was inducted into the
College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional career
The New York Giants selected Kinard in the first round (tenth pick overall) of the 1983 NFL Draft, and he played for the Giants from to . He played his eighth and final season for the Houston Oilers in . In his eight NFL seasons, Kinard played in 121 games, started 115 of them, made thirty-one interceptions and recovered seven fumbles.
Personal
Kinard married his wife Cassandra on June 21, 2003. Their son Jaden was born in 2004.
References
External links
NFL.com player page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinard, Terry
1959 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football safeties
Clemson Tigers football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Houston Oilers players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
New York Giants players
People from Bitburg
Ed Block Courage Award recipients