Yancey Dirk Thigpen (born August 15, 1969) is a former professional

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 wi ...

wide receiver who played for the San Diego Chargers (1991), the Pittsburgh Steelers (1992–1997), and the Tennessee Oilers/Titans (1998–2000). Before his NFL career, he played for

Winston-Salem State University Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) is a historically black public university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina. History Winston-Salem State University was founded as Slater Industrial Academy o ...

, where he also played collegiate

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

National Football League years

Thigpen played infrequently in his first three seasons, but had a breakout year in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

, catching 36 passes for 546 yards. Then in 1995, he made the

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 ...

, catching 85 passes for 1,307 yards and five touchdowns, and assisting his team to Super Bowl XXX, where he recorded three catches for 19 yards and a touchdown in the Steelers 27–17 loss to the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divi ...

. His tough style of play earned him the nickname "Meatball," which was later changed to "Phil" when he joined the Oilers in 1998. Thigpen played only six games in the following season due to injuries, but made a full recovery in the 1997 season, catching 79 passes for 1,398 yards and 7 touchdowns and making his second Pro Bowl selection. In 1998, he signed a five-year, $21 million contract with the Oilers, which at the time was the highest known contract ever signed among wide receivers. He went on to play with them for the final three seasons of his career, assisting the team (now known as the Titans) to

Super Bowl XXXIV Super Bowl XXXIV was an American football game played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on January 30, 2000, to determine the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1999 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion St. Louis ...

in the 1999 season. Such a large contract for a wide receiver was a signal of the role which wide receivers would begin to play in the NFL. Thigpen retired after the 2000 season with 313 career receptions for 5,081 yards and 30 touchdowns. He also rushed for four yards, returned two punts for 30 yards, and gained 188 yards on eight kickoff returns.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thigpen, Yancey 1969 births Living people People from Tarboro, North Carolina American football wide receivers Winston-Salem State Rams football players San Diego Chargers players Pittsburgh Steelers players Tennessee Oilers players Tennessee Titans players American Conference Pro Bowl players Players of American football from North Carolina