George W. Herring (June 18, 1933 - November 8, 1994), born in Gadsden, Alabama, was a 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 ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

and punter in the American Football League. Herring played with the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...

in 1960 and 1961. Herring played college football at

Jones County Junior College Jones College is a public community college in Ellisville, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and serves its eight-county district consisting of Clarke, Covington, Gre ...

and then transferred to Mississippi Southern in Hattiesburg. Selected by the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

in the sixteenth round (184th overall) of the 1956 NFL Draft, Herring signed instead in

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and threw eight touchdowns to 20 interceptions in two seasons with the B.C. Lions and

Saskatchewan Roughriders The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a professional Canadian football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Roughriders compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division. The Roughriders were founded in ...

. In 1960, he joined the Broncos at the start of the AFL. In Denver, Herring backed up his roommate

Frank Tripucka Francis Joseph TripuckaProfile
, polishsportshof.com; accessed December 28, 2015.

and threw five touchdowns to 23 interceptions while also serving as the team’s punter. In a 1961 loss at

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on November 26, he threw a franchise record six interceptions. Herring had a problem with alcohol and was found homeless on the streets of

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

in 1982. After staying sober for several years, he had a relapse in 1994 and committed suicide within two days of his 25-year-old son Lance also killing himself. In a bizarre side note, Lance’s stepfather had also committed suicide two months before. Herring also had two other children.

References

External links

The Quarterback Abstract: Ranking the Quarterbacks in Modern Day History
* * 1934 births 1994 deaths Players of American football from Alabama Sportspeople from Gadsden, Alabama American football quarterbacks American football punters Denver Broncos (AFL) players Jones County Bobcats football players Southern Miss Golden Eagles football players Canadian football quarterbacks BC Lions players Saskatchewan Roughriders players {{quarterback-1930s-stub