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Kyle Simpson Biography & Facts

Orenthal James Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024) was an American football player and actor who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills. Regarded as one of the greatest running backs of all time, his professional success was overshadowed by his trial and controversial acquittal for the murders of his former wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994. Simpson played college football for the USC Trojans, where he won the Heisman Trophy as a senior, and was selected first overall by the Bills in the 1969 NFL/AFL draft. During his nine seasons with the Bills, he received five consecutive Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro selections from 1972 to 1976. He also led the league in rushing yards four times, in rushing touchdowns twice, and in points scored in 1975. He became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, earning him NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP), and is the only NFL player to do so in a 14-game regular season. He holds the record for the single-season yards-per-game average at 143.1. After retiring with the San Francisco 49ers in 1979, he acted in film and television, became a sports broadcaster, and was a spokesman for a wide variety of products and companies, notably Hertz. He was later inducted into multiple football halls of fame. Brown and Goldman were murdered in Los Angeles on the night of June 12, 1994. Simpson was charged with the murders, and arrested after a widely televised incident in which he tried to flee the police in his friend's car. The internationally publicized murder trial lasted from January to October 1995, and created racial divisions in the U.S. He was acquitted on October 3. Three years later, he was found liable for the murders in a civil suit from the victims' families, but paid little of the $33.5 million judgment. In 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, and charged with armed robbery and kidnapping. In 2008, he was convicted, and sentenced to 33 years' imprisonment with a minimum of nine years without parole. He served his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in rural Nevada, until being paroled and released in 2017. He was released from parole in 2021 and lived in freedom until his death at age 76 from cancer in 2024. Early life Born in 1947 in San Francisco, California, Simpson was a son of Eunice (née Durden), an orderly at a psychiatric ward, and Jimmy Lee Simpson, a custodian for a Federal Reserve Bank and a private club and a cook. His father was also a well-known drag queen in the Bay Area. Later in life, Jimmy Simpson announced that he was gay. He died of AIDS in 1986. Simpson's maternal grandparents were from Louisiana. His aunt gave him the name Orenthal, which she told him was the name of a French or Italian actor she liked. He was called "O.J." from birth and did not know that Orenthal was his given name until a teacher read it in third grade. Simpson had one brother, Melvin Leon "Truman" Simpson, one living sister, Shirley Simpson-Baker, and one deceased sister, Carmelita Simpson-Durio. Simpson grew up in San Francisco and lived with his family in the housing projects of the low-income Potrero Hill neighborhood. As a child, Simpson developed rickets and wore braces on his legs until the age of five, giving him his bowlegged stance. He earned money by scalping tickets and collecting seat cushions at Kezar Stadium. After his parents separated in 1952 (when Simpson was 4), he and his siblings were raised by their mother. In his early teenage years, Simpson joined a street gang called the Persian Warriors and was briefly incarcerated at the San Francisco Youth Guidance Center. His future wife Marguerite, whom he dated in high school, described him as "really an awful person then". After his third arrest, Simpson happened to meet with baseball star Willie Mays, who encouraged the youth to avoid trouble. He said it helped persuade him to reform. At Galileo High School (now Galileo Academy of Science and Technology) in San Francisco, Simpson played for the school football team, the Galileo Lions. He played as a tackle and then as a fullback. Meanwhile, he started earning money by organizing dances and charging admission. He graduated in 1965. College football and athletics career Although Simpson was an All-City football player at Galileo, his mediocre high-school grades prevented him from attracting the interest of many college recruiters. After a childhood friend's injury in the Vietnam War influenced Simpson to stay out of the military, he enrolled at City College of San Francisco in 1965. He played football both ways as a running back and defensive back and was named to the Junior College All-American team as a running back. City College won the Prune Bowl against Long Beach State, and many colleges sought Simpson as a transfer student for football. In 1967, Simpson enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, which he had admired as a young football fan. He had also considered going to the University of Utah. He played running back with the Trojans for head coach John McKay in 1967 and 1968. Simpson led the nation in rushing both years under McKay: in 1967 with 1,543 yards and 13 touchdowns, and in 1968 with 1,880 yards on 383 carries. In 1967's Victory Bell rivalry game between the teams, USC was down by six points in the fourth quarter with under 11 minutes remaining. On their own 36, USC backup quarterback Toby Page called an audible on third and seven. Simpson's 64-yard touchdown run tied the score, and the extra point provided a 21–20 lead, which was the final score. This was the biggest play in what is regarded as one of the greatest football games of the 20th century, and pictures of the play were published in many national magazines. Another dramatic touchdown in the same game is the subject of the Arnold Friberg oil painting, O.J. Simpson Breaks for Daylight. Simpson also won the Walter Camp Award in 1967 and was a two-time unanimous All-American. USC would go on to win the national title for that year. Even though Simpson led the nation in college football rushing yards, the Heisman Trophy went to Gary Beban; Simpson was second in voting. Simpson was an aspiring track athlete. Before playing football at USC, he ran the third leg of a sprint relay quartet that broke the world record in the 4 × 110-yard relay at the NCAA track championships in Provo, Utah on June 17, 1967. They had a time of 38.6 seconds. Also that year, he had a 100 m dash time of 9.53 seconds. He lost a 100 m race at Stanford University against the then-British record holder Menzies Campbell. As a senior in 1968, Simpson rushed for 1,709 yards and 22 touchdowns in the regular season, earning the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and Walter Camp Award. He held the record for the Heisman's largest margin of victory for 51 years, defeating runner-up Leroy Keyes by 1,750 points. In the Rose Bowl on New.... Discover the Kyle Simpson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kyle Simpson books.