Brian Bosworth

Brian Bosworth

Bosworth in 2009
No. 55
Position:	Linebacker
Personal information
Date of birth:	(1965-03-09) March 9, 1965
Place of birth:	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Height:	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight:	255 lb (116 kg)
Career information
High school:	MacArthur (Irving, TX)
College:	Oklahoma
Supplemental draft:	1987 / Round: 1
Career history
Seattle Seahawks (1987–1989)
Career highlights and awards
2× Dick Butkus Award winner (1985, 1986) 2× Consensus All-American (1985, 1986) Academic All-American (1986) All-Big 8 (1984, 1985, 1986)
Career NFL statistics
Tackles: 160 Quarterback sacks: 4.0 Fumble Recoveries: 3 Player stats at NFL.com
Player stats at PFR
College Football Hall of Fame

Brian Keith Bosworth (born March 9, 1965), nicknamed "The Boz," is an American former professional football player who played as a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks in the National Football League (NFL). Bosworth played college football for the University of Oklahoma, and was a two-time consensus All-American. He gained fame and notoriety through his flamboyant personality, controversial comments about the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and radical hair cuts. Bosworth was less successful in the NFL and injuries forced him to retire after three seasons.

Early years

Bosworth was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He attended MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. Bosworth's childhood was marked by his strained relationship with his father, who was obsessive regarding his son's performance on the playing field, always pushing him and rarely expressing satisfaction.

College career

Bosworth attended the University of Oklahoma, where he played from 1984 to 1986. He was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American in 1985 and again in 1986.

Known for his radical hairstyles and criticism of the NCAA as much as his on-field play, Bosworth embraced publicity and controversy. On more than one occasion Bosworth referred to the NCAA as the "National Communists Against Athletes." He wore a T-shirt bearing that slogan during the 1987 Orange Bowl game following the 1986 season. Barred from playing in the game because of a positive steroid test, Bosworth unveiled the shirt while standing on the sidelines to the shock and outrage of many, including his own coach, Barry Switzer. He claimed that his use of steroids was medically prescribed by his doctor because of his injuries. While Switzer was known for running a loose ship, this incident was too much even for him, and he dismissed Bosworth from the team.^[1]

A strong-side inside linebacker throughout his college career,^[2] Bosworth was known for raising his level of play in big games. He was regarded as a great tackler, although he was occasionally criticized for tackling too high. The winner of the first two Butkus Awards as the nation's top college linebacker, he remains the only player ever to have won the accolade more than once. College Football News ranked him No. 30 on its list of the "100 Greatest College Players of All-Time." In October 1999, Bosworth was named to the Sports Illustrated NCAA Football All-Century Team as one of only nine linebackers on the squad.^[3]

In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Bosworth was a good student, graduating a year early and thus becoming eligible for the NFL's supplemental draft.

In September 1988, Bosworth wrote an autobiography, The Boz, with Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly. In it, Bosworth said the Sooner football program was laden with drug use, gun play in the athletic dorm, and other wild behavior. Although many Sooner boosters dismissed it as the rantings of a resentful ex-player, an NCAA report issued three months later confirmed many of Bosworth's claims, and ultimately led to Switzer being forced to resign.^[1]

Bosworth and two of his University of Oklahoma teammates were barred from playing in the Orange Bowl game against Arkansas on January 1, 1987 because they tested positive for anabolic steroids. The ruling was made by the NCAA, which instituted tests for some championship events and football bowl games that year in an effort to prevent the use of over 100 banned generic drugs.^[4]

On January 9, 2015, Bosworth was announced as one of the inductees to the College Football Hall of Fame class of 2015.^[5]

Professional career

Draft

Prior to his entry into the NFL supplemental draft, Bosworth had sent letters to various NFL teams stating that, if they drafted him, he wouldn't report to their training camp and he wouldn't play for them. As a joke, the Tacoma Stars of the Major Indoor Soccer League selected him in the 12th round in their 1987 draft, as their general manager stated, "Because we didn't receive a letter from him that he wouldn't play for us." Bosworth was interviewed on The Today Show by Bryant Gumbel shortly after word came out about the letters and declared his desire was to play for the Los Angeles Raiders above all else, saying he felt they fit his personality best.

Seahawks

Bosworth was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, one of the teams he had sent a letter of uninterest to, in the 1987 NFL supplemental draft and, after initially declaring he would stick to his promise that he would not sign, signed what was both the biggest contract in team history and the biggest rookie contract in NFL history at the time: ten years for $11 million. After being drafted, Bosworth sued the NFL for the right to wear #44 (the number he wore in college) and the Seahawks petitioned for a rules changes, due to a NFL prohibition on linebackers wearing jerseys in the 40s and were unsuccessful. Bosworth ultimately chose to wear #55.^[6] Long after Bosworth retired, the NFL changed its rules to allow linebackers to wear jerseys in the 40s in 2015.^[7]

Bosworth signed with a Seahawks team that had failed to reach the playoffs for two seasons (a 10-6 finish in 1986 was only good enough for 3rd in the old AFC West as they lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in head to head match-up). He appeared in 12 games in his rookie season, playing well for the most part, but became known more for his outspoken personality and appearance than his actual play on the field. Before the first game of the season, versus the Denver Broncos, Bosworth trash talked Denver quarterback John Elway. 10,000 Denver fans wore $15 T-shirts reading "BAN THE BOZ", but did not know that Bosworth's company manufactured the shirts.^[6] Later that season, prior to the Seahawks second matchup with the Los Angeles Raiders, Bosworth publicly claimed that he was going to "contain" Raiders running back Bo Jackson. During a red zone play, Jackson received a hand-off and, although Bosworth wrapped him up, proceeded to run for a short gain, knocking Bosworth to the ground and scoring a touchdown. According to Jackson, when he and Bosworth got to their feet after the play was over, he told Bosworth quote "next time, make sure you've got your butthole lubed", infuriating Bosworth.^[8] The Raiders went on to win that game, 37-14, thanks in part to Jackson's 3 touchdowns and 221 rushing yards.^[9]

Injury

Bosworth was forced to retire after only two seasons in 1989, having suffered a shoulder injury in the 1988 season. Team Doctor Pierce E. Scranton Jr. explained that "Brian was a twenty-five-year-old with the shoulders of a sixty-year-old. He flunked my physical." In 1993 Bosworth prevailed in a $7M lawsuit against Lloyd's of London.^[10] Lloyd's position was that Bosworth's shoulder was injured as result of degenerative arthritis which was not covered in his policy. Bosworth maintained his injury was sustained during a single hit.

Legacy

Remembered for the contrast between the hype that surrounded him and his brief, mediocre play for the NFL, Bosworth was named the sixth worst flop on the Biggest Flops of the Last 25 Years list by ESPN in July 2004^[11] and number three on NFL Network's NFL Top 10 Draft Busts. In the case of the latter program, Bosworth was one of the only listed players to be interviewed. One of his contemporaries, Matt Millen, defended Bosworth, saying that he remembers an excellent linebacker who simply had injuries catch up to him.

Bosworth made an appearance in the booth during the Monday Night Football broadcast on which the Seattle Seahawks hosted the Oakland Raiders on November 6, 2006. During the discussion, he asserted that he had no regrets about his football career, but wished that he and Bo Jackson had longer careers. He also said that he thought he and Jackson would have developed a good rivalry had they been able to play longer.

Commentator and acting career

Following the end of his football career, Bosworth decided to pursue a career as an actor. He starred in the 1991 action film Stone Cold and has had an on-again/off-again film career starring in several low budget titles such as One Man's Justice that went straight to DVD. In 2005, he had a role as one of the prison-guard football players in the Adam Sandler movie remake The Longest Yard. He also starred in Lawless, a television series for Fox that was cancelled immediately after its premiere.

In 2001, Bosworth joined the XFL as a color commentator for its television broadcasts. He was assigned to the crew which called games that aired Sunday nights on UPN, which consisted of Chris Marlowe on play-by-play and Chris Wragge and Michael Barkann as the sideline reporters.

Two years later, Bosworth was hired by Turner Sports as a college football studio analyst. Bosworth worked on TBS' Saturday night game coverage, contributing to pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage alongside studio host Ernie Johnson. He left the position after the 2003 season.

He appeared on episode 1, in the 2010 season of Hell's Kitchen as a dining guest.^[12]

In August 2014, Bosworth appeared in a Dish Network commercial with fellow former NFL'ers Matt Leinart and Heath Shuler where they pine for a chance to return to their more successful college days.

In 2016, he was featured in a Kia commercial with Bo Jackson, which spoofed their goal line run in.

Actor

Personal life

Bosworth married his high school girlfriend, Katherine Nicastro, in September 1993. The couple had three children before divorcing in 2006.^[13] He also has two nephews who played football for the UCLA Bruins. They both were signed as undrafted free agents, one by the Jacksonville Jaguars and one by the Detroit Lions. In 2010, Bosworth became a real estate agent for Sotheby's International Realty in their Malibu, California brokerage office.^[14]

On July 5, 2008, Bosworth assisted with the rescue of a woman who rolled her SUV east of Winnipeg, Manitoba.^[15] In 2009, he administered CPR to a fallen man in a parking lot until medical help arrived.^[16]

Brian and the Boz

In 2014, Bosworth was the subject of a documentary by Thaddeus J. Matula. The film, titled Brian and The Boz, premiered on October 28, 2014 as part of the ESPN 30 for 30 series and chronicled Bosworth's rise and fall as an athlete. The title of the film refers to an internal conflict Bosworth discusses during the film at length, which got to the point where the image he created for himself as "The Boz" took control of his life.

Much of the film focuses on a trip that Bosworth takes with his son Max to a storage facility in Austin, Texas, where Bosworth had rented a locker and filled it with personal belongings from his football career that he had discovered was sitting around his mother's attic. Special attention is paid to the T-shirt that got Bosworth kicked off the Oklahoma football team, as well as his recruiting letters and a scrapbook kept by his father Foster, which consisted of dozens and dozens of newspaper clippings focusing on his son's games. While going through what was in the locker, the two men reminisce about the past and Bosworth's fractured relationship with his father, whom Bosworth knew was proud of his accomplishments but also was extremely hard on him and, according to Bosworth, never seemed to be happy with what he did.

Among the other participants in the film were Barry Switzer, whom Bosworth still considers a father figure; several of Bosworth's teammates including Tony Casillas, who is particularly critical of Bosworth's autobiography; Rick Reilly, who co-wrote The Boz with Bosworth; and several close friends and family members of Bosworth including his childhood friend John DiPasquale, his daughter Hayley Bosworth, who followed in her father's footsteps and became a student-athlete at Oklahoma by joining the volleyball team, and Sooners fan and close friend Jim Ross.

References

External links

• Brian Bosworth at the Internet Movie Database
• Brian Bosworth at AllMovie