City College of San Francisco / Spring 2006

    He was one of the best running backs in professional football. It’s been almost 10 years since the civil trial of Orenthal James Simpson for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. In February 1997, a jury found Simpson liable for their deaths and the court ordered him to pay $8.5 million to Ron Goldman’s family.

     During the trial, defense attorney Robert Baker asked Simpson:

     “Now after you left Galileo High, where did you go O.J.?”

     Simpson: “I went to City College of San Francisco for a year and a half, and then I transferred to USC.”

     Baker: “Did you play football at San Francisco?”

     Simpson: “Yes, I ran track and played football at CCSF.”

     Baker: “And at San Francisco City College, did you do well at sports?”

     Simpson: “Yeah, I did well at sports at every level, but I think because of the talent that was at CCSF it showed itself a little more.”

     Simpson was modest. As the Ram’s running back, No. 32 set junior college national rushing records and was named conference player of the year twice. In his two seasons at City College, he ran for 2,445 yards, with an average 9.2 yards per carry. His career rushing record stood for 27 years.

     Today, few students are aware that one of the most well-known figures in pop culture attended school here — 40 years ago. Before USC, before the NFL, before his acting career and before the 1994 double murder “trial of the century,” O.J. was a City College prodigy.

     In 1966, he was the top story in nearly every issue of the campus newspaper. Reporter Frank Cooney covered him for The Guardsman, but he knew him beyond the playing field.

     “Back in the day, anyone who knew him thought he was a great guy,” Cooney said. Cooney later wrote for the San Francisco Examiner, helped start the Fox sports network, consulted for EA Sports video games and now runs a football scouting service.

     “We all just hung out together,” Cooney said of his relationship with O.J. “We played basketball, just a bunch of kids hanging out.”

     O.J. lived in various housing projects on Potrero Hill. In a 1976 Playboy interview, he said he was 14 when he joined a gang called the Persian Warriors. He often got into fistfights. After one altercation, he spent a week at the San Francisco Youth Guidance Center.

     “I wasn’t bad, just mischievous,” O.J. told Playboy.

      Cooney said he hung out with a pretty tough crowd.

     “But O.J. was a little different — he was social and amiable, but street smart. Marguerite (his first wife) cleaned him up as best she could,” Cooney said.

     Al Cowlings — the guy who drove O.J. through the streets of L.A. in a white Ford Bronco — was a close friend from Galileo High. When Cowlings dropped out of high school, O.J. convinced him to get his G.E.D. and attend City College. Cowlings went on to become an NFL star for nine seasons.

     “Back then O.J. set a pretty good example,” Cooney said.

     Those who knew him and saw him play with the Rams here had no doubt he would go on to the NFL.

     “We all knew where he was going,” said ’66 teammate and defensive lineman Kevin Devine, a captain in the San Francisco Fire Department. “At that time, all the kids who came to City played against each other in high school. We couldn’t even tackle him.”

     Devine and many of the other players on the team lived in the Potrero. The team, comprised of an even number of black and white players, was a tight-knit group despite the tensions of the ongoing civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.

     But, “winning is a magical situation,” Devine said, and the team won all but their final game against Laney College in the Prune Bowl.

     “We were a pretty good team,” he said, understating the accomplishments of a team that had seven players sign contracts with the NFL.

     “Teams like Sacramento would hate to see us coming — we’d beat the hell out of them,” Devine said.

     It was no secret that O.J. was destined to be a great football player; he set national records and rushed for 304 yards and six touchdowns in one game. Teams knew to target him.

     “Laney tackled Simpson every play, whether he had the ball or not,” Devine said.

     At City College, O.J. consciously honed the wholesome image he would come to be known for.

     “He’d wander the sidelines at halftime, talking to people and telling stories,” Devine said. “At parties, you’d see him drinking milk.”

     O.J. ranks forth overall for career yards rushing and eighth for a single season (1,365 yards) at City College. But in the years he played, junior college teams played only nine games. All of the players ranked above him on the record books at CCSF — led by Daymon Carter with 3,230 career yards in ’92-’93 — played 12-game seasons.

     George Rush — who has coached the Rams for the past 30 years — played with O.J. on the ’66 team.

     “O.J. was a good guy and a super athlete,” Rush said. Despite the team’s winning record and O.J.’s dazzling running style, few attended the Friday afternoon games. “The majority of the students just wanted to go home for the weekend,” Rush said.

     In the spring of ’67, O.J. transferred to the University of Southern California and improved his running game to 3,424 yards, 36 touchdowns and a Heisman Trophy in his two seasons with the Trojans. In track, he helped set a world record as a member of their 440-yard relay team and ran the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds.

     In 1969, he was drafted first overall by the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and ran for 2,003 yards in 1973 before retiring with the 49er’s as the league’s all-time No. 2 rusher with 11,236 yards. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

   His football career led to product endorsements, commentating for ABC’s Monday Night Football, and acting in all three “Naked Gun” comedy films. He also starred in “Roots,” the hugely popular TV docudrama series.

     Today, all of this is overshadowed by O.J.’s infamy as the accused murderer whose 1995 trial dominated
the media. His public image was destroyed despite being found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. His acting and sports announcing careers abruptly ended. Following his conviction in a civil trial, he moved into seclusion near Miami.

     The question of his guilt remains a mystery. But the image of O.J. during his City College years still lingers with those who knew him. “He was the greatest,” Rush said. “As far as the other stuff — who knows.”

E-mail Dan Sankey at dsankey7@yahoo.com

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