Bucs’ Lee Roy Selmon inspired Smith, Johnson

By Rick Pedone

Sports Editor

Two local men remember well Tampa Bay Buccaneers legend Lee Roy Selmon, who passed away Sept. 4 after a stroke.

Parkway Middle School administrator Greg Johnson and former St. Cloud High standout Marshall Smith said Selmon, a NFL Hall of Fame member and the Bucs first draft choice, was a special person.

“I’m still in shock since Coach (former Osceola High coach Bill) Sharp texted me the news,” Johnson said last week. “My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”

Johnson played alongside Selmon on the Bucs defensive line when Tampa Bay, after 26 straight losses, finally won its first game at New Orleans in 1977.

Smith knew Selmon as USF’s associate athletic director when the former Bulldog was a linebacker for USF’s inaugural football team in 1996.

Both Johnson and Smith agree that every good thing said about Selmon - his kindness, selflessness and tremendous football talent - is true.

“I have to say Lee Roy Selmon, for all his many, many accomplishments, he was the most humble and one of the nicest persons I have ever known,” Johnson said. “All of us who have known him are better because of him.”

Smith, who knew little of Selmon until he played at USF, said the former defensive end was an inspirational figure to everyone in the Bulls program.

“We heard the news at Notre Dame (where the Bulls played the weekend that Selmon had the stroke) and it was like a blow to your belly,” Smith, a property management executive, said. “We had just seen him speak the Monday before the Notre Dame game at a kickoff rally, and you never would have guessed. He looked fit.”

Smith said Selmon always spoke about others, not himself.

“I don’t know if I ever heard him say a word about when he played,” Smith said. “When you talked to him, it was always about your family or what you were doing.”

While Smith knew Selmon later in his life, Johnson, the former Osceola High coach from 1988-95, saw him in his NFL prime.

Johnson was a fifth-round draft pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976 and played with three NFL teams. He played at Leesburg High and Florida State in the 1970s, when Lee Roy Selmon and his brothers, Dewey and Lucious, became famous on powerhouse Oklahoma teams.

Johnson said Lee Roy had the reputation, as a senior at Oklahoma, of never being knocked off his feet during the entire season.

“I thought to myself, ‘Either that’s a lie, or they are playing some really weak opponents,’” Johnson said.

Johnson played against the Bucs in the 1977 preseason as a member of the Baltimore Colts before the Colts released him early in the season, allowing Johnson to sign with the Bucs.

“I knew they had a good defense,” he said. “It only took me one day of practice for me to find out why their defense was so good – Lee Roy.”

Johnson said the Bucs defensive line coach, Abe Gibron, was an old-school NFL veteran who knew how to motivate his team.

“Old Abe had a way to motivate a rabbit to fight a tiger,” Johnson said. “On this particular day, the offense scored on a couple of drives and Abe lost it, got in Lee Roy’s face and the rest of the defense and what he said, well, it was not nice.”

After Gibron’s verbal outburst, Johnson said the defensive unit, and especially Lee Roy, was ready.

“On the very next play, we had an offensive lineman with a shoulder separation, a guard with a neck injury and the helmet of the fullback went flying through the air. I still have never witnessed so much havoc done by one player on one play in my life,” Johnson said.

Johnson recovered a fumble and scored a touchdown for the Bucs during the team’s first-ever victory at New Orleans. Johnson and Selmon were pictured walking off the field together in a photo that ran in the Tampa Tribune.

Selmon, who played at 6-3, 256 pounds – about the size of an NFL linebacker today – retired in 1984 after a nine-year career. He led the team to two NFC Central Division championships under Coach John McKay. He played in six Pro Bowls and was the 1979 defensive lineman of the year. He was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1995.

Selmon later opened a restaurant in Tampa and then became involved with the USF athletic program, where he almost single-handedly built the Bulls football program.

Fittingly, the Bulls enjoyed one of their greatest victories at Notre Dame one day before Selmon passed away.

“He was the reason the (USF) football program became what it was. He was always running around and meeting people,” Smith said.

Smith said Selmon addressed those early USF football teams often, but he didn’t talk about football.

“He was obviously a man of faith, and it was easy to see that he practiced what he preached,” Smith said. “I’m not sure if he had any chinks in his armor.”

The USF athletic complex was named in Selmon’s honor last week.

Smith, who attended Selmon’s wake, said the most difficult part of Selmon’s passing was seeing the impact it had on his family.

“I played with Lee Roy Jr., who was a good player, and just to see how it was hurting him, it was hard not to lose it,” Smith said.

Smith, a state wrestling champion at St. Cloud High who graduated from USF in 2000, was the recipient of the first Lee Roy Selmon Award after his freshman season in 1997. The award symbolizes the determination to succeed.

“I’ve received a lot of awards for different things, but that is the one I keep on my desk,” Smith said.