Meeting OJ Simpson

How a seemingly fine guy descended into mortal sin

Note: this a bonus Tuesday Morning Quarterback, not paywalled because the issue is of high public interest.

Previously scheduled TMQs run on April 23 and April 30; All Predictions Wrong is ongoing.

I felt so, so cool. I was a college dropout in a high-end bar near the university district of Buffalo, New York -- yes there are high-end places in Buffalo -- and I’d struck up a conversation with OJ Simpson.

The Bills had just defeated the then-Baltimore Colts, attaining a 4-1 record. Simpson rushed for 166 yards. All Buffalo was feeling good. OJ was feeling good.

I said something cool, really cool, like “Juice, dug you against the Colts.”

Simpson said thanks and bought me a drink. My coolness was practically radiating through the walls out into the street.

Around Buffalo, Simpson was a regular on the city’s nightlife scene, including Mulligan’s and The Library. It was widely believed OJ was chasing women other than his wife. Whether this was true, I had no idea. Later, as a journalist, I learned to be skeptical of information sourced as: “Well, everyone knows that…”

Simpson also had a reputation for being friendly to anyone who walked up, not acting annoyed when gawkers intruded, remembering names and being glad to see you. He seemed genuinely to like people.

When Simpson later committed mortal sins, I often reflected on how he changed from good-natured playboy to monster.

OJ Simpson, 1947-2024. Nicole Brown, 1959-1994.

Simpson’s arrival in beleaguered Buffalo had been a huge thrill to the community.

Erik Brady, who grew up near Simpson’s home during his Bills days, and today writes a Buffalo nostalgia column for the Buffalo News, last week said, “In his playing days, Simpson gave our rust-belt town a taste of Hollywood glitter.. [then he] stole our fond memories of him.”

During his Buffalo years Simpson lived in Amherst, a pleasant leafy suburb. Through my two years being dropped out of college – I needed to work and save money, to reenroll and finish – for a while I was the bartender at Creekview Restaurant, not far from OJ’s house.

Insider tip: if you’re in Buffalo, try the Creekview A babbling brook runs by the dining room, can be seen (and heard) from within.

Simpson stopped by now and then for dinner – never with his wife of the time, whom he’d married at age 19. He recognized me from the Creekview and said he’d bought me a drink because I’d been nice to him at the bar.

OJ Simpson recognized me!

What might have caused him to descend from a charmed life – handsome college football star, first pick in the NFL draft, pro football star, TV and movie roles, ultimately a national celebrity – to a man who in 1994 cut the throats of helpless people? One of them, a mother of his children.

Simpson was acquitted of the criminal charge of murder. The trial became a referendum on “do the police mistreat blacks?”, which they sure did then and sometimes do now, rather than sticking to the question of whether Simpson held the dagger.

Later in a civil suit Simpson was found liable for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. OJ promptly moved to Florida, where state law allowed him to avoid paying his liability for the killings. For remainder of his life, did nearly all transactions in cash in order to dodge his lawful obligations to the families of Brown and Goldman.

After Simpson’s death on Wednesday, Alan Dershowitz, who helped get him off at the criminal trial, had the unmitigated gall to say, “I want to send my sincerest condolences” to the Brown and Goldman families.

Anyone who knew or loved Nicole Brown or Ron Goldman must have vomited to hear those words from the mouth of a man who went to great lengths to keep Simpson unaccountable, while promoting himself in the process.

Perhaps we can posit that anyone who commits murder (as opposed to kills in defense of self or others) must be mentally ill.

Some jurisprudence recognizes the “crime of passion” concept – that otherwise good people may kill spouses or former spouses (Simpson and Brown divorced two years before the murders) because a surge of anger or jealousy overwhelms the sense of right and wrong.

But no innocent man whose wife was stabbed to death could sign a contract for a book to be titled If I Did It, a deal Simpson inked long after any passion expired. In 2007, Simpson committed armed robbery, for which he served nine years. That wasn’t a crime of passion. That was the crime of a diseased mind.

Surely OJ Simpson was at many points in life the target of racism. More generally, like most African Americans, he had to be better than whites of equal merit.

The college and pro football star Pat Summerall, who was white, achieved celebrity similar to Simpson’s, at about the same time. What Summerall had to do was convince audiences to like him. What Simpson had to do was convince audiences to like him even though he was black. That’s two obstacles, instead of one.

Yet racism however awful cannot excuse Simpson’s immoral acts. The New York Times page one obituary depicting Simpson’s life as controlled by race sinks to a new low. In the obit you’d swear Simpson, not Brown or Goldman, was the victim. Simpson, not society, was the agent of the crimes.

No matter who we are, no matter the stress we are under, no matter how much we have been wronged, taking innocent life is forbidden.

Millions of African Americans have experienced worse than OJ experienced, and never harmed a soul. Simpson’s name must forever be associated with shame.

Let me offer a brief timeline of his career till the juncture all went downhill, and then detail my conversations with Simpson, and about him with Ralph Wilson, 1918-2014, who owned the Bills when OJ played for them.

TIMELINE:

1968: wins the Heisman Trophy.

1969: graduates USC, is first pick in the NFL draft. Today many if not most NFL draft picks don’t graduate.

1973: becomes first NFL player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season, doing this in the old 14-game season format.

1974: Has bit part in the movie Towering Inferno.

1975: becomes spokesperson for Hertz, first African American to be the public face of a major corporation.

1976: signs Buffalo Bills extension at $4.7 million per season (stated in current dollars), then a gasp-inducing sum.

1977: is on the cover of Rolling Stone. Begins dating Nicole Brown, a cocktail waitress, while still married to first wife, whom he also met as a cocktail waitress.

1978: hosts SNL.

1985: makes Pro Football Hall of Fame on first ballot. See more on Hall of Fame below.

1988: becomes a movie star in the Naked Gun series, playing the hapless Detective Nordberg.

1990: becomes a sideline reporter for NBC Sports.

By this point a significant portion of corporate America is invested in Simpson – the NFL, NBC, Paramount (studio of the Naked Gun franchise), Hertz, all networks that run Hertz advertising. 

1991: pleads no contest to spousal abuse of Brown. Several police reports of Simpson displaying rage.

1992: Simpson and Brown divorce.

1994: kills Brown and Ron Goldman, the bystander who tied to save her.

1995: acquitted at criminal trial. Begins dating a cocktail waitress, with whom he will have a long relationship.

1997: found liable for wrongful death at a civil trial. For rest of life, engages in elaborate frauds to avoid paying the judgment. Will his heirs continue this disgrace?

The Wall of Fame at Highmark Stadium.

Now our conversation. (I am paraphrasing, obviously I did not take notes.)

Back to: Simpson recognizes me and buys me a drink. I feel so, so cool.

We talked about the two things young men talk about: sports and girls.

Sports: NFL coaches were beginning to experiment with the one-back, three-wide-receiver set. Simpson expressed disdain.

During his time with the Bills, Buffalo almost always used the “pro set” (two running backs in a divide) or I-backfield (fullback and tailback in a straight line). Then the NFL norm, both formations are close to extinct today. Buffalo spent second- and third-round draft choices on fullbacks to block for Simpson, which no NFL team would do for any tailback today.

Even in 1973, when we talked, Simpson said he knew the pro set and I-backfield were fading.

Simpson asked what I was up to. In my experience there are two basic types of celebrities: those who ask others about their lives, and those who talk exclusively about themselves. Simpson was the former, a reason he struck me that evening as a good person.

I told him I dropped out of Brandeis University because I ran out of money, was working and saving so I could finish college.

He asked me if I were Jewish, showing he was informed enough about academia to know Brandeis was predominantly Jewish. I told him no, that I went because Brandeis had a top theater department.

That caught his interest. Simpson said his favorite thing about USC was taking theater classes: that his goal was the movies.

Simpson told me the NFL lifestyle was great but he wasn’t making enough money compared to Hollywood, where even character actors earn more than NFL players. (Pro football salaries did not take off till the network contracts of the 1990s.) Considering he told that to a person he barely knew, presumably he told many people.

Girls: he asked me where in Buffalo to find girls. I replied that he knew a lot more about that than me and he laughed.

My only practical suggestion was the student unions of the University at Buffalo. He said that wouldn’t work because if he walked in he would be mobbed, surely true.

Then he said this, a close paraphrase:

Don’t expect to pick up girls on the dance floor or at parties. Sure you might get lucky. But chances are they came with a date, or with girlfriends they plan to leave with. Or are from good families. Make your moves on the waitresses. They wouldn’t be waitresses if they had a man to take care of them.

Countless men on the make have said similar things, and there’s no reason boys should not go fishing for girls. In light of future events, his dating advice sounds much different in my mind than it sounded at the time.

In the last few days, psychoanalyzing Simpson has become a national pastime. Much of the pop psychology has come from those who never met him, and want to twist his memory to serve one agenda or another.

Simpson grew up in public housing, ran with gangs as a tween. His parents separated when he was four. Later his father came out as gay, dying of AIDs when OJ was 39 years old, well before the murders.  

There’s a lot of pop psychology to mine there. But millions have some or all of these issues, and do not resort to violence.  

Most of all, racial symbolism this, racial symbolism that – please! The trial of the century, he represented America’s racial torment – please!

Simpson was a man, a man who became a sinner in our fallen world. I don’t claim to know where the talented, popular, charming man went as the raging monster emerged.

The infamous Time cover.

Let me state without claiming any special info: OJ was hit in the head a great deal in the period before the football world took traumatic brain injury seriously.

In his period, many safeties were “headhunters,” coached to hit the ballcarrier in the head. Simpson was playing when Raiders’ safety Jack Tatum, nicknamed The Assassin, openly boasted of giving opponents concussions.

At USC then in the NFL, Simpson carried the ball more than 3,000 times. Probably he carried the ball on hundreds of other snaps in high school and youth play. By the rules of the time, many if not most of those carries would have involved being hit in the head.

None of this is to excuse his sins. Many other running backs who were hit repeatedly in the head went on to lead virtuous lives.

But when you see the profile of football concussions and sub-concussive hits, it’s not unusual for a former player to begin showing mental decline, especially loss of self-control, at around the age Simpson did.

Today things are better – less practice contact, the targeting penalty, guys coached to “see what you hit,” which is only possible by pulling away from the head. But Simpson played before these reforms.

I will relate via paraphrase conversations with Ralph Wilson. I did not have a reporter’s notebook out, but he knew I wrote journalism and never put anything you’re about to read off the record. (He did put other things off the record, showing Ralph knew the score.)

I became friends with Wilson in the late 1990s, when he had a chance to move the Bills to Los Angeles and declined. If Seattle or Miami lost NFL teams, those cities would remain glamorous: at that time losing the Bills might have been a death knell for Buffalo. (Today the city is looking up.) Wilson, from Detroit, understood this dynamic and did the right thing by Buffalo.

I admired that, and told him so. Over the years I went home to Buffalo to attend many games with Ralph, and remain in touch with his widow Mary.

I lobbied Ralph Wilson twice: once about the stadium name, once about Simpson.

Though the stadium where the Bills play is publicly owned, Wilson had a contractual right to choose or sell the name. (Whether sports owners should have such rights as regards public property is a question for another day.) Wilson said he wanted to name the facility Ralph Wilson Stadium. I urged him to name the stadium for Bob Kalsu.

Kalsu, a Bills lineman, volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War, becoming one of two professional athletes killed there. Whatever one thinks of the Vietnam War, Kalsu’s willingness to serve – he could have used the pro-athlete deferment then offered – was honorable. I argued to Wilson that because the stadium was owned by the public, the name should reflect public spirit.

James “Bob” Kalsu, 1945-1970.

Wilson’s rejoinder was that naming the stadium after himself improved the odds the Bills would stay after his own demise. He could ensure that outcome, he said, by placing the Bills into a trust. But then on his passing his first and second wives and his daughters wouldn’t get his estate.

As it happened, the team was sold a short time after his death – Donald Trump made a bid, based on funny-money – to Terry and Kim Pegula, whose desire was to keep the Bills in Western New York, where their business interests were. After a period as Ralph Wilson Stadium, the field is now called Highmark Stadium.

About Simpson – his name in huge lettering is on the stadium’s Wall of Fame. (See more below.) I urged Wilson to take it off.

Wilson had strong affection for OJ. Simpson, the first Bills player to become a national celebrity (Jack Kemp’s renown would not occur till a decade later). OJ’s stardom helped put Wilson on the map. Opening weekend of 1976, Bills hosting Dolphins on Monday Night Football, ABC began the telecast by interviewing Wilson and Simpson at midfield about their friendship.

In paraphrase, Wilson told me:

When Simpson was arrested, I said the jury should decide his guilt or innocence. The other owners agreed. If he’d been found guilty, we would have taken his name and image off every aspect of the franchise. He was found innocent. Is that correct? I don’t know. I do know that’s what the jury decided. So his name stays. The Wall of Fame honors what players did on the field, not their personal lives.

Me in paraphrase.

But there’s a mountain of evidence the verdict was wrong. And many NFL owners have a corporate interest in Simpson remaining a hero.

Wilson:

I know, I know. Nobody is happy about the situation. But I said at the time if he was acquitted his name would stay. And he was acquitted.

I respected, admired and loved Ralph Wilson. But there’s no getting around that his refusal to face what OJ Simpson became diminishes Wilson’s legacy. Wilson’s estate is building a magnificent public park for Buffalo on the waterfront. That’s the legacy I prefer to think of.

Ralph Wilson wanted to believe all the awfulness OJ Simpson caused was somehow a misunderstanding.

Millions of Americans wanted to believe that.

Bonus: Political Hypocrisy. Simpson’s Heisman Trophy remains on display at USC, which is heavily taxpayer subsidized and which in 2019 was caught taking bribes to admit children of the rich. (See the “varsity blues” scandal.)

His name remains on prominent display, including on the Wall of Fame, at Highmark Stadium, where the Bills play. Highmark is owned by the public – the Bills keep all profits, of course – and a few years ago received $180 million (current dollars) in New York state taxpayer funds for renovation.

The renovation subsidy was approved by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, who swanned about saying he would protect women.

Any parent who takes a daughter to a Bills game in Orchard Park should point to the name and explain, “If you cut a woman’s throat that’s okay so long as you make money for the NFL.”

The Pegulas, who today own the Bills, have not removed the name. At this writing, the Pegulas have said nothing about Simpson’s death. Though have declared that when the new Bills stadium under construction (mostly at taxpayer expense) goes into use, it will not have a Wall of Fame.

Your writer is reliably informed this decision was made to prevent the Bills organization from having the remove OJ’s name, which instead will simply disappear in the new venue.

Other NFL owners – who continue to honor Simpson and also Lawrence Taylor, who plead guilty to forcible sex with a minor – are uncomfortable, perhaps considering their own sins, with the publicly subsidized being held to account. Note the NFL group wishing to evade accountability now includes the Walton family, scions of Walmart and principal owners of the Denver Broncos.

The publicly subsidized Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, continues to display a bust of Simpson – sending the message to young men, “Go ahead and slit her throat.”

Prominent sportswriters and sportscasters actively endorse the Hall of Fame touting Simpson and Taylor.

Institutional corruption at the Pro Football Hall of Fame will be a topic when Tuesday Morning Quarterback resumes in the fall.

Bonus: Heisman Hypocrisy. The Heisman organization continues to list Simpson as a Trophy winner. Though, down the Memory Hole has gone the name of 2005 winner Reggie Bush -- who never harmed anyone, only took boosters’ payments that today would be allowed.

The Heisman Trust pretends to be a charity that has “assumed stewardship” of the trophy. Donations to the Trust are deductible, meaning the award is taxpayer subsidized.

Here are the subsidized trustees who think it’s okay to slit a woman’s throat so long as you do not mess with their free money.

Bonus: Beginning of the End for Responsible Journalism. In 1995, Time magazine, then a big deal, ran a cover in which a mugshot of Simpson was darkened to make him visually frightening.

Simpson had done awful things – accurate reporting would convey that. Instead Time wanted to slant the case, a leading indicator of the present journalism reality in which every paragraph is an editorial.

After feebly contending the cover was “an illustration not a picture,” Time ran a full page apology.

The damage was done. When you hear contemporary journos lament how their profession has lost stature – bear in mind, journos are to blame.

Bonus: Barkeep at the Creekview. In 2017, I was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other than marriage and the births of my children, this was my most exciting day.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences allows fellows to suggest their own bios. I got a little pushback when mine said I had been “a bartender, bus driver and used-car salesman.”

Those experiences informed my life. There is dignity in honest labor. If only today’s establishment would keep that in mind.

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