South Carolina’s first All-American, 94, scores alumni game TD (Video)
Lou Sossamon, 94, visited the end zone during South Carolina’s spring game.
The Gamecocks held an alumni game before the 2016 team’s spring game and Sossamon, the Gamecocks’ first All-American, scored a touchdown. It’s a pretty cool moment.
He told the State that the day was difficult to describe.
Sossamon played center and linebacker for the Gamecocks and was drafted in the sixth round of the 1943 NFL draft after he was an All-American in 1942. His professional career didn’t begin until 1946, however, as he served in the Navy in World War II.
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When his time with the Navy was ending, Sossamon played a charity football game hosted by Bob Hope in El Paso. He had been stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and he and his wife’s first child was born while he was halfway across the Pacific.
“Bob Hope told me he could get me home quicker than the Navy could from here,” Sossamon told GamecocksOnline.com. “We would have had to ride the train from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., to get home. That could have taken two weeks. So after the exhibition game, Bob Hope said he would fly me with him and his people into El Paso, Texas, where he was putting on a show. The next morning he put me on another plane that took me to Montgomery, Alabama. Then I caught a bus into Orangeburg where my wife was staying.”
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
