Wow-worthy moments from Part 1 of ‘O.J.: Made in America’
ESPN’s five-part documentary, “O.J.: Made in America” premiered on Saturday night with the first two-hour installment. Our review of the entire series is here, but here are some wow moments and revelations from Part 1:
O.J. Simpson never had a problem selling out his friends, and talked his way out of many situations. According to childhood friend Joe Bell, Simpson, Al Cowlings and Bell, all members of the football team, were caught shooting dice in the boys’ room one day at Galileo High School. They were discovered by one of their coaches, Mr. McBride, and the trio tried to get McBride to let them go, but McBride was intent on bringing them to the principal’s office. As Bell recalls, Simpson walked in the back of the group, trying to talk McBride out of it, knowing they might get suspended. When they arrived at the office, Simpson walks out of the room with McBride, and when questioned by the school’s dean on where he was going, Simpson says, “Oh, I was just helping Mr. McBride bring these guys down here,” and the dean let him go without punishment. Bell laughs it off as “self-preservation” and Simpson’s “smooth talk,” but we see film of Cowlings saying Simpson got preferential treatment because of his talent as a football player over and over.
In high school, Simpson stole his best friend’s girl. Also from Bell: Cowlings had a stutter when he was young and had trouble with girls as a result. But he got a girlfriend, a “nice girl” named Marguerite Whitley. Until one day there was a party, and instead of Simpson and his friends going straight to the party, he stops at Whitley’s house on the way and picks her up. When Cowlings sees Simpson pull up at the party with his girlfriend, he’s rightfully furious, but after a few minutes, Whitley tells him to stop making a fuss, and Cowlings does. Simpson and Whitley would get married when Simpson was just 19, and despite the deception, Cowlings remained friends with Simpson throughout their lives.
Simpson hated Buffalo. The Buffalo Bills made him the No. 1 pick in 1969, and the city in western New York was the antithesis of Los Angeles: cold, snowy, blue collar, no glamour to be found. Compounding things: the team was bad under head coach John Rauch (the Bills were 7-20-1 in Rauch’s two seasons as head coach, also Simpson’s first two NFL seasons), and Rauch tried to make Simpson into a receiver. One terrible one-win season under Harvey Johnson in 1971 led to the hiring of Lou Saban, and Saban turned the team around – and was smart enough to just give Simpson the ball in the backfield.
Simpson wanted nothing to do with civil rights and race relations. While African-Americans were inspired seeing Simpson in his Hertz Rental Car commercials that began airing in 1975, Simpson had no interest in using his platform to help further the cause of other blacks. While he was at USC, and a group of star African-American athletes were discussing a boycott of the 1968 Olympics and other protests, Simpson was approached by activist Dr. Harry Edwards. Simpson said no thanks, telling Edwards, “I’m not black; I’m O.J.”
Part 2 of “O.J.: Made in America” airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST on ESPN.
