December 17 RIP

Well, the first name on our list today is Simon Bolivar, who died on this date in 1830, at the relatively young age of 47-ish.  He's known-pretty aptly, I guess- as the George Washington of Latin America.  He led a bunch of revolutions against Spain, and gave independence to a lot of people in South America.  They didn't always hold onto it for long, but he did more than his share. 

Speaking of Washington, Grover Washington Jr. also died on this date in 1999.  He was a saxophone player, who helped start the whole "smooth jazz" genre.  And no, he was not related to either George Washington or Simon Bolivar, if you were wondering.  But he did play with George Benson, which seems to be about as close as we can get. 

From here out, we'll go with football players.  First on the list is Otto Graham, gridironer extraordinaire.  Out of Northwestern U, he was drafted by the Lions (yay!) but was interrupted by that whole WWII thing.  But that allowed him to play for a coach named Bear Bryant, which was probably A Good Thing.  Then he was signed by Paul Brown, who owned, coached and -ahem- named the Cleveland Browns (this was back in the days when they, like the Lions, were good).  He started out in football as a running back, but switched to quarterback.  He put together a career record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties.  Not bad, huh?  He also played a total of 10 years of pro football, and made it to the championship game a mere 10 times, winning 7 titles.  He also played a year of pro basketball, and won a championship there too.  Loser.  I would presume that he probably made it into the Football Hall of Fame, and I'd be right! 

Inn 2008, it was the turn of "Slingin' Sammy Baugh" to die.  Needless to say, he was also a quarterback, but he played for the Washington Redskins.  He helped make the strange concept of "the forward pass" a mainstay of football.  He also played defensive back and punter.  Needless to say, he also made the Hall of Fame.

And finally, we salute Chris Henry, who was not a quarterback.  He died in 2009.  He was a wide receiver, so he benefited from Baugh's innovations.  He had maturity problems, like spitting on opposing players, and eventually was suspended by the League for his conduct.  He still seemed to be unable (or unwilling) to get it together, and eventually he fell (or jumped) out of the back of a pickup truck driven by his fiance, and cracked his head open on the pavement.  Thus endeth Chris Henry.  It later developed that his problems might have been caused by multiple hits to the head, a common development for football players.  It helped draw attention to the problem, so maybe it'll be a good thing in the end.  Or maybe he was a jerk, and the hits just compounded the problem.  I guess we'll never know!