Lee Roy Selmon, the Hall of Fame defensive end who made his mark on the football playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, died on Sunday at age 56. The Buccaneers told the New York Times the cause of death was a stroke he suffered on Friday.
Selmon was selected by the Buccaneers as the first pick in the 1976 NFL draft and helped take the team to the National Football Conference championship game in the 1979 season and then to two postseason appearances in the 1980s.
He was selected for the Pro Bowl six consecutive times and was named the league's Defensive Player of the Year in 1979. Selmon was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the only player in the Hall of Fame who spent all or most of his career as a Buccaneer.
After retiring from football, Selmon became a bank executive in Tampa and served as athletic director at the University of South Florida in Tampa from 2001 to 2004. He also opened a chain of sports bar-restaurants and engaged in many charitable activities. In 1996, Tampa's Crosstown Expressway was renamed in his honor.
As Rich McKay, the Atlanta Falcons' president and chief executive and the son of John McKay, told the St. Petersburg Times after Selmon's death: "He didn't play at Miami or Florida. He was from Oklahoma, and he came to Tampa and played nine years, and they named an expressway after him. That's all you need to know about Lee Roy Selmon.”
Read more at the New York Times.
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