Kenny King...

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Don't look for bling on Kenny King


By GARY HERRON

Talk about playing on some great football teams, Kenny King was on a national championship team during his playing days at Oklahoma University and then on two Super Bowl champions while playing for the "Black and Silver," the Raiders of the National Football League.

Raiders fans - we know there are more than a few here in Rio Rancho and on the West Side - and Sooners fans (maybe one or two) can meet King up close and personal at Cottonwood Mall this weekend. He'll be signing autographs Saturday and Sunday from noon until 5 p.m. at the Ivan's Collectibles sports card show. (Look at the bottom of the escalator below the food court.)



King said he's been a mellow fellow since his playing days ended.

"Back in those days, I was a totally different person," he said. "I was volatile - I would rather tell you to go to hell then sit down and talk to you. Since I retired, I learned to be a regular person."

And, except for sitting behind a table inking autographs Friday and Saturday, that's how he will appear. He won't be wearing either of his two Super Bowl rings.

King, who turns 50 in March, was in the same OU backfield as former Detroit Lions great Billy Sims, whom he blocked for and actually gained more yards per carry when Sims won the Heisman Trophy (1978). While King was at OU, the Sooners were 41-6-1.

He grew up in Clarendon, Texas, which he said had a population of about 2,000. It was a culture shock to go to Oklahoma University, which had about 20,000 students, and playing in front of more than 70,000 fans.


"There's some great athletes that came out of Oklahoma, some great athletes that came out of Oakland," King said. "I've been blessed to play with some great athletes - and some great people. You learn to be humble and accept what you did as an opportunity.

"We were fortunate that we got to do what we did," he continued, recalling being a teammate of the Selmon brothers, "winning the national championship in 1975 against Michigan, my freshman year, in Miami (a 14-6 Orange Bowl victory). Every day, what we did and what we accomplished ... I would say my senior year was the most memorable because of what we did.

"We were the best offense in all of college football and we had a great defense and we played well and it was a team concept. We fell short in perfect season, when we lost to Nebraska. (But) in the Orange Bowl, we totally dominated them (31-24 OU victory)."

What was it like playing for head coach Barry Switzer, King was asked.

"Barry Switzer was a great motivator - he was a motivator of men," King replied. "He brought out talent guys didn't know they had. I saw guys come in as fullbacks and leave as Kodak All-American linebackers."



Drafted in the third round in 1978 by Houston, King (5-11, 205) was a teammate of 1977 Heisman winner Earl Campbell. King had just three carries in that rookie season.

"The Oilers had a good football team when I got there on 1979; Earl Campbell was in his second year. The year I got there we went to the AFC championship game against Pittsburgh at Three Rivers (27-13 Steelers victory). That began the demise."

In "The Complete Handbook of Pro Football" (1981 edition), King was described as "faster than a speeding bullet and just as lethal to opposing defenses." Former Redskins coach Jack Pardee called King the "major difference in the Raider offense," pretty good praise for a team many considered one of the dynasties in the game in the early 1980s.

There were some great times, King said recently, via a telephone interview from his home in Oakland.

With the Raiders, who obtained him in a deal that sent DB Jack Tatum to Houston, he was a teammate of two more Heisman winners, tailback Marcus Allen (1981) and quarterback Jim Plunkett (1970). The Raiders knocked the Oilers out of the 1980 playoffs after a 27-2 first-round victory. (Houston would not get to the postseason again until 1987.)




Being traded to the Raiders, who were stationed in Oakland and then Los Angeles while King donned the Silver and Black, was the best thing that ever happened to him in his career. King set a Super Bowl record, since broken, for being on the receiving end of an 80-yard scoring pass from Plunkett in Super Bowl XV.

Speaking about that game, a 27-10 verdict over the Eagles, here's what Plunkett had to say in "Super Bowl, The Game of Their Lives," about King's catch and run.

"We were on our own 20 and it was supposed to be a straight drop-back pass where I'd look for (Cliff) Branch, (Bob) Chandler or (Raymond) Chester. Kenny King was supposed to come out of the backfield and run a few yards downfield to clear out or maybe catch a dump-off if nobody was open deep. I dropped back and couldn't find anyone open.

"The clock went off in my head and I couldn't expect any blockers to hold off the Eagles' rush any longer, so I tried to get more time by scrambling to my left. All good receivers are taught to scramble with the quarterback and go to the side he's on and try to help him out, so both Kenny and Bobby went to the left. Kenny broke upfield a bit, to about our 40, and got behind Herman Edwards, and I was able to get it over Edwards' hand by a fingernail and into Kenny's hands.

"Kenny, another guy not known for his hands, grabbed it and went the distance."

Chuckling after being read that passage, King said, "If you look at the picture (of the catch) very carefully - we could have 'stickum;' I used 'stickum' as well - when the ball hit my hand, I bobbled it. It hit my wrist, then I was able to grasp it with my left hand and there was Bobby leading me down the sideline."

After his days as a blocking fullback for OU's heralded Wishbone attack, he said, "I learned how to catch a pass. I was able to catch but Jim couldn't run."

That big TD gave the Raiders a 14-0 lead at the half and the Eagles never recovered.

Three years later, King, Plunkett and the Raiders were in Tampa for Super Bowl XVIII. King was again a starter in the backfield, this time with Marcus Allen. King played sparingly, but the Raiders whipped the Redskins handily, 39-9.

The Raiders haven't won the Lombardi Trophy since.

After his weekend appearance at Cottonwood, King said he's driving to Texas for his mother's birthday, then driving to Denver, where he lived awhile before moving to Oakland, top watch his 13-year-old son's first football game.

King prefers to live in the present, which is why he doesn't wear his "bling" from the Super Bowl victories.

"The thing is, those days are over - the good thing is what I was able to accomplish two Super Bowls," King said. "I was blessed that I had the opportunity to do that. (But) I don't live the life anymore. I still keep up with the Raiders and what's going on at Oklahoma. I work a 50-hour week. When I left the game in 1987, I went to Dallas, (where) nobody knew me. I didn't wear the ring."

He said he enjoys being a guest at card shows.

"It's a lot of fun because every now and then you like to hear the roar of the crowd, mingle with the fans, the ones who saw you but never got to meet you. This is my way of doing that," he said.

"I've signed a lot of crazy things. (The craziest was) probably a bumper, a silver bumper (a fan had) to get all the Raiders to sign it."

Today's Raider Nation isn't getting what fans two decades ago got from the team, King said.

"When we played the game there was a mystique about the Raiders organization," he said. "After we retired, and into the 90s, the mystique started to go away. We lived up to that mystique."

King isn't the first former Raiders star to appear at Cottonwood Mall for a card show. In the past year, wide receiver Cliff Branch, plus Jerry Robinson and Greg Townsend have been here to meet fans.
 
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