Oklahoma’s Mount Rushmore of recruits:
LEE ROY SELMON
Oklahoma football and the Selmon brothers are a relationship that will last an eternity.
First came Lucious, then Dewey and the toughest of them all came last, Lee Roy. The brothers from Eufaula, Oklahoma, staked their claim in college football and were the primary drivers of the vaunted Sooners’ defenses in the early 1970s.
Lee Roy Selmon was it, though. In a 1975 New York Times story, Lee Roy restated that during his recruitment, “We were offered money, cars, free trips, stuff like that. It was a car for each of us not one for the two of us.”
No, he wouldn’t say who offered that, but the services of Lee Roy were in high demand for good reason. The Oklahoma son chose the Sooners and Barry Switzer who Lee Roy said gave them, “nothing more than the permissible room, board, tuition, book fees and $15 a month that go with a full athletic scholarship.”
Selmon went on to become the No. 1 overall pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1976 after winning two national championships (1974, 1975), being named a consensus All-American and winning the Vince Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy. Lee Roy was a six-time Pro Bowler, three-time All-Pro First Team, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1979 and, eventually, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.