He stood there in jersey number 34, a statuesque figure (6′3″, 210 pounds) on thick, dark, muscled legs. It was September 3, 1968, my first day as a sports writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press, the opening day of football practice at Santa Barbara High School, and the first time I laid eyes on Sam Cunningham. I had played football a few years earlier and never saw a player like him. He was scary but beautiful.
Scary in the tumult of a football game — he would pummel people with devastating blocks and explosive runs. Beautiful off the field — he was friendly and approachable, as nice a man as you’d want to meet. It was as if his parents, Mabel and Sam Sr., migrants from Tennessee and Texas, channeled Santa Barbara’s gentle sunshine into their formidable son.
After scoring 39 touchdowns as fullback and making countless tackles as linebacker for the Santa Barbara Dons, he headed off to USC and became “Sam Bam.” His college career was bookended by two epic performances — his 135-yard foray against Alabama in 1970 that changed attitudes in the Deep South, and his four touchdowns on magnificent headlong dives through the Ohio State defense in the 1973 Rose Bowl. Then he played nine seasons in the NFL and set the career rushing record for the New England Patriots.