Remembering Player, Friend and Enemy

Remembering Player, Friend and Enemy

Nobody expected to be writing a Gene Upshaw memorial now.
No one expected to be speaking of Upshaw in the past tense. As news circulated Thursday morning that Upshaw had died of pancreatic cancer at his home in California’s Lake Tahoe region, the reaction from friends and enemies was shock.
“I visualized Uppy being 80, 85 years old and still talking trash,” Raymond Chester, a former tight end for the Raiders and the Colts, said from Oakland, Calif. “He was just one of those guys that I thought would live a long, long time.”

nytimes.com
8/21/08