Chip Oliver
No. 56
Position:Linebacker
Personal information
Born: (1944-04-24) April 24, 1944 (age 79)
Winona, Mississippi, U.S.
Height:6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight:220 lb (100 kg)
Career information
High school:San Diego (CA) Hoover
College:USC
NFL draft:1968 / Round: 11 / Pick: 298
Career history
Player stats at PFR

Chip Oliver (born April 24, 1944) is a former American football linebacker. He played for the Oakland Raiders from 1968 to 1969.[1][2] He left the team to join One World Family of the Messiah's World Crusade, he wanted to, but was unable to, return to the team in 1971.[3]

Oliver played the son-in-law Richard in "Those Were the Days," a 1969 television pilot which was the second attempt to start a sitcom eventually titled All in the Family.[4][5][6]

Oliver was also the author of the 1971 book High for the Game: From Football Gladiator to Hippie, a Former Southern Cal and Oakland Raider Linebacker Tells All.[7] In a commentary on the book, Todd Tobias says "Oliver blasts professional football for treating players as pieces of meat, pumping them full of pain-numbing drugs and amphetamines, and then discarding them like common garbage when they can no longer sustain high levels of play on the field. In a way, Oliver was ahead of his time in his beliefs, and willingness to vocalize them." But that Oliver "loses vast amounts of credibility when he describes attending practices high on mescaline, advocates the use of LSD, and talks about smoking enormous amounts of marijuana."[8]

References

  1. ^ "Chip Oliver Stats". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
  2. ^ "Chip Oliver, LB". Nfl.com. Retrieved April 28, 2019.
  3. ^ "7 Jun 1971, 33 - Oakland Tribune at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
  4. ^ "Chip Oliver: Flower Child Back," The New York Times, Sunday, July 4, 1971. Retrieved August 13, 2021
  5. ^ Terrace, Vincent. Encyclopedia of Unaired Television Pilots, 1945-2018. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2021
  6. ^ "Those Were the Days" (television pilot recorded Sunday, February 16, 1969) – YouTube (via Classic TV & More). Retrieved August 13, 2021
  7. ^ Oliver, Chip (1971). Rapoport, Ron (ed.). High for the Game: From Football Gladiator to Hippie, a Former Southern Cal and Oakland Raider Linebacker Tells All. William Morrow & Company. ISBN 978-0688017880.
  8. ^ Tobias, Todd (December 16, 2013). "Linebacker-Turned-Hippie… High for the Game – A Book Review". Tales of the American Football League. Retrieved January 1, 2022.


Categories