 Sossamon pictured c. 1943 at the University of South Carolina | |||||||||
| No. 25 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Center Linebacker | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born: | (1921-06-02)June 2, 1921 Gaffney, South Carolina, U.S. | ||||||||
| Died: | February 11, 2019(2019-02-11) (aged 97) West Columbia, South Carolina, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | ||||||||
| Weight: | 207 lb (94 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Gaffney (Gaffney, South Carolina) | ||||||||
| College: | South Carolina | ||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1943: 6th round, 47th pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career AAFC statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Louis Cody Sossamon (June 2, 1921 – February 11, 2019) was anAmerican football center and linebacker who played three seasons with theNew York Yankees of theAll-America Football Conference (AAFC). He playedcollege football at theUniversity of South Carolina, having previously attended high school in his hometown ofGaffney, South Carolina.
He is a member of the University of South Carolina and South Carolina State Athletic Halls of Fame.
Lou Sossamon was born June 2, 1921 inGaffney, South Carolina. He attended Gaffney High School, where he demonstrated prowess on the football field.
Sossamon caught the attention of head coachRex Enright of theUniversity of South Carolina (USC), who offered him an athletic scholarship to play football at the school.[1] Sossamon attended USC from 1939 to 1943,[2] distinguishing himself as acenter on the offensive side of the ball andlinebacker on defense.
As a senior in1942, Sossamon was selected to theAssociated PressAll-America team, becoming the first South Carolina Gamecocks player so honored.[3]
Sossamon graduated in January 1943, becoming part of USC's first mid-year commencement — an expedited schedule brought on by the exigencies ofWorld War II.[4]
Sossamon was drafted in the sixth round of the1943 draft by thePittsburgh Steelers of theNational Football League (NFL), who made him the 47th overall selection. However, owing toWorld War II, Sossamon enlisted in theUnited States Navy, in which he served through the end of the war.[3]
During the war he playedservice football, first forBainbridge Naval Training Center in Maryland, where he was teammates with future NFL starCharlie Justice and later for the Pearl Harbor naval team.[4] He was placed with an outgoing unit to be deployed to the combat zone in the Pacific at the time of theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and subsequent end of the war.[4]
In 1946, Sossamon resumed his professional football career, "trying to make a little money to buy a house with," he later recalled.[5] He landed a spot on the roster of theNew York Yankees, a team in the newAll-America Football Conference (AAFC), a new professional league established as a rival to the NFL. Sossamon played for the Yankees during the1946,1947, and1948 seasons, spending his rookie year as a reserve and starting at center and linebacker during the latter two campaigns.[6] According to his recollection more than 50 years after the fact, his first contract paid him $10,000 for the 1946 season.[4]
Among Sossamon's teammates with the Yankees were futureDallas Cowboys head coachTom Landry and pioneering black running backBuddy Young, remembered by Sossamon as one of the best of his era.[4]
After his football career was over, he went to work for his father, who had taken over from his own father as publisher of theGaffney Register, a local newspaper.[2] He would spend his career as a newspaperman, buying theRegister from his father in 1968 and remaining in that position until his retirement in 1999.[2]
Sossamon also served four terms as a member of the University of South Carolina board of trustees.[3]
Sossamon died in Gaffney, South Carolina, on February 11, 2019, at the age of 97 of "natural causes," according to his surviving daughter, Kit Smith, who added, "basically of playing too much football."[3] She noted that Sossamon had been "spry and charming" until the last six weeks of his life, during which time his health had rapidly declined.[3]
Sossamon was married and had three children in all, later selling theGaffney Register to a son to make that publication a rare four-generation family newspaper in the state ofSouth Carolina.[7]
Sossamon was named to the University of South Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame in 1968.[8] He is also a member of the State of Carolina Hall of Fame.[4]