Locker
ROOM
Eagles Found Likely Successor To Bednarik: LSU’s Bo Strange The Bednarik Award is given to the College Defensive Player of the Year by the Maxwell Football Club.
LSU’s Bo Strange was the twenty-eighth player chosen overall in the 1961 NFL draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles wanted him to replace their legendary linebacker Chuck Bednarik. He declined their offer and graduated from the LSU School of Medicine in 1965.
“Now retired in his eighty-first year, Strange lives in Asheville, N.C., and is even more confident today that he made the right decision.”
42 LSU Alumni Magazine | Fall/Winter 2020
Philadelphia’s search for a successor to Iron Man Chuck Bednarik intensified in the 1960 football season. Bednarik was nearing the end of a remarkable fourteen-year career as the last player in National Football League history to play both offense and defense. A trade was unlikely. Nobody in the NFL would give up a player that approached Bednarik in ability and accomplishment. He had made All-Pro eight times, an unmatched achievement in that era. The American Football League had burst onto the scene in 1960 to complicate matters. The two leagues would again compete for college talent. But the Eagles believed they had located an heir apparent: LSU’s Bo Strange, also a center and linebacker. His size, speed, stamina, and leadership met the criteria of Philadelphia scouts in their effort to find a replacement for Bednarik. Unfortunately for the Eagles, Strange also had the academic requirements essential for admission to the LSU School of Medicine. And his mother was rooting for the med school. Her oldest child, Virginia, had already reached that goal. Bo was the twenty-eighth player chosen overall in the 1961 NFL draft. By choosing Strange in the second round – ahead of such future pro stars a Fran Tarkenton – the Eagles had made a statement. Strange was a player they highly valued. They didn’t want to risk losing him in a later round. Philadelphia had seen his game film. The Eagle scouts had witnessed Strange making big plays in two all-star games. They were convinced that he could be groomed into a solid successor for their legendary linebacker. Bo had played only one college season— 1960 — as a center and linebacker, although he had excelled at both positions at Baton Rouge High. He was LSU’s starting right tackle for two seasons, including the 1958 national championship campaign. He was a second team All-SEC selection as a senior in 1960. It appeared that the Eagles were smarter than a tree full of owls. No other NFL team had scouted Strange as thoroughly as Philadelphia. But they missed one significant item: Strange was a member of the All-SEC Academic team. His major was pre-med. Even as competition for players between the NFL and AFL became heated, pro football was not in Bo’s plans. The AFL’s Denver Bronco drafted Strange in the third round, but they were never a factor. After the draft, Strange received a registered letter from the Philadelphia ball club. It contained an offer to sign a contract for $16,500 and a bonus check of $3,500. That was more money than Paul Dietzel was being paid as LSU’s head football coach. But after family discussions (his father was Clarence “Pop” Strange, a member of Dietzel’s coaching staff), Bo thanked the Eagles for their interest, and told them he was going to enter LSU’s medical school in the fall. He returned the bonus check to Philadelphia. “I told them I was going to med school at the Senior Bowl,” Strange recalled. “My sister was already in med school. My parents were educators. They made sure we were good students at every level. Our goal from an early age had been med school.” His brother David followed Bo at LSU as a football player and attended dental school. Although Strange planned to attend med school, he played in two post-season games – the Blue-Gray game in Montgomery, Ala., and in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., which were popular venues in the sixties for professional coaches and general managers. It provided them the opportunity to watch prospects in practices and games and to discuss the possibility of a pro football future with the players.
