The Most FLAMBOYANT Football Player of All-Time

Intro before Dion Sanders was promoting himself as prime time there was Brian Bosworth aka the boss the boss the haircut the bandana his whole get up man it was was something that we respected in the 1980s there was no player more polarizing than this Oklahoma linebacker with his outrageous Mohawk bold personality people say yeah you're a different player on the on the field I wish I could be more the player on the field but uh you can't go around you know tackling people in in restaurants and supermarkets and stuff and devastating physical style of play Bosworth became a household name reaching levels of Fame similar to that era's rock stars and Action Movie heroes his meteoric rise was one of the era's most captivating storylines but unfortunately despite more hype than any Prospect in 1987 his pro career did did not go according to plan and seemingly overnight the boss went from Superstar football celebrity to one of the all-time NFL busts this is the story of the boss now really 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Bosworth app back in 1983 Brian Bosworth was a highly recruited linebacker out of Irving Texas initially he committed to Texas A&M however Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer was not going to let that slide and I had gone to Texas A&M and Coach Switzer I guess out the very next day and I'm sitting in my high school cafeteria I'm looking across and I see this this this cat walk in in a full length meink coat he calls me out Hey where's boss and he's got the rings on I know you want one of these entering College Brian Bosworth was a softspoken kid who just wanted to play the game but once arriving at OU it didn't take long for him to stand up for himself he started talking trash I guess is what you want to call it the first time I heard it or read about it really surprised us I called him on the telephone at school and and told him he better cool it I red shirted me my first year and he gave me 44 came up to me and he said BOS we we'd like to give your number to LEL car I think that's when my nuts dropped cuz I said coach you ain't giving my number away before traveling with the team Switzer recognized the traits this Bosworth kid possessed in practice from the tenacious style of play to his rare football IQ after the team finished up their blackluster 1983 season Switzer wanted boss as the team captain going into the 1984 season despite not having played a single down in 1983 due to Red shirting he came up to me um we're in a we were in a table just going out and he goes you know I'm these guys out here they're they're not motivated they're worthless they don't want to win and I need a leader and he looked at me and says BOS I want you to be that leader now whether or not you told that story to everybody else I don't know prior to Bosworth's arrival oh had been in a slump after dominating the 70s the early 80s had been rough with another Bad season Switzer was potentially on his way out he was in need of some big-time players to come save the day and Bosworth was the answer to his prayers throughout the first four games of the 1984 season reter freshman Brian Bosworth was clearly different sight lucky he didn't fumble the hand off I look at it as how much I can hurt the guy across the line from me and uh that's the way I approach the game I enjoy dishing out pain and I enjoy getting pain I thrive off the deep bruises the separated shoulder that's an enjoyment for me a step faster than everyone remarkably instinctual and played like a man possessed however Bosworth's first truly notable College moment came prior to their rivalry game versus Texas in a heavily anticipated 3 versus one matchup Bosworth said this before they played quote qu I like Texas people I just don't like Texas players they're cocky with so very little humbleness I just don't like their attitude towards football players I think they treat players like pieces of meat these comments became the first moment a Target was placed on this kid's back a Target that would increase in size over the following years and it was all sparked from a breakup the Texas thing that was really my girlfriend's fault because she decided she wanted to dump me the day before my first game and she goes well I'm going to date this guy from University of Texas I'm going but very critical to the story is the fact that whenever bossworth talk smack goodness knows Tony Casas and Brian Bosworth made him pay for it he always backed it up on the field his huge performance versus Texas including forcing a fumble in the third quarter but it looks like Oklahoma's football kept Oklahoma in that game a game in which ended in a very controversial tie where OU should have won and it is incomplete Le one foot inbound which he clearly does has both feet too bad for Oklahoma we know we beat him they know we beat him the score just didn't indicate that throughout the rest of the 1984 season Bosworth proved to be a star in the making being named second team All-American as he helped U reach the Orange Bowl The Following season was even more impressive Barry swisser said this about Bosworth in 1985 quote is Bosworth amazing he amazes me he blitzed one time and didn't get to the quarterback but scared him so bad he fell down Bosworth as a red sophomore was already reaching legendary status to look at Brian you couldn't tell that he's broken 11 bones and a nose and that's not even counting his own injury he took home the first ever buttkiss award given to the nation's top linebacker along with being named the big eight Defensive Player of the Year as well as a unanimous All-American his onfield leadership and play was a huge reason why Oklahoma ended up playing for the national title versus Penn State number one ranked Penn State struggled to do much of anything versus Oklahoma and bossworth was a big reason as to why he had 12 tackles in that game and played a key role in Oklahoma's National Championship Victory Bosworth's dominant 1985 season cemented his reputation as one of the most talented and physical linebackers in college football history his a aggressive high-intensity play style made him a fan favorite but there was something else going on at the same time The mohawk something that was taking a life of its own Bosworth arrived to Oklahoma with a Shaggy hairstyle and kept a rather formal style throughout 1984 but according to his book The Boss Confessions of a modern anti-hero quote after the first game in 1985 Bosworth down in the dumps because of his poor performance felt like he needed to change something starting with a simple idea of having his hair short on the sides with the hair standing up on top week after week him and his Barber kept modifying it going for a more bold appearance as time went on eventually it ended up as a bleached mohawk before the end of the season it had garnered local popularity amongst U fans but with the Countrywide recognition during the national championship this is really where the story of his hair really began to explode in the aftermath of winning the national title Bosworth became close with a sports agent Gary Ward Bosworth was interested in receiving more attention and Ward who saw a massive marketing opportunity on the horizon helped BOS push the agenda to its limits the buildup to the 1986 season was one big promotional campaign for this developing image of Brian Bosworth it landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated considering how outlandish some of these photos were Bosworth had entered unprecedented territory for a college football player you just didn't see this level of self-promotion and silliness from college athletes at this time and it couldn't have had better timing the mid 80s was a wacky colorful era infused with action movie stars Miami Vice and an overall demand for fun personalities Bosworth's developing image at the time perfectly fit that criteria this cut is like a rebellion cut this is a rebellion against my old image this is rebellion against my parents Society itself really which took his popularity beyond the grid iron and into pop culture no longer was he just a great football player he was an icon week after week throughout 1986 Oklahoma was routinely placed on national TV and as time progressed Bosworth kept adding more to the look but it's no question that is the biggest Boomer Sooner of them all in terms of publicity when he may leave the country in pierced earrings but there's no denying that he's one heck of a football player here's another quote from his book quote I'm not sure what happened after that except this haircut of mine started exploding on top of people's heads all over the country it was a weird feeling knowing you'd start some sort of national Trend I felt like the Beatles or somebody it wasn't a great feeling though because so many people looked like turds in it then somebody started started calling it The Boss Bosworth's dad who despised the look was at Sears one day and saw a kid sporting the exact same look he went up to the little kid and asked where did you get that haircut son oh man this is the BOS the kid said everybody's got one his dad thought the Earth was being invaded kids loved it but like his father not everyone was thrilled about this image of the boss remember how I said he had this Target on his back since those comments he made about Texas in 1984 well with the image Bosworth created combined with defending a national championship while also continuing to make comments about his opponents you can just imagine how big that Target was in a number one versus number two matchup versus Miami the Hurricanes got the best of the Sooners Bosworth had a heroic performance in the loss with over 20 tackles he wanted that didn't he and Bosworth didn't want to let him have it but that didn't stop the crowd from uniting together against them later in the season while playing in Boulder Colorado fans threw oranges at Bosworth during the game here come the ores out of the Colorado section I ran around the corner and I made a play out there on the sideline and I came around to the you know to the the the student section and I saw them up there and I just gave them one of these you know and some idiot in The Stance threw a frozen Coke bottle and hit that tror in the head and they had to stop the game and I said oh my God my my actions are now affecting the game game was over with 28 to nothing coach switch was over on the sideline and I'm standing over there next to him and and he goes hell boss don't stand next to me something me despite the noise around the boss he was still playing at an extremely high level so much so that as a linebacker he was a Heisman finalist despite the award primarily featuring offensive players and he was named a unanimous All-American and butus award winner once again to this day he's the only two-time winner of the award however his college career would come to a disgraceful conclusion Bosworth was busted for steroids and was ruled out of the orange bow frustrated with this ruling as Bosworth has stated later on he let the boss take over this shirt that he wore on the sidelines cost him the rest of his career at Oklahoma to call the NCA a bunch of Russian Communists is a wild thing to say some will defend bossworth and say that he was ahead of his time for standing up against the NCAA for taking advantage of athletes for decades but Bosworth himself admits he deeply regrets his actions in the aftermath Barry Switzer who was known to let a lot of things go dismissed him from the team and Bosworth had no choice but to get ready for the NFL keep in mind this happened in a day and age where players loved representing their college programs and most of the best players played through their senior years so this was a huge blow to Bosworth personally in a strategic attempt to play for a good NFL team Bosworth waited till after the NFL draft to declare making him eligible for the supplemental draft and his agent sent letters to 23 of the franchises telling them that if they drafted Bosworth he was not going to play for them the problem was Bosworth had no leverage since he wasn't going to be playing at Oklahoma after being dismissed so when the Seahawks won the rights to select Bosworth they drafted him Seattle was one of the teams who Bosworth told he would not play for this led to initial controversy over the pick was he going to play for them hold out demand a trade well eventually he The boss signed the biggest contract in team history at the time throughout the buildup to his rookie season kicking off the boss kept up the photo shoots arrived in a helicopter to practice allegedly alienated others on the team and in typical Bosworth fashion called out John Elway for his first career game I really don't know John personally um there are some people in this world that chemically you just do not get along with whether it be for one reason or another although the Seahawks lost that game this turned out to be a genius marketing move as 15,000 Broncos fans bought anti- boss shirts for the game which were sold to them by Bosworth's company he used a similar calling out tactic with Bo Jackson later in the season which turned out to be an all-time infamously bad idea the hype for the Monday night showdown between the Raiders and Seahawks was off the charts in large part due to the drama surrounding the comments made by Bosworth throughout the game Bo Jackson dominated and one particular play stands out Above the Rest third and one from the two here's Bo and there goes Bo for the touchdown this moment to this day is both players most talked about moment on the football field legendary for Bo Jackson and ter terrible for the boss they even poked fun at it in a somewhat recent commercial thanks for not running me over you mean again the boss image by this point had really started to take its toll on Brian Bosworth the person playing the character of the boss led him to becoming one of the most polarizing players in the sport something he struggled to live up to as it took a life of its own he also ended up Burning Bridges with those closest to him that autobiography that I've referenced throughout this video was published back in 1988 in it Bosworth said that the Sooner football program was rampant with drug use guns and other wild Behavior this eventually led to an insa investigation which later led to Barry Switzer being forced to resign but I have come to conclusion that my resignation is in the best interest of the football program of the university in Barry Switzer to this day this has had huge implications on the relationship between former OU players and Brian Bosworth and it's something that Bosworth himself regrets I think I've shamed the program in a lot of ways and I want to apologize to each and every one of you guys for the things I did overall due to Chronic shoulder problems Bosworth's career in the NFL only lasted 24 games and they didn't think that there would be any cartilage damage and uh when they went inside they saw that U my joint had a hole in it and there was a piece of cartilage kind of like a rip in a shirt he was great at times but the lack of longevity combined with being more known for his Antics has led many people to consider him a huge bust the boss image continued to live on through Hollywood Bosworth became known as a baction movie guy with his biggest hit being the 1991 film Stone Cold later he played a role in The Longest Yard and as has continued to be featured in shows and commercials periodically ever since like many people who were too young to live back in the boss era I learned about him through the ESPN 30 for30 film if you haven't seen it I highly suggest checking it out as it goes way more into depth about the personal struggle Brian dealt with throughout his life especially with his father it can be purchased for just $3 on YouTube BOS is your basic non-conformist though he does like fast cars but that's BOS everything he does is flashy including his haircut he designed it himself the Arnold Schwarzenegger Commando cut with a mohawk ponytail it makes him look like a bad dude and play like a bad dude [Music]