Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Wizards just miss No. 1 pick again but land top consolation prize this time

Eighth-inning decision burns the Nats in a 4-2 loss to the Red Sox

The Wizards will pick second in the NBA draft. Here’s whom they could take.

Retired cop meets abandoned baby he helped 23 years ago: ‘What are the odds?’

I used to dismiss my mom’s advice. Then I found a note she wrote before she died.  

Photos of his mom at lunch are a balm people didn’t know they needed

No, Apple, people do not want tech to crush everything in its path 

The urgent air defense lessons of April 16 

Are smartphones destroying childhood? It’s complicated.

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

Why Donald Trump ended up praising Hollywood’s most famous cannibal

Biden seeks to put focus on health care, infrastructure

Pentagon worried its primary satellite launcher can’t keep pace

U.S.-China talks on AI risks set to begin in Geneva

Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers

RFK Jr.’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test

The Trump-Biden battle over the 2017 tax cut

Can you spot bad financial advice on TikTok? Take our quiz.

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Social Security has to be fixed. But you still need your own savings.

Miss Manners: Should I accept offered seat swaps when I’m flying for free?

Ask Amy: Dad hurt by daughter publicly reconnecting with her biological family

Carolyn Hax: What’s the real cost of going halfsies on a modest engagement ring?

In photos: The scene in Indonesia after flash floods and cold lava killed at least 44 people

Trump insults N.Y. case prosecutor at Jersey Shore rally

Pete Buttigieg’s view from the middle seat

The case for eating at Italian gas stations

5 big travel lessons from an accomplished conservationist

Rare collection of ancient coins, locked away for 100 years, heads to auction

Why Spain will recognize a Palestinian state

Middle East conflict live updates: Israeli forces advance in Rafah; Health Ministry says Gaza hospital system will collapse in hours

US President Joe Biden Departure

As one of football’s most feared middle linebackers of the 1950s and 1960s, Sam Huff of the New York Giants starred in one of the most thrilling championship games of all time and became the first defensive player to become a superstar in the National Football League. The Hall of Famer, who also played for Washington and spent more than 30 years as a broadcaster for the team, died Nov. 13 at a hospital in Winchester, Va. He was 87.

The death was announced by his daughter, Catherine Huff Myers. He had been diagnosed with dementia in 2013.

Mr. Huff, who grew up in a coal-mining camp in West Virginia, spent 13 years in the NFL as a menacing figure on defense, racing sideline-to-sideline to make tackles and intercept passes as he helped define the key position of middle linebacker. Wearing his familiar No. 70, the handsome, affable and fierce Mr. Huff acquired the visibility and fame previously reserved for quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers.

“I had an enviable job,” he said in 1968. “We made defense famous.”

During his eight seasons in New York, Mr. Huff helped lead his team to one NFL title and to five other championship games in which the Giants fell short. He became known for his rugged one-on-one battles with the top running backs of the era, Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns and Jim Taylor of the Green Bay Packers.

In describing how to stop Brown, often considered the greatest ball carrier in football history, Mr. Huff uttered one of the sport’s most famous quips: “All you can do is grab hold, hang on and wait for help.”

Mr. Huff was a marquee name in what has become known as the “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/daily/dec99/25/gildea25.htm" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Greatest Game Ever Played</a>” — the 1958 NFL championship game, in which his Giants lost in sudden-death overtime to the Baltimore Colts, 23-17.

That game, which transfixed millions of television viewers, became a turning point in securing professional football’s long-term popularity on TV, ultimately making it the country’s top spectator sport.

In 1959, Mr. Huff was named the NFL’s top linebacker and was the second pro football player to be featured on the <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19591130,00.html">cover of Time magazine</a>, after Detroit Lions quarterback Bobby Layne five years earlier.

“He became the first glamour middle linebacker on the first glamour defense, playing in New York City at the dawn of television’s love affair with pro football,” Hall of Fame coach <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/02/13/coach-tom-landry-dies/df4c2e74-1b1d-4d4c-be41-8f3b4007f2d6/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Tom Landry</a>, his defensive mentor in New York, wrote in an introduction to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-too-long-sports-journalists-glossed-over-footballs-violence-i-was-one-of-them/2013/10/18/b5fc41d2-2f84-11e3-bbed-a8a60c601153_story.html?utm_term=.73ef7502b71a">Mr. Huff’s 1988 autobiography, “Tough Stuff.” </a>

“All those factors — his talent as a player, his name, his personality, the success of the team, the city, the TV explosion — converged at the same time in Sam Huff, a new kind of football star.”

He gained another level of fame in 1960, when CBS News wired him for sound for a full-contact special report, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKeAX9rmzbk" title="www.youtube.com">The Violent World of Sam Huff</a>.”

“Today you will play pro football, riding on Sam Huff’s broad back,” said the narrator, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/17/AR2009071703345.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Walter Cronkite</a>, who later became the anchor of the CBS Evening News.

A radio transmitter was placed inside Mr. Huff’s shoulder pads, bringing viewers inside the blunt-force drama of pro football. Mr. Huff’s high-pitched voice — alternately threatening, encouraging and funny — was heard after almost every play on the field.

“What did you do that for, 88?” Mr. Huff shouted at a player for the Chicago Bears, calling him by his uniform number. “If you do that one more time, 88, I’m going to sock you one! Now, don’t do that. You run it again, you’re going to get a broken nose. Don’t do that, hit me on the chin with your elbow.”

“The Violent World of Sam Huff” vividly revealed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-too-long-sports-journalists-glossed-over-footballs-violence-i-was-one-of-them/2013/10/18/b5fc41d2-2f84-11e3-bbed-a8a60c601153_story.html?utm_term=.73ef7502b71a">the brutality of football</a> and the personalities of players in a way that had never been seen before.

“Huff was an outsized character, with enough ambition on and off the field to frighten the faint of heart,” author Mark Bowden wrote in “The Best Game Ever,” his 2008 book about the 1958 NFL championship. “He was outspoken, brash, and unapologetic . . . He played football with unmatched ferocity, reveling in the game’s violence.”

Robert Lee Huff was born Oct. 4, 1934, in Edna Gas, W.Va., where he grew up in Coal Camp No. 9, the fourth of sixth children. His father and two of his brothers worked in the coal mines.

Mr. Huff became known as Sam at an early age, although “to this day I have no idea how I got my real name, or the nickname,” he noted in his 1988 autobiography, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-too-long-sports-journalists-glossed-over-footballs-violence-i-was-one-of-them/2013/10/18/b5fc41d2-2f84-11e3-bbed-a8a60c601153_story.html?utm_term=.73ef7502b71a"></a>written with Washington Post sports journalist Leonard Shapiro.

He was an all-state high school football player and, during his senior year, married classmate Mary Fletcher. When he received an athletic scholarship to West Virginia University, he became the first member of his family to attend college.

He was an All-American offensive lineman while helping his Mountaineers to a 31-7 record during his four years at West Virginia. He was a kicker for the football team and a catcher on the university’s baseball team, showing enough talent to sign a  professional contract with the Cleveland Indians.

Drafted by the Giants in 1956, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound Mr. Huff had trouble fitting in at first. He was too small for a defensive lineman and too slow to be an offensive guard. Seemingly overlooked and without a position, he threatened to quit the team and move back to West Virginia.

At that time, under the guidance of defensive coach Landry, the Giants were beginning to use a new 4-3 defensive alignment, with four linemen and three linebackers. The middle linebacker became the anchor of the defense.

After the Giants’ starting middle linebacker was injured early in the 1956 season, Mr. Huff took over. “It was like I was born to play the position,” he later said.

He spent evenings learning the intricacies of the team’s defense from Landry, who later gained fame as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

“Behind Landry’s complex system of blitzing linebackers and slanting linemen,” Time magazine noted, “is a single master principle: funnel the play to the inside so that Sam Huff can make the tackle.”

Mr. Huff’s stellar play helped the Giants win the 1956 NFL championship over the Chicago Bears, 47-7.

For the next several years, football fans debated whether the game’s best middle linebacker was Mr. Huff, Joe Schmidt of the Detroit Lions, Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles, Bill George in Chicago or Green Bay’s Ray Nitschke. (Dick Butkus, who later personified the middle linebacker position with the Bears, didn’t enter the NFL until 1965.)

Mr. Huff roamed the field, plugging holes at the line of scrimmage and dragging down runners going wide. In one game against San Francisco, he charged toward the 49ers’ Hall of Fame halfback Hugh McElhenny, who was racing downfield behind two blockers. Mr. Huff knocked all three out of bounds.

“It’s uncanny the way Huff follows the ball,” Green Bay <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/when-vince-lombardi-left-green-bay-for-washington-one-town-wept-the-other-cheered/2016/01/07/2c825474-b4b5-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">coach Vince Lombardi</a> — a onetime assistant coach for the Giants — said in 1959. “He ignores all the things you do to take him away from the play and comes after the ball, wherever it is thrown or wherever the run goes.”

Bob Daugherty

In a division title game Dec. 21, 1958, Mr. Huff and his teammates held Jim Brown to 8 yards rushing, as the Giants beat Cleveland, 10-0. A week later, in freezing weather at New York’s Yankee Stadium the Giants and Colts met in the “<a href="http://www.nfl.com/videos/indianapolis-colts/09000d5d8257cdbe/This-Day-in-Football-The-Greatest-Game-Ever-Played">Greatest Game Ever Played</a>.”

Mr. Huff forced a fumble, blocked a field-goal attempt and made tackles all over the field. Once, after he knocked Baltimore’s star receiver, Raymond Berry, out of bounds near the Colts’ bench, the Colts’ head coach, Weeb Ewbank, began to beat on Mr. Huff with his hands.

As time expired, the teams were deadlocked, 17-17, and game was extended to overtime: Victory would go to the first team to score.

As night fell over the stadium, the Colts, behind quarterback Johnny Unitas, drove downfield to the Giants’ 1-yard line. As Unitas handed the ball to fullback Alan Ameche, Mr. Huff slanted toward the left side of the Colts offensive line in anticipation. But Ameche ran off right tackle and had an open path to the end zone for the winning touchdown.

“I can still see the picture of him running through that big hole at the goal line,” Mr. Huff later said. “That still haunts me.’’

Soon after the Giants lost the 1963 NFL championship game to Chicago, 14-10, head coach Allie Sherman began to dismantle the team. Mr. Huff was furious when he learned he had been traded to Washington, which had a 3-11 record in 1963. (The team was then called the Redskins.)

“As long as I live,” he wrote in his autobiography, “I will never forgive Allie Sherman for trading me.”

It took years, but Mr. Huff was able to exact a measure of revenge when the Redskins met the Giants at RFK Stadium on Nov. 27, 1966. Late in the game, Washington was leading Sherman’s Giants, 69-41. With only seven seconds remaining, the Redskins called timeout and sent the field goal team on the field.

Head coach Otto Graham was criticized for running up the score, but Mr. Huff later confessed, “I took it upon myself to yell for the field goal team to get out there.”

Charlie Gogolak’s 29-yard field goal made the final score 72-41. It remains the <a href="https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32527277/chasing-113-points-modern-nfl-matchup-break-combined-single-game-scoring-record-how">highest-scoring game in NFL history</a>, and the Redskins’ 72 points are the most ever scored by a team in a regular-season game.

“Justice is done,” Mr. Huff said afterward.

An ankle injury forced Mr. Huff to miss several games in 1967, and he retired at the end of the season. After a one-year layoff, he returned to action as a player-coach in 1969 at the urging of Lombardi, who had become Washington’s head coach. Lombardi, who won five championships in Green Bay, including the first two Super Bowls, led the Redskins to their first winning season in 14 years. Mr. Huff retired for good after the 1969 season and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982.

In 1960, Mr. Huff campaigned in West Virginia for Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. A decade later, Mr. Huff ran for Congress in his home state, but he lost in the Democratic primary. He spent a season as a Redskins assistant coach, then took a job with Marriott, acting as a marketing liaison between the hotel company and athletic teams from 1971 to 1998.

Mr. Huff began broadcasting with the Giants in 1972 before becoming a color analyst for the Redskins in 1975. For years, he formed a popular radio broadcast team with his former Redskins roommate, Hall of Fame quarterback Sonny Jurgensen. Along with play-by-play announcer Frank Herzog, they covered the glory years of the 1980s and 1990s, when the Redskins played in four Super Bowls, winning three.

In 2004, Larry Michael replaced Herzog as the play-by-play announcer. In 2012, Mr. Huff’s radio schedule was cut back, and he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/after-nearly-50-years-as-a-player-coach-and-broadcaster-sam-huff-retires-from-washington-redskins/2013/06/21/fee86762-dac1-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">retired </a>before the 2013 season.

For years, Mr. Huff and his domestic partner of more than 30 years, Carol Holden, raised horses on a farm in Middleburg, Va. They produced syndicated broadcasts on horse racing from 1989 to 2016. Mr. Huff was also chief executive of the West Virginia Breeders Classics horse races in Charles Town, W.Va.

In his final years in the broadcast booth, Mr. Huff sometimes forgot the names of players or had difficulty recalling certain football rules and other minutiae. In 2013, he was diagnosed with a form of dementia, according to documents filed in court by Holden in 2016. That year, she charged in court that Mr. Huff had been “kidnapped” by his daughter, Catherine, who allegedly took him to a dental appointment in March 2016 and did not return him to his home near Middleburg, Va. The case was settled out of court, and Mr. Huff continued to live with Holden at their Middleburg farm.

His marriage ended in divorce. A son, Robert Lee “Sam” Huff Jr., died in 2018. Survivors include Holden, his partner of more than 30 years, of Middleburg; two children from his marriage, Catherine Huff Myers, of Alexandria, Va., and Joseph D. Huff of Fort Pierce, Fla.; three grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

During his broadcasting days with the Redskins, Mr. Huff sometimes railed against changes in the game, including rules to prevent head-on collisions and protect players from concussions. He remained a proud throwback to the NFL’s rough-and-tumble days of the 1950s, when players were known for their stoic toughness.

“We try to hurt everybody,” Mr. Huff said in 1959. “We hit each other as hard as we can. This is a man’s game.”

John McDonnell

Read more <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/obituaries/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Washington Post obituaries</a></b>

More than 30 regional and national journalism awards.

Muhammad Ali: The Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964

University of Nebraska,  (A.B., English)

University of Virginia (M.A., English)

Matt Schudel has been an obituary writer at The Washington Post since 2004. He previously worked for publications in Washington, New York, North Carolina and Florida.

Matt Schudel

The Washington Post

Staff

Jonathan Newton

staff

Search Death Notices

Place a Death Notice

Request a News Obituary

Obituaries

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline/American_football

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline/basketball

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline

iptc-media/sport/sport_event/national_games

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline/baseball

iptc-media/sport/sport_event

iptc-media/sport

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline/rugby

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline/rugby/rugby_league

iptc-media/sport/competition_discipline/soccer

client-blocklists/Client List: Morgan Stanley KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Becton Dickinson KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Amazon KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/CLIENT LIST: Nomura KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Boeing KWs 2021- INCLUDE ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Johnson & Johnson KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Bed Bath & Beyond KWs - INCLUDE ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Exxon Mobil  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/WaPo: Combined Disaster Keyword List - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: USAA KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: T. Rowe Price KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Google PG KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/T. Rowe Price KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Microsoft KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Basketball_legacyaux_k77

client-blocklists/HBO KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Ford/Lincoln KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Ronald McDonald House KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Discover Card KWs – INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Capital One (One Tech) KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Diageo - Johnnie Walker KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/ Client List: Mercedes EQS KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Organon KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Optum KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Football_legacyaux_75m

client-blocklists/ExxonMobil 03312021 KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Showtime KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Apple TV+ KW – INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client Neg KW List: Omega KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/PMI KWs 2021 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/GEICO KWs - INCLUDES ANY_4.26.21

client-blocklists/Client List: Eli Lily KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Citibank KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Citibank KWs 2021 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Purina KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Government & Policy_legacyaux_mza

client-blocklists/Bank of America KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/Client Keywords: On Running

client-blocklists/BP KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/National Instruments KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Intel KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_LGBT & Same Sex Marriage_legacyaux_l3o

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T Digital Divide  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Samsung 2021 KWs - INCLUDE ANY

advertising/B2_Politically Active - DO NOT REMOVE_legacyaux_lmp

advertising/B2_Politics and Policy_legacyaux_pay

client-blocklists/Google PG Competitor KWs - EXCLUDES ALL 

advertising/B2_Positive News_legacyaux_hlt

advertising/B2_Sports_legacyaux_sns

advertising/B2_State Governments_legacyaux_4lq

client-blocklists/Client List: Novo Nordisk KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Siemens KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Cisco KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T ALT KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Mercedes KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/FX Excludes All Disney

client-blocklists/Client List: Inpixon KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Boeing KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 12.23.20

client-blocklists/Client List: Google KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Philip Morris KWs - INCLUDES ANY 

client-blocklists/Capital One KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 1.4.21

client-blocklists/Bank of America Merrill Lynch KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T KWs 2021 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Chase KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Office Depot KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: ETrade KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

prism://prism.query/obits-stream&limit=20

The Washington Post Obituaries section has Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia obituaries, appreciations and death notices as well as historical obits and celebrity obituaries.

Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.

D.C., Md. & Va.

The Washington Post offers breaking local news, weather and traffic information for the DC, Maryland and Virginia metro areas, plus information about school districts, crime, government, religion, the lottery,restaurant reviews and obituaries.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/sports&limit=20

Sports

The Washington Post Sports section provides sports news, video, scores, analysis and updates about high school, college, and pro sports teams, including the Capitals, Nationals, Washington Football Team, United and Wizards. Post Sports also offers blogs and discussions about the latest sports news.