25 years later: David Overstreet remembered
Twenty-five years ago today, June 25, 1984, David Overstreet died. Drank, then drove and crashed his Mercedes into a gas pumps in a small East Texas town, creating an explosion that took the life of the Miami Dolphin halfback.
Ethan Skolnick of the Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel wrote an excellent piece on Overstreet’s death. Here’s the link: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/pro/dolphins/sfl-david-overstreet-062009,0,6384766.story
Overstreet was a Texas high school legend, a teammate of now-Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith at Big Sandy High School. He came to OU and muscled his way into a crowded Sooner backfield.
Overstreet’s son, David II, played at Missouri earlier this decade, and now Overstreet’s grandson, Quincis Overstreet, is a 16-year-old prospect at Dallas Skyline being recruited by OU. Quincis is the son of Dayetta, Overstreet’s daughter.
It doesn’t seem like 25 years since Overstreet died. Of course, it doesn’t seem like 29 years since Overstreet rushed for 258 yards on 18 carries in that wild 82-42 victory at Colorado. Doesn’t seem like 32 years since Overstreet shared playing time as a freshman with Billy Sims and Elvis Peacock.
But it has been that long. And Skolnick does a nice job of remembering a Sooner great.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
yeah, barry, thank you for the heads up! what a week remembering some influencial people from my youth – michael and farrah, and now a great story about david overstreet. i loved david as a kid and was very sad when we lost him. glad to have thoughts of him terrorizing opposing defenses came back to my mind.
wow that was touching….i know his grandson, he is a wonderful, kind, loving, sweet, person. Amazing atlete with many more talents than football.
I talk to my uncle(David Overstreet II) everyday and all we talk about is Football. He pushes me to be better than him and his father… I’m at Duncanville High School working hard and he calls me to make sure I’m not slacking off because he wants me to go to college… I talk to my grandmother(Johnnie Overstreet)about David Overstreet Sr. and when she talks about him she cries because he was a great person overall. This is a football base family we live, breathe, and eat football.
~Quincis~
my dad went too high school with david overstreet and i also went there and when i was going there big sandy still have his old jersey up and his pic up where evrybody remamber him and i here nothing but good things about him and we still talk about how good a player he was so he will be always in big sandy isd hero
It must have been 76 or 77, but when Big Sandy went from a Class B school to a Class A School, they had won like 200 games in a row and many consecutive Class B State Titles…The first game they lost to end that streak was to my school, the Arp Tigers…
I was in the booth that night, calling the game…
We won in the last few seconds when our kicker William Batte, kicked a 38 yard field goal to beat them…
Even tho we won, I knew I had seen a great back, maybe the greatest of them all….he gained like 250 yards that night…and kneeled alone in the middle of the field, after the field goad went in…I dont know if he sheeding a tear or what, but he wiped off his face and stood up, looked around, and jogged to catch up with his teamates…
Me, my son, and a friend of his, lived in Henderson. We had heard a lot about Overstreet and we went to Big Sandy once when they were playing Carlisle (Price). It was extremely cold and we sat through the first half. Overstreet scored every time he touched the ball and at the half, the score was 60-0. We were very cold and had seen enough of Overstreet, so we left after the 1st half. He made us proud that we had come to see him play. He was fantastic.
Thanks for the article, sad day when David lost his life. I had the pleasure of playing against David our Senior Year in High School. The game ended in a 0-0 tie, he was a great competitor.
It was a great pleasure watching da play for miami in 1994 I think against cowboys with my dad willie kaiser that was my first nfl game it was hot that day his wife purchased me a pop cycle at game. When my dad said he was killed that was sAD DAY
I remember watching Overstreet in the OU Texas game one year. It was back when you could buy OU Texas tickets from scalpers for face value. It was an overcast day, maybe even drizzeling. Worst of all, I was in the middle of the end zone in the Texas end! Texas must have scored first because I remember the guy behind me shouting, \OU sucks.\ OU scored soon and my girl friend turned around to the Texas fan and said, \suck that.\ Overstreet was a good one though. He looked like Derby horse… fast and big. Is it too soon to start recruiting David Overstreet III?