Indeed, his athletic prowess went far past the moonshot blasts he launched together with his proper leg. “All through high school and college, I played other positions,” Guy mentioned in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech. “I was a good athlete and could have been a major league pitcher, or N.B.A. basketball player, but I knew God had something special for me.”
William Ray Guy was born on Dec. 22, 1949, in Swainsboro, a small metropolis in central Georgia, and grew up in close by Thomson. His father, Benjamin Franklin Guy, was a constructing contractor, and Ray helped him construct and renovate homes whereas he was rising up. His mom, Annette (Cato) Guy, labored as a schoolteacher’s aide.
At Thomson High School, Guy’s athletic feats turned the stuff of native lore. On the soccer staff, he performed quarterback, tailback, linebacker, security, kicker and, of course, punter, averaging practically 50 yards per punt in 1968, in accordance to a 2017 article in (*72*) Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (*72*) day after he had led the staff to its second consecutive state title, he scored 39 factors for the basketball staff, with out profit of a preseason. That spring, he threw 15 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the state baseball semifinals.
“He was known to his teammates as Wonderboy,” John Barnett, a Thomson historian and longtime assistant coach, informed (*72*) Journal-Constitution. “He literally could do it all on the field, court or diamond.”
Guy married Beverly Bentley in 1972; they divorced about 40 years later. In addition to their son, Ryan, he’s survived by a daughter from that marriage, Amber Guy; his spouse, Sandy (Lord) Guy; a brother, Al; and two grandchildren. He lived in Purvis, Miss., a small metropolis exterior Hattiesburg.
When he confirmed up in the N.F.L., Guy hardly regarded like a future gridiron star. A clean-cut Southerner with a willowy 6-foot-3, 195-pound body, he appeared like an odd match with the snarling band of West Coast misfits often called the Oakland Raiders in the Seventies.
Embracing a brutal model of soccer underneath the rebellious proprietor Al Davis, the staff performed as if doling out accidents to opponents bestowed precise factors on the scoreboard, and the gamers had been each bit as roughneck off the area. (*72*) star quarterback, Ken Stabler, as soon as rolled up to a Sports Illustrated interview in tiny Foley, Ala., at 9 a.m. in a Chevrolet pickup, frosty beer can in hand.
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