[Photo from Pro Football Journal]
Trigg County native Coy Bacon is part of the latest Black College Football Hall of Fame class announced on Thursday.
Other players headed to the Black College Football Hall of Fame are Jimmie Giles and Roynell Young of Alcorn State; Greg Coleman of Florida A&M; Winston Hill of Texas Southern; and Willard Bailey of Norfolk State.
Bacon was born in Cadiz in 1942 but moved away before playing football in Trigg County. After attending high school in Ironton, Ohio, he attended college at Jackson State in Mississippi.
He was a three-time Pro Bowler over a 14-year NFL career, mostly with the Los Angeles Rams.
Bacon played in the old Continental Football League before getting a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys. He was traded to the Rams in 1968 and was named the Rams’ defensive player of the year in both 1971 and 1972 as a member of the famed Fearsome Foursome defensive line.
He was credited with 130 sacks in his NFL career although the league didn’t recognize sacks as an official statistic until 1982, which was one year after Bacon retired from the NFL.
When he was 41, Bacon was drafted by the Jacksonville Bulls of the United States Football League
Bacon died in Ironton, Ohio in 2008 at the age of 66.
There is an online campaign to get Bacon considered for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. People can view the petition and sign by clicking HERE.
