Playboy Interview: O. J. Simpson

Only a few weeks before we went to press, the national guessing game surrounding O. J. Simpson's football future had at last been resolved. Simpson, who last June announced he'd retire if he weren't traded from the Buffalo Bills to a West Coast team, changed his mind at the last moment. With the pro-season opener a day away--and with the Bills having failed to trade him--Simpson signed the most lucrative player contract in the history of U. S. football. For him, it meant he'd receive a reported $2,500,000 if he completes three more seasons of autumnal glory; for the Bills and the National Football League, it meant that football's most spectacular performer--and leading gate attraction--would continue to dazzle the sporting public.

Quite simply, football has never before seen the likes of Orenthal James Simpson. Combining the speed and deerlike grace of a Gale Sayers and the durability and determination of a Jim Brown, Simpson has by now solidly established himself as the premier running back of his time--and perhaps of all time. Says Howard Cosell, "Certainly, O.J. has every skill a truly great running back needs. He's got the most spontaneous reflexes of anyone I've ever seen, he has an uncanny ability to lead his blockers and find that extra inch that will allow him to knife through, he seems to have instant acceleration and he also has the strength to break tackles. I wouldn't venture to call anyone the greatest running back of all time, because there are too many intangibles involved, but I'll say this much about O. J. Simpson: I've never seen any man come to the position with greater gifts."

O.J.'s career credentials bach up that assessment. Born in San Francisco in 1947, he became an all-American during both of his varsity seasons at the University of Southern California and set a number of N.C.A.A. running records to close out his undergraduate days by sweeping the Heisman Trophy and every other major college-football award. Following O.J.'s senior year, his coach at USC, John McKay--who this year took over the N.F.L.'s new Tampa Bay Buccaneers--said, "Simpson was not only the greatest player I ever had--he was the greatest player anyone ever had." USC's football adversaries didn't necessarily find such praise excessive. After watching Simpson zigzag his way for 150 yards through a vaunted Fighting Irish defensive wall, a Notre Dame sports publicist lamented, "His nickname shouldn't be Orange Juice. The O.J. should stand for Oh, Jesus--as in 'Oh, Jesus, there he goes again!'"

O.J. has made a similar impression in the pro ranks. His N.F.L. records include most rushing yards gained in one season (2003), most rushing yards gained in a single game (250) and most touchdowns scored in a season (23). Currently fourth on the N.F.L.'s list of all-time ground gainers, he has 8123 rushing yards to his credit in seven seasons and he'll move up to third place and possibly second by the end of this year. Although it's doubtful that he'll ever eclipse Jim Brown's career rushing mark of 12,312 yards, O.J. has come reasonably close, despite being used sparingly during the first three of his seven N.F.L. campaigns.

Aside from his consummate artistry at running with a football, Simpson has also emerged as the best-liked athlete in American sport. He rarely turns away autograph seekers, shows up at more than his share of charity functions and keeps himself especially accessible to youngsters. He is no less in favor among his peers. At Buffalo, he has repeatedly focused attention on his blockers and, as a result, such previously unsung players as Reggie McKenzie, Joe DeLamielleure, Mike Montler, Dave Foley and Donnie Green have been able to win stardom (and significant salary increases) on their own as The Electric Company--an aggressive aggregation whose duty is "to turn on the Juice." Simpson's appreciation of his blockers' efforts hasn't been restricted to flattering references in the press; following the 1973 season, he presented members of the Bills' offense and coaching staff with gold bracelets, a gesture that reportedly cost him more than $20,000.

Simpson could afford such largess, for in addition to the mere $300,000 salary he was supposedly then earning with the Bills, he was hauling down a bundle in other careers--as a sports commentator for ABC-TV, as a commercial pitchman for several companies and as an actor. He has already appeared in five films and has several movie commitments for the coming year. Does he have any talent? Says Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio, "Simpson is already an actor, an excellent one. A natural one."

But, above all, O. J. Simpson remains a superlative football player; and to interview the superstar of rent-a-car, the silver screen and the N.F.L., we sent freelancer Lawrence Linderman to meet with him in Southern California. (We also had interviewer Fred Robbins ask O.J. some questions about his acting career while Simpson was in Rome earlier this year.) Linderman reports:

"In June, O.J. and I arranged to tape the 'Playboy Interview' while he was in Palm Springs filming a series of Hertz commercials, but the timing couldn't have been worse. A few hours before we sat down to talk, he had informed Bills head coach Lou Saban that he wouldn't be returning to Buffalo in the fall, and what had previously been an informed rumor suddenly became the nation's hottest sports story. Simpson's decision had left him depressed and by late afternoon, reporters from all over the country were telephoning every few minutes to confirm his decision. We did precious little taping during the next several days.

"But the following week in Los Angeles was a different story. An hour after I arrived in town, a buoyant O.J. picked me up in a Rolls-Royce and drove me to his home. As we headed north on the San Diego Freeway in 65-mph bumper-to-bumper traffic, cars zoomed abreast of us, motorists honked and smiled, O.J. waved and I mostly cringed.

"O.J. cuts an imposing figure. Slightly better-looking than he photographs, at 6'1" and 212 pounds, he keeps himself in supershape by running and playing tennis and basketball. He is very achievement-oriented; and since he admits that about the only thing he can't do well is sing, he's working on that aspect of his game with the help of a friend, Bill Withers. O.J. has a distinctive sound, but who wants to hear a foghorn try to warble ballads?

"Luckily, Simpson can do other things. For instance, he can walk into a room and suddenly everyone in it is smiling and feeling amiable. True, celebrities always cause a crowd's pulse to quicken, but O.J. seems to make people glow as opposed to, say, Warren Beatly, who immediately gets people wondering if their sex lives are all they should be. People who know O.J. rave about his easy, up-front good humor, and I certainly didn't detect any chinks in the armor.

"Simpson and I stayed in touch throughout the summer, and he was plainly surprised when the Rams and the Bills didn't quickly conclude a trade for him. As the N.F.L. exhibition season came and went, his surprise turned to well-disguised anguish, A few days before the start of the regular season, the N.F.L.'s interconference trading deadline also came and went, which effectively ruled out any possibility of Simpson's being dealt to either the Rams or the 49ers--and at that point, the only team with a chance of landing him seemed to be the Oakland Raiders. On Friday, September tenth, Bills owner Ralph C. Wilson, Jr., flew to Los Angeles to talk with O.J.-- and their meetings provided the opening subject for our conversation."

[Q] Playboy: How did Ralph Wilson convince you to return to the Buffalo Bills? Did he simply make you an offer you couldn't refuse?

[A] Simpson: I can't say that money wasn't a big factor, but it wasn't the major factor. Actually, I knew Ralph was going to try to sign me when, a few days before the season started, he called to say he was flying out to see me; I told him not to come, but he insisted. I was still totally against going back to Buffalo so I thought his trip was going to be pointless.

Well, Ralph got to Los Angeles on a Friday and he, my wife, Marquerite, and I spent a good four hours talking at our house. His main point was that he had tried his best to make a trade for me but that it just hadn't worked out. He said he felt it was the wrong time for me to retire from football and that the Bills would like to have me back.

[Q] Playboy: Just how close do you think you came to being traded?

[A] Simpson: It's hard for me to say. Ralph told me he had tried his best, and I have to take him at his word. On the other hand, Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Rams, told me about midway during their negotiations--right after the Olympics--that the Rams wanted me bad but that he didn't think the trade would be made, because he didn't want to destroy his own team in the process. He was concerned about the defensive players Ralph asked the Rams to give up--Mike Fanning, who'll take over at tackle when Merlin Olsen retires, and end Jack Youngblood--because next year the Rams could be in the same situation the Bills are in this year: a lot of offense and no defense. They were also being asked to give up running back Lawrence McCutcheon and two first-round draft picks. Rosenbloom felt Ralph was asking too much, so the Rams announced the trade talks had fallen through.

I have to admit that, at that point, I was very upset. I'd gotten it into my head that I'd be going to work every day and coming back at night and seeing my wife and kids all season long. Don't get me wrong: Aside from L.A., I'd rather play in Buffalo than anywhere else in the N.F.L., because I really like my teammates. But I live in L.A., and I don't know a guy in pro football who doesn't want to play for his hometown team.

I was also upset because I didn't see why I couldn't be traded. I was just being told, "OK, we couldn't trade you, so you either play in Buffalo or you don't play." But other guys who've gone other routes--publicly criticized the management and coaches of their teams, things like that--have had no trouble getting traded. Players who have gotten into fistfights with teammates and demanded to be traded have been traded. There are players who have gotten into trouble with the law, and they've been able to get traded. So I was walking around, thinking, "Hey, here I am, leveling with the Bills, doing it die right way, yet I might have to leave the game just because I want to play in my home town." Right about then, I started wondering if it's true that nice guys really do finish last

[Q] Playboy: Is that when you considered suing?

[A] Simpson: I did seek legal help. I got a lawyer and found out that I have some solid legal rights. But that only put me through heavier mental trips, because I sure as hell didn't want to end my cared' with a lawsuit against the N.F.L.

[Q] Playboy: By playing the game, in both senses of the phrase, you no doubt picked up a fat contract for this year. Is the $2,500,000 figure quoted by Larry Merchant on NBC-TV accurate?

[A] Simpson: Merchant doesn't know what he's talking about. But if I may anticipate your next question, I'm not going to get into the terms of my contract, except to say that I'm very happy and satisfied with it and that I guarantee you that as long as I play football, I won't ask for another raise.

[Q] Playboy: You still haven't told us exactly how Wilson convinced you to return.

[Q] Simpson: Well, as I said, we talked a long time. He told us what kind of money the Bills were willing to pay, and when we had finished talking, I drove him back to his hotel. I still had no intention of playing for the Bills, but late that night, I changed my mind.

[Q] Playboy: What did the trick?

[A] Simpson: Things my wife told me. Marquerite said I had been a grouch for about a week and that maybe my pride was getting in my way. Pride can be a funny thing, because sometimes it can keep you from doing what you really want to do--and she thought that what. I really wanted to do was play football. I was still being stubborn about it, but we finally decided that if Ralph cleared up some contractual things the next day, which was Saturday. I'd leave for Buffalo on Sunday. Well, Ralph cleared those things up at breakfast the next morning, so on Sunday, I caught the first flight out to Buffalo. Ralph thought it would take me a couple of weeks to get ready, but I said, "Hey, Ralph, I'm going to play Monday night!" And I did.

[Q] Playboy: Did those things that were cleared up somehow negate your original objections to returning to Buffalo?

[A] Simpson: No; the major problem is that I'm separated from my family. The kids are in school and Marquerite doesn't want to be moving them in and out of schools in Los Angeles and Buffalo, and I can't argue with that. So she and our two children stay in L.A.--they visit me, of course, but for the most part, we're separated for five months. That's not easy on me and it sure isn't easy on them.

[A] Playboy: But aren't you home much of the remaining seven months?

[A] Simpson: No, I'm not. When football is over for the year, it seems like I'm always on the road, making appearances for the companies I work for and, in the past couple of years, acting in movies. I gonna do that, because football is gonna be part of my past pretty soon and I have to think about my future--which means finding another career. But all that keeps me on the road and has led to a lot of trouble for us. Marquerite and I were apart more than we were together and a marriage can't work when you're separated so much of the time. I had to make a decision, which to me seemed really to boil down to a question of my family versus playing football away from home again.

[Q] Playboy: Was it just a matter of mileage, or did the city of Buffalo itself play a part in your decision?

[A] Simpson: A big part. Marquerite wasn't happy in Buffalo; she just didn't have much to do. And I'm an outdoor person, but unless you're into snow, Buffalo is not the place to be--and I'm not into snow. My biggest problem, I guess, is that I like to do a lot of different things, and in Buffalo, whatever we do one night is pretty much what we do the next night, 'cause it just doesn't have the variety of people and occupations that you find in a city like L.A. There's only one word to describe the negative side of Buffalo: tedium.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a positive side of the city for you?

[A] Simpson: Absolutely. Buffalo has allowed me to get in touch with myself. In that environment, it's hard to get lost in the party scene the way people do in Hollywood. In Buffalo, you tend to discover what you really need out of life; the frills aren't there, so you get down to basics, and in that respect, I think, the town has been good for me. I'll tell you something else: I never had a friend come visit me in Buffalo who didn't have a ball. Anyway, that business about leaving Buffalo is all behind me now. I intend to finish out my career with the Bills. But I'll tell you this: I think the Bills would have been better off if they'd made a trade for me.

[Q] Playboy: What leads you to that conclusion?

[A] Simpson: To start with, I may retire after this season, and if I do. the Bills will wind up with nothing for me. During the summer, they could have made a trade that would have ensured them of being a top-caliber team for many years. One thing last season proved was that I couldn't make them a champion. The Bills were the best offensive team in football and we broke an all-time N.F.L. record for first downs--but we were eliminated from the playoffs with two games left in the season.

Obviously, what the team needs is defensive ball players; they have an excellent offense, even without me. I try to do everything from a positive point of view and, looking at it positively, the trade was gonna be better for the Bills, better for the fans in Buffalo--'cause the team would win more games--and it would certainly be better for me, because I could end my career at home on the West Coast with a team that is a potential Super Bowl champion.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you were being realistic about the Bills' prospects minus O J. Simpson?

[A] Simpson: I think I was. Listen, our highlights film last year was called They Sure Were Exciting, and there's no getting around that fact: The Bills in '75 had fans jumping out of their seats. Now, you can win and be a dull team, and the Rams are frequently accused of that. But even though the Bills played some damned wild games last year, the team's lack of defense kept it out of the playoffs. Essentially, Buffalo would've had a fine offense even if it had come up with a merely adequate runner in my place-- and Lawrence McCutcheon, the guy Wilson wanted from the Rams, is much more than an adequate runner. The better the runner, the better the offense; but in any case, it had to be a good offense. The defensive players the Bills could have received would have been the key to the trade.

[Q] Playboy: Can't they acquire such players without losing you?

[A] Simpson: Honestly? Yes, they can get a couple of guys who can help without getting rid of me. You have to go back to that old football cliché about paying the price. George Allen sees guys who might help him get to the Super Bowl today, and all of a sudden John Riggins, Calvin Hill, Jean Fugett, Jake Scott and Pat Sullivan are Washington Redskins. Allen pays whatever price he has to and doesn't worry about later on, because his philosophy is very simple: The future is now.

[Q] Playboy: Judging from the boos that greeted you the night of the Bills' nationally televised season opener, didn't your near defection lose you some of your popularity with the Buffalo fans?

[A] Simpson: I took that with a grain of salt, because after I had carried the ball a few times, most of the boos turned to cheers, probably because the fans in Buffalo know that I'm there to play football and I don't give them anything but my very best. What booing there was, well, you gonna remember that Buffalo has the most vocal fans in the N.F.L. and they take the game very personally. When you're winning, they really let you know how proud they are of you.

Of course, early in my career, when we looked like a bunch of bums out on the field, they took that personally, too. Except for my first three years in the league, the people in Buffalo have treated me really well. But those three years were rough, because I'd always been cheered-- and for the first time in my life, I was being booed.

[Q] Playboy: Why were the fans on your case?

[A] Simpson: Because we weren't winning. When I got to Buffalo, I was supposed to be the kid from California who was gonna instantly turn things around for the Bills, but there was no way that could happen.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Simpson: That had to do with our head coach at the time, John Rauch. Rauch has a tremendous amount of pride, and I mean he's stubborn as hell. He's a guy who, once he says something, will stick with it no matter what--which I think worked against him in Buffalo and which I know worked against me. He and I never hit it off, starting from the time I reported to Buffalo, when he tried to make me a receiver instead of a runner. I was a rookie, so I had to go along with all that, but Rauch and I really started having run-ins during my second year. By then, it was clear to me that the offense wasn't working and I thought we should try something else. Rauch was trying to impress the players with his system and he was determined to stay with it, no matter what our record was or what it was costing the players.

[Q] Playboy: How hot did it get between you and Rauch?

[A] Simpson: About as hot as it could get. I still take pride in the fact that I never asked to be traded during those years, but believe me, there were times I just wanted to scream and get out of there.

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't you?

[A] Simpson: Two reasons: The first was Jack Horrigan, a great dude who was the Bills' public-relations man at the time. Jack was dying of leukemia, but at moments when I was ready to bail out, he'd come around and comfort me. "Juice," he'd say, "there are times in your life when stuff like this is gonna happen, and you just have to ride it out. Things'll get better." When things did get better, Jack unfortunately passed away. The second reason I didn't leave involved hurting my left knee during my second season. In our eighth game of the year, I got hit pretty good returning a kickoff against Cincinnati, and I was through for the season. On the day I returned to camp the following summer, Rauch was fired--and was replaced by Harvey Johnson, a great guy but certainly not a man qualified to be a head coach, in my opinion. We won one game that year. By then, I was about as disillusioned with the Bills as I could be. A pro football team is a $17,000,000 business, but the Bills' operation wasn't run as well as my high school football program. And coming out of USC, where everything we did was first-class, I found the Bills to be rinky-dink.

[Q] Playboy: As in tacky?

[A] Simpson: Right. The facilities were incredibly bad. War Memorial Stadium had to be seen to be believed, but when I first saw it, I didn't believe it. I guess I was naïve. In college, I'd played at the L.A. Coliseum, which you can see from a half mile away. In Buffalo, you'd be walking through a black neighborhood and suddenly, 60 feet in front of you, you'd see this old, rundown stadium. I'm an optimist, so I figured, Hey, it doesn't matter, 'cause I'm gonna be on the field, not in the stands. But that should have let me know what I was in for. Check this out: Our locker room for practices was located in a public ice rink--and we shared it with kids getting dressed for hockey games. Team meetings were conducted in the hallway of the ice rink, but not exactly in privacy: We had to put a sheet up over a wire so that the mothers and kids wouldn't barge in. We held our meetings right around the ice rink's refreshment machines, so while we'd be going over game plans, kids would come through to get ice cream and sodas. That seemed a little strange.

[Q] Playboy: When did things get better for the Bills?

[A] Simpson: My fourth year. Lou Saban was rehired as head coach and brought stability and organization to the franchise--and, by then, Buffalo had started building a new stadium. Lou made us a running football team, but even more important to the players, he treated us like men. Under Rauch, we'd stay over in Niagara Falls the night before home games--without our wives, of course. We had an 11-o'clock curfew--which the Bills still have--but Rauch would come to our room and there'd be trouble if we weren't actually in bed. Three hours before a game, he would give us a written test and we'd have to answer questions like, "Who are we playing today?" It was as if the players were in the third grade, and it alienated us. We even had hair and dress codes, which prohibited us from wearing things like flared pants. When Lou came in, all that shit went right out the window. I'm like a lot of older N.F.L. players in that I think back on those days and wonder how I ever put up with that crap.

[Q] Playboy: You said earlier you wouldn't discuss the exact terms of your contract, but we may assume that you're earning well over $500,000. Do you think you're worth that kind of salary?

[A] Simpson: I think a person is worth what he gets. And I also think you can't belly-ache about bad breaks, because what happens to you is what you allow to happen to you. When I was a rookie, Ralph offered me $50,000 and I thought I was worth much, much more. I'd been the Heisman Trophy winner; I'd gotten a lot of publicity in college and, when they drafted me, the Bills also got a lot of publicity. But I never said Ralph didn't offer me what I deserved. I just went to him and fought for more money.

[Q] Playboy: Did you win?

[A] Simpson: Nope, and I'm kind of thankful I didn't. At the time, I'd placed myself in the hands of some financial people who wanted Wilson to give me a $500,000 loan, which I'd invest on Wall Street. Ralph wouldn't go for it, but they finally got him to set up a loan for $100,000, which we immediately invested--and which immediately went down the tubes. That's one reason I'm handling myself today. I'd be willing to bet that about 40 percent of the deals that agents get athletes into don't do better than break even, and the rest of the time, the guys get hurt.

Anyway, when I couldn't budge Ralph to go above $50,000, I became the N.F.L.'s longest holdout in my rookie year. I might still be a holdout, but there were pressures on me to play. I'd signed a three-year contract with Chevrolet that guaranteed me $180,000; I had one with RC cola for $37,500 a year, and I'd also signed with ABC Sports. All those things were tied to my football career, which is why I always tell Ralph that he got me cheap. I finally agreed to play for $50,000.

[Q] Playboy: Sports commentators often charge that doing product endorsements detracts from an athlete's concentration, hence from his performance. Do you disagree?

[A] Simpson: Sure I do. I've done my share of endorsements and I think my record as afootball player speaks for itself. You hear sportswriters say that crap about how endorsements and doing TV distract a player, but, hey, that stuff is gonna sustain me long after my football career is over. Don't misunderstand me; football made it all possible, but I think I've given back to the game whatever I've gotten out of it. I repay the game with everything I have every time I walk onto the field.

I also know that the game goes on and that while you may be the greatest today, no one will know where you are tomorrow. When your playing days are over, the roar of the crowd becomes just a loud echo. Players today know exactly what football can do for them: put money in the bank.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that a bit cynical?

[A] Simpson: I'm not being cynical, just realistic. There are only two reasons guys become pro-football players--to make money and because they enjoy playing the game. Pro football can give you things like pride and discipline, but the only tangible reward it offers is money. People never hear what happens to most players after their careers--which average only about five and a half years--are over. When all that adulation is withdrawn, it's traumatic, Jack. I doubt if figures exist on this, but believe me, the divorce rate among retired pro-football players is just staggering. The press, management-they don't talk about stuff like that. Instead, you hear things from them about loyalty, which is what I heard when I said I wouldn't return to Buffalo. But over the years, I've learned that loyaltyin pro sports goes hand in hand with finance, and it's not black and white, it's black and red: The minute an owner starts losing money, his loyalty to a player or a city completely changes. Players don't talk about loyalty: that stuff comes strictly from upstairs. And the players recognize that kind of double talk for what it is: bullshit.

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree with the owners' predictions that if players are made free agents, rich teams will outbid poor teams for talent--with the result that N.F.L. franchises in smaller cities like Buffalo and Green Bay will soon go bankrupt?

[Q] Simpson: You know, it's funny how team owners always talk about competition having made America great, but they sure don't want no competition. Instead, you hear how rich franchises would outbid poor franchises for players on the open market--but meanwhile, which N.F.L. franchise is poor? Green Bay, Wisconsin, is the smallest town in the N.F.L., but how can the Packers be poor when they damn near sell out every game? And how can any team afford to offer players more money than the Bills, when Buffalo continues to outdraw every other club in the N.F.L.? Ralph Wilson has done very well in Buffalo: he's got the most profitable franchise in pro football.

The truth is that no club has enough money to buy itself a team of All-Pros. Right now, I don't even think any team could afford to sign both me and Joe Namath. And I don't see how any team could ever wind up with an O. J. Simpson, a Mercury Morris and a Chuck Foreman, because none of us would want to be bench warmers. As far as I'm concerned, all that talk about possible bidding wars is there to help owners smoke-screen the college draft--which was finally ruled illegal in court this fall.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you take issue with the N.F.L.'s system of drafting college players?

[A] Simpson: Well, I've always had a very simple question concerning the draft: What's bigger, the N.F.L.'s bylaws or the U. S. Constitution? The Constitution says we're all free to choose how and where we want to earn a living. Hey, when I came out of college, I was told that if I wanted to play pro football in America, I'd have to go to Buffalo. I had no choice in the matter. Owners justified the college draft by saying they needed it to maintain the league's "competitive balance," but they've used that argument to take advantage of the players.

Listen, I think the N.F.L. does need some kind of college-draft system, but it's never tried to come up with an alternative that takes the player into consideration. For instance, why shouldn't a player have a choice of signing with at least a couple of teams? By way of an answer, the N.F.L.--which means the team owners--says that pro football can survive only by following the rules, but they make up the rules. Well, the Constitution is there to give everybody an equal shot, and if football can't survive within constitutional limits, maybe we'd better sit down and talk about it--and change it. Which is what's happening: A lot of N.F.L. rules--like the Rozelle Rule--have been thrown out, and a lot more are gonna be thrown out.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think pro football could be destroyed in the process?

[A] Simpson: It's possible, because as the players gain more control, they might put through changes that could weaken the sport. The one thing I'm sure of is that in the past eight years, pro football has become a better sport for the players and less than the greatest investment for businessmen who want to be team owners. Chris Hemmeter, the last president of the World Football League, got a jump on what's happening. He introduced a plan that didn't have a chance to work out, because people didn't go to W.F.L. games, but it was a sound idea and I guarantee you that the N.F.L. will eventually adopt something like it. The Hemmeter Plan was simple: It gave the players a certain percentage of the money that a franchise makes. Let's say the team gets 43 percent; the average player might sign a contract for one percent and a superstar might get two or three, depending on what the other stockholders--his teammates--have to say. What it finally boils down to is that as the rewards of pro football get greater, the players are gonna have to step in and take some of the financial risk.

Obviously, team owners are eventually going to be eliminated, because football is a game that can survive without them. Granted, it hasn't so far; there's that old saying about how players come and go, but the owners stay. But in the future, players are going to get more control, and if pro football lasts for another 50 years, the players will own all the teams.

[Q] Playboy: If something akin to the Hemmeter Plan were in effect, do you think your teammates would vote to pay you as much as you're making now?

[A] Simpson: No way: so in one way, I guess I'm lucky that I'll be long gone by the time all that takes place.

[Q] Playboy: Which brings us to the subject of your imminent retirement: How firm are you about your announced intention to leave pro football after this season?

[A] Simpson: Pretty firm. I'll be 30 before the start of next season, and about the only runners I can think of who played well at that age were journeymen backs like Bill Brown, Tom Woodeshick and Tom Matte. But I can't think of any of my kind of runner who played well once they turned 30. At that age, you start to lose one step in terms of speed, and most people don't realize it, but all that separates the better backs from the journeymen is that one step. Leroy Kelley of the Browns was still good at 31, but he'd lost an awful lot by then. Kelley was amazing in that he knew just where the holes would open up. He played his last two years on his knowledge of the game and I think I could, too. But I don't want to. I don't ever want to be out on the field and remember a move and think, I can't do that anymore.

The thing is, I want to leave the game like Jim Brown--who quit while he was still the best--and not like Johnny Unitas. Johnny Unitas was one of the greatest quarterbacks who ever played the game, but young guys who saw him at the end of his career saw a guy who wasn't anywhere near the great player he'd been. It's like something I once read about Willie Mays. A guy took his son to see Willie play and he gave the kid a big build-up about Willie, but by (hen, he was with the Mets and what the kid saw was almost a caricature of Mays: He was thick with age, his hat didn't fall off when he ran and he couldn't hit or run the way he used to. The kid finally walked out of the stadium doubting that Mays had ever been great, and I don't want that to happen to me.

But, having said all that, I also gonna say that I'm still as fast as when I came into the league. If I trained for track. I think I could run the 100-yard dash in 9.4 seconds. In fact, I'm sure of it; last year, I ran the 100 in 9.6 in tennis shoes and on asphalt for ABC's Superstars show. So while I think this is my last season, I'm sure I could play next year at the same level I played at in '75.

[Q] Playboy: What are the chances that you will?

[A] Simpson: I'll tell you who really has the say-so on that: Dino De Laurentiis and Milos Forman--De Laurentiis' director on Ragtime They haven't cast the movie yet, but if I get the part of Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and they shoot it next fall, then that's it for me and pro football. But in the meantime, I don't have the part--or even an inside track on it.

[Q] Playboy: Why are you so ready to quit football for Ragtime? Aren't you being offered other movie roles?

[A] Simpson: Yes, but there are certain parts that can build a movie career very quickly--and I think that Coalhouse Walker is one of those parts. They don't come around that often, either. This might not be the best example, but I remember that Robert Redford was hangin' in for a lotta years before he made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which is when his career really took off.

[Q] Playboy: How serious are you about becoming an actor?

[A] Simpson: Very serious, because it's what I want to do with my life when I'm through with football. I've been acting since my rookie year in the N.F.L., when I did an episode of Medical Center. I played a top college football player who was sick but who was trying to convince everybody he wasn't so he could be drafted by the pros and get that big bonus for his momma. It was supposed to be the sixth show of the series, but the producers liked it so much that they used it for the series' premiere. People in the industry who saw it said, "Hey. this kid can act," and for almost two years after that, I was told to follow it up with something. Between football, working for Chevrolet and RC cola and going to sports banquets, I didn't really have time. But after my third year in the N.F.L., a friend named Jack Gilardi. who was senior vice-president at Creative Management Associates, arranged for me to be in a film called Why? The whole movie was improvised; it was about a bunch of kids going through a marathon group-encounter session. We'd just sit there eight hours a day with the cameras grinding, and it was like being paid to take acting lessons, which is why it didn't matter to me that the movie was never shown In theaters. A year later, some guy talked to me about The Klansman, and all of a sudden, I had a part in it. It was a hell of a surprise, because being in a movie with actors like Lee Marvin and Richard Burton couldn't do me anything but good.

[Q] Playboy: When The Klansman was on location in Oroville, California, it was reported that you were usually the only sober actor on the set. Was that accurate?

[A] Simpson: Oh, there was some vodka absorbed, Jack. Like cases and cases of it. I learned that in the acting industry, the heavy drinkers all go for vodka, because it doesn't smell. Lee Marvin amazed me with his stamina, 'cause he'd go through an entire bottle and still do his lines without a hitch. Same thing with Richard Burton. And sometimes, when he was inebriated. Richard would start ramblin' on in that booming voice of his, maybe recitin' from Camelot or something, just to get your attention. We'd play a game in which we'd all try to ignore him, but we couldn't. And I've never seen a cat, tipsy or not, who could charm a lady more than Richard could. I spent about six weeks working on The Klansman, and even though critics destroyed the movie, I got reviews saying that the only redeeming thing about it was my performance. After that, I got a part in The Towering Inferno as a security guard, and that led to a couple of other movies, Killer Force and The Cassandra Crossing, which has people in it like Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner, Richard Harris and Burt Lancaster. So it seems to be happening, you know?

[Q] Playboy: Have you set any goals for yourself as an actor?

[A] Simpson: I'll settle for becoming what producers call bankable--having enough of a following to know that people will go to see movies I'm in. But I don't want to just play action parts where I do a lot of runnin' around. The guys I want to be like are character actors. I'd really like to be a cat like Dustin Hoffman, who I think is probably the greatest actor in the world. Another guy I dig is Martin Balsam, and I'll go to watch him--like in The Anderson Tapes, where he played a fag--just to see what kind of trip he's into. I'm also not lookin' for parts that necessarily call for a black cat; the role I played in The Cassandra Crossing was written for James Coburn, but when he got tied up in another movie, they got me. I play a priest in it.

[Q] Playboy: A priest? How did you prepare for that kind of role?

[A] Simpson: Well, I sort of surprised my wife for the last two months before I went to Rome to make the film by going to church with her every Sunday. She's Catholic. And after church, I would speak to some of the priests. I also knew a few priests in San Francisco who used to work with the baseball teams that I was on: so when I went back to the city, I made it a point to look them up, just to be around them, to pick up maybe a few of their mannerisms, how they said things and how they kind of carried themselves. I watched them and I thought, if I were a priest, how would I act? That's pretty much my approach to all the roles I've gotten into; it's worked for me.

[Q] Playboy: What was it like working with people like Sophia Loren and Richard Harris? Did they accept you, a comparative newcomer to acting?

[A] Simpson: They made it very easy for me. The first time I met Richard Harris, even before I saw him, I heard somebody yelling "Juice, Juice" and describing a play, "Second and ten, and clock's running out: Fergy drops back, hits Juice going down the middle 64 yards, he scores! Buffalo wins, 24--23." I looked around and it was Richard Harris. He was describing one of the big plays of the past season, so I knew he was a fan. He came up and made me feel at ease. Sophia Loren. the first day I was on the set, noticed me watching her when she had a little break. She said, "Come over and sit down," and she started helping me with a little Italian. Later, she became my gin partner. Whenever we were on the set, we were playing gin. She's a great poker player, too.

[Q] Playboy: Did your wife and your children go with you to Rome?

[A] Simpson: No, but if I had to do it over again, I'd take them with me. All my life. I'd always visualized myself as a father, with kids, but I never really thought about being a husband, and there are certain responsibilities you have as a husband. That's hard for a free spirit like me. But, fortunately. I've got a good lady and she's made adjustments for it.

[Q] Playboy: Are you referring to the fact that a guy in your position is constantly surrounded by groupies?

[A] Simpson: Well. I haven't run into a plethora of groupies; but it all comes down to the two of us, how much we trust each other and how much we love each other. We've had our problems, like any other couple, probably a few more of them, because of my lack of privacy. Of course, we married young--I was 19 and my wife was 18--so we had a lot of growing up to do.

[Q] Playboy: Early marriage isn't as popular as it used to be. How do you feel about it today?

[A] Simpson: I wouldn't advise it for everybody, but for me it was probably the best thing. I was pretty extroverted and I did a lot of messing around, and marriage sort of gave me some responsibility at an age when I needed it. I stayed home nights with my wife--she was working, so she was usually too tired to go out--and did my homework. If I hadn't been married and had her to go home to, I think I could have been moving a little too fast for myself.

[Q] Playboy: There's no subtle way to ask this question, so let's just bulldoze into it: Have you ever found yourself in a situation that was ugly purely because of its racial overtones?

[A] Simpson: I've been in places in the South--and also in the North--where some dude started making race remarks. But when loudmouths say those kinds of things, I just make 'em disappear; to me, they're not even there. Of course, you can only take it so far and then you gotta let a guy know he's out of line. I've heard guys in bars yell, "C'mere, boy. Hey, boy, come over here." I ignore them until they try to pull me over to where they are. That's when Hertz comes in.

[Q] Playboy: Hertz?

[A] Simpson: Right, baby. I give 'em a hard little jab in the chest and say, "Hertz, don't it? Not Avis--Hertz." Politely, you let 'em know they're startin' to walk on thin ice. I've been fortunate in that I haven't run into too many racial situations; but when they've come up, I've been able to handle them in some places and avoid them in others. I think that when you find guys beatin' up on dudes because of race remarks, it's generally because of some insecurities. But, hey, I know who I am: I'm the Juice. I'm black--and that's cool with me, baby, and just another reason why I'm the Juice. If you came up to me and called me a nigger, I'd probably look you in the eye and say, "Oh, is that what I am?" But if you're gonna call me a nigger, you best not touch me or give me any legal reason to hit ya, Jack. 'Cause, believe me, I will.

[Q] Playboy: Somehow, that doesn't jibe with the Mr. Clean image you project in your Hertz commercials. Is there a real difference between your media image and your private personality and, if so, does it bother you?

[A] Simpson: At times it worries me, because I don't quite understand the reasons for it. It might be because I have a lot of friends, and a friend often tends to make you seem like a good guy. Another reason, I suppose, is that I always try to be as direct and honest as I can be, maybe because I don't have to deal with who I am, especially in terms of race. I'm black and that's it. I can't change it and I wouldn't want to change it, as much as I couldn't and wouldn't want to change what's in the damn sky. I'm happy with being black and I don't trip about it.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever gotten racial putdowns from blacks?

[A] Simpson: Only when I was in college. When I was at USC, black athletes across the nation were looking for an identity and we all did things like grow our hair long. At some colleges, half the football team would be suspended for doing that, but on our campus, there was no resistance, because coach John McKay made any adjustments he needed to make without a hassle. Most of the cats on our team were cool, anyway, so it was never a big deal. But a lot of the middle- and upper-class black students were having a tough time discovering who in the hell they were. I remember that all of a sudden, USC had a black student union and then--bingo!--the black student union was talking about who was black enough. Students from affluent black communities like Baldwin Hills were coming up to guys like me who came from lowerclass areas and tellin' us we weren't black enough. I'd tell those cats, "Hey, I don't have to go through any changes to prove that I'm black enough; I am black. I grew up black. I knew it the day I was born, I knew it when I went to school--I knew it all the time. You're just finding it out, but that's your problem, not mine, so deal with it the best you can. But don't judge my trip by yours--and don't tell me about who's doing more for whom, or what. That ain't my trip, Jack."

[Q] Playboy: Is there any particular reason why it isn't?

[A] Simpson: Yeah, and it goes back to something that happened when I was about 15 years old. I'd been sent to the Youth Guidance Center in San Francisco for about a week--it had to do with a fight I had had--and a couple of hours after I got back home, somebody knocked on the door and said there was a guy downstairs who wanted to see me. So I went outside and there, sittin' in his car, was my boyhood hero--Willie Mays. I was the most loyal Giants fan you ever saw, and every day after school when the Giants were in town, me and my friends would sneak into Seals Stadium--that was before they built Candlestick Park--just to see Willie play. And there was Willie Mays, waitin' for me! I found out afterward that a neighbor had told him I was in trouble and had brought Mays around to talk to me. But Willie didn't give me no discipline rap; we drove over to his place and spent the afternoon talking sports. He lived in a great big house in Forest Hill and he was exactly the easygoing, friendly guy I'd always pictured him to be. It was a fantastic day for me. Well, a short time after that, Jackie Robinson took a shot at Mays by saying he didn't do enough for his people. That hurt me; I took it like he'd said it about me, 'cause it was like I was Willie Mays back then. I'd always admired Robinson, but I never really saw him play and, besides, Mays was my man. Willie always put out good vibes, and even after I got to college, I knew that he had done more for me than anybody else. I was well aware of what Jackie Robinson had done and I appreciated it, just like I appreciate what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Edison did. But I don't think he should have gotten on Mays. For myself, if I reach a lot of people and have a positive influence on them, that's great. I got that from Willie Mays; he was there to help a kid who was in trouble.

[Q] Playboy: How much trouble did you get into when you were young?

[A] Simpson: Oh, I wasn't bad, just mischievous. Some of that had to do with growing up in the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco, which to me was the greatest place in die world. My mother worked--my father didn't live with us--and me, my brother and my two sisters always had a terrific time. Blacks talk about other blacks' bein' your brothers and sisters, and that applies even more in the projects, where everybody's momma is your momma and three or four nights a week you'll be eatin' over at somebody else's house. It's like living in a Federally funded commune. On a real level, Potrero Hill was an area where 70 percent of the people were on welfare, and it's bullshit to think they sat on their asses waiting for Government checks, because the fathers were always out looking for jobs, but there wasn't any work for them. I wasn't aware of all that, of course. To me, Potrero Hill was America the Beautiful, and I think most of the people who lived there felt the same way. I remember that at world-series time, everybody would crowd around a radio to listen to the games, and when the national anthem was played, the whole room would stand up. Everybody--mothers, fathers, kids--would be on their feet, and this was in the projects. Mostly, I remember all the adventures we had. There was a polliwog pond, railroad tracks, a lumberyard and lots of factories nearby, and in the summer, when there wasn't anything to do, somebody would say, "Hey, let's go hit the pie factory." So we'd go down there, sneak around the fence and set up what looked like a little bucket brigade, and we'd steal maybe 30 pies. My favorite was blackberry; man, that was good. Or we'd hit the Hostess Bakery or the milk factory. We had a good group of dudes and my best friends then are still just about my best friends now. We also had the toughest gang on Potrero Hill; couldn't nobody whup us on the Hill.

[Q] Playboy: Was it dangerous to belong to a gang?

[A] Simpson: I think it was more dangerous not to. There was never any blame attached to it, and if you weren't in one, you had to be kind of goofy or else just plain out of it. When I was 13, I joined my first gang, the Gladiators, and I was the president; me and all my little cronies got these great burgundy-satin jackets that I later learned were baseball windbreakers. There were about 14 of us and we stayed on Potrero Hill and never dealt with any gang outside the district, because we were too young.

I joined my first fighting gang when I got to junior high and got with the Persian Warriors. There were about 25 guys in the club and I think I was the only one who didn't live in the Fillmore District. And, of course, we had our ladies' auxiliary; the Persian Parettes were the best female club in San Francisco. I was 14 when die Parettes came into my life and, man, they gave me an education. We did a pretty good amount of fighting and the big showdowns would usually take place on holidays, when everybody would get on down to Market Street. You'd hear cats sayin', "You gonna be at the Golden Gate Theater tomorrow? The Roman Gents are gonna fight the Sheiks!" I joined a club called the Superiors when I got to high school, and that's when we started steppin' out of all that rowdy shit and started giving dances instead. I think the IRS would've been interested to find out about them, because we made us some bucks. One year, we rented a hall in the Sheraton-Palace Hotel and gave a Halloween party that hundreds of kids came to. We cleared about $3300 for the night, which, to us, was almost unbelievable.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do with all that money?

[A] Simpson: We put it in our kitty and then put on a picnic that the whole city was invited to. The Superiors finally broke up when about four of the guys went to jail and a few others joined the Army. All of a sudden, there were only about four active members left, and the club had $2800, so we did what we thought was best for everyone concerned: We voted to split up the treasury. All right!

[Q] Playboy: Had you ever scored like that before?

[A] Simpson: No, but as a kid, I always managed to keep myself in lunch money, especially during football season. We'd go down to the 49ers games and sneak in, and then afterward, when the game was over, the management would give you a nickel for every seat cushion you turned in. Me and my friends would grab all the cushions we could, and sometimes we'd also grab all the cushions other little dudes had picked up. It was like a dog-fight.

But the way to make real money at 49ers games was to hustle tickets. To do that, you needed a little dough up front to work with. If my momma would lend me a few bucks, I was over like a fat rat, but most of the time I'd have to get the money together by myself. So on Fridays. I'd go fishing down at the pier and then sell my catch in the projects. On Saturdays. I'd hustle bottles for the deposit money, and by game time on Sunday, I'd have $3.50 for a reserved-seat ticket. That wasn't to get in, 'cause we'd sneak in; that was money to work with. I'd go up to people outside the stadium and ask if they had extra tickets. Lots of times, cats would be waiting for friends who didn't show, and if I thought a guy could be talked out of a ticket, I'd kinda whimper and say, "Oh. I just got to see old Hugh McEIhenny." Some people would give you the ticket, but the average cat would want something for it and he'd say, "Nope, I won't give it to you, but how much money you got?" You'd tell him $1.50 or two bucks, he'd sell it to you, and then you'd go sell it to somebody else for the $3.50. Sometimes you'd catch a seat on the 50-yard line and you could scalp those for four or five bucks. By game time, I'd pick up about $40--and this was a little dude whose momma gave him a quarter a day for lunch.

[Q] Playboy: You weren't exactly shy and naive as a child, then?

[A] Simpson: Hey, I was aggressive. I've always had lots of energy, which is why my teammates on the Bills started calling me Juice. That didn't have anything to do with orange juice, only with the kind of guy I am--always juiced up, always movin' around. A lot of guys probably think I'm too active and too loud, but that's the way I am and that's the way I was as a kid. But I wasn't called O.J. or Juice when I was little. As a kid, I was called Headquarters and Waterhead, because my head was about the same size then as it is now, and I was very sensitive about that. I was also sensitive about my legs. When I was, oh, maybe two years old, I came down with rickets--a lack of calcium in the bones--and the disease made my legs skinny and left me bow-legged and pigeon-toed. I needed braces to correct both of those things, but my mom couldn't afford them, so I wore a pair of shoes connected by an iron bar. I'd get into that contraption a few hours every day and until I was almost five, I'd be shufflin' around the house. But then my legs improved and I got to be a very rowdy character.

[Q] Playboy:How rowdy?

[A] Simpson: Well, at dances, I'd wear this long white hat down over my eyes, and if I saw a girl who looked good, I'd go right up to her and start rappin', even if she was with a guy. I didn't care what the dude said, 'cause I'd tell him, "Hey. I'm talkin' to her, not you, man. If she don't want me to talk to her, she'll tell me she don't want me to talk to her." It rarely got into punches, because most of the dudes didn't want to fight me.

[Q] Playboy: Why not? Were you such a tough kid?

[A] Simpson: Oh, I could handle myself, but you also gotta realize that San Francisco isn't a big town and it ain't that hard to develop a reputation. I got most of mine from a fight I had with a guy named Winky. He belonged to the toughest club in the city, the Roman Gents, and when we fought, he must've been about 20 and I was maybe 15. That was one fight I sure didn't start: One night, I was at a dance in the Booker T. Washington Community Center when, all of a sudden, this loud little sucker--an older O. J.--comes up to me and says, "What did you say about my sister?" I'd heard of Winky--just about everyone had--but I didn't know that was who this was, so I just said, "Hey, man, I don't know your sister. I don't even know you." It wasn't cool to fight in the community center, so the guy started walking away, but he was still talkin' crap to me and I yelled back, 'Fuck you, too, man!"

Well, a few minutes later, I see a whole bunch of Roman Gents trying to get this cat to be cool, but nope, he's comin' over to me and he shouts, "Motherfucker, I'm gonna kick your ass!!" And then--bingo!--the music stops and I hear everybody whisperin', "Winky's gettin' ready to fight." Winky! Damn, I didn't want to fight him. So as he walks up to me, I say, "Hey, man, I really didn't say anything about your sister." But before I can say anything else, Winky's on me and swingin'. Well, I beat his ass--I just cleaned up on the cat--and as I'm givin' it to him, I see this girl Paula, who I just loved, so I start getting loud. And as I'm punchin', I'm also shouting: "Mutha-fuckah! You gonna fuck with me??"

Well, the head of the community center finally pulled me off, but Winky and his friends waited for me outside and I had to sneak home. For the next few weeks, wherever I'd show up, it wouldn't be too long before somebody would come up to me and say, "Hey, man, Winky and his boys are on their way over here to get you."

It really got hot for me--no jokin' around--so that summer, I moved in with an uncle in Las Vegas. When I went back, I was sure things had cooled off, but one night I'm comin' out of a party and who do I bump into? Right, Winky and his boys. But instead of fightin' with me, he says, "Hey, little dude, you got a lot of guts. Come on in and have a drink with us." I was leery as hell, but there wasn't much I could do--I was surrounded by all these big mothers--so I went back inside and Winky told everybody, "This is our little dude. From now on, anybody fucks with him gotta fuck with its." And so, throughout my high school years, most of the guys around San Francisco knew who I was.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever take advantage of your notoriety?

[A] Simpson: Nope, I never infringed on people. I was just like Clint Eastwood: I only beat up dudes who deserved it.

[Q] Playboy: And how often would that be?

[A] Simpson: At least once a week, usually on Friday or Saturday night. If there wasn't no fight, it wasn't no weekend.

[Q] Playboy: Did it ever get beyond fists?

[A] Simpson: Not with me, it didn't. I was in gang fights where a couple of guys got croaked, and you could be at the Y.M.C.A. with 600 people when a miniriot would break out and, the next day, you'd read about some cat gettin' stabbed. But, basically, me and my buddies were all into sports. And even then, sports was lucky for me: If I hadn't been on the high school football team, there's no question but that I would've been sent to jail for three years.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Simpson: When I was in the tenth grade at Galileo High--I think it was 1962--the whole Haight-Ashbury thing had already started. San Francisco always used to have beatniks, but now all these weirdos were coming in from all over the country and the only thing they talked about was margarine or marinara; I finally found out it was called marijuana. Up till then, me and my friends thought dope was something you only put in your arm, so we decided to make it over to Haight-Ashbury and see what was happening. We'd go down Page and Stanyan streets and walk into parties and see bald-headed Japanese cats praying and all kinds of characters smokin' that shit, and to us, it was just weird.

Naturally, the boys had to check out marijuana, and one day at school, we got hold of a joint; but when they passed it around, I just pretended to take a hit. I was a diehard athlete, and besides that, I didn't want to get deranged, right? I finally tried it one day and didn't get high--but I ran all the way home from school, breathing real hard to get it out of my system. I believed every horror story I'd heard about grass, and while I was runnin', I remember thinking, Goddamn, why did I do that? I'm gonna get addicted!

Anyway, during football season, a friend of mine named Joe Bell came up to me and my buddy Al Cowlings and showed us these two joints he had. Joe told us that a teacher wanted to buy them for a dollar apiece. Me and Al had football practice--Joe had been kicked off the football team--so we couldn't go with him to sell them. It turned out that the teacher was a narc. Joe wasn't a pusher, but for sellin' two joints to a narc, he spent three years in the big house. When Joe got out, he went to the University of Washington on a football scholarship, got his master's and is now working on his doctorate--he's into prison reform. Me and Al just happened to have football practice that afternoon, or else we'd have been sent up, too. That's the kind of life it was for us. We were just kids like any other kids, but we weren't growing up in Beverly Hills.

[Q] Playboy: Earlier, you alluded to having spent time in the Youth Guidance Center. What kinds of things did the police arrest you for?

[A] Simpson: Fighting, and once for stealing, which I didn't do. I don't want to make myself sound good, but one time our club was giving a dance and instead of buying the wine, the guys decided to rip it off. I kept tellin' 'em we had the money to buy the stuff, but no, they wanted to steal it. I didn't even go into the liquor store with 'em. I waited outside and when they came out, we walked around the corner--and right into the hands of the police. We'd planned that dance for months, had sent out hundreds of invitations, had done all kinds of advance work--we were calling it The Affair of the Year--and there we were, up against the wall, and then in jail. It was the worst. But we're only talking about the hairy moments now, and they were a real small part of growing up. Mostly, we had super times. And the majority of 'em had to do with bein' in the park from the time school was out until it got dark. We'd get out of school at three o'clock and we'd have a game goin' by 3:20.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of game?

[A] Simpson: Baseball. Everybody thought I'd become a major-league catcher and I probably would have if I hadn't kept busting up my right hand. The first time it happened was on a play at home plate during a high school baseball game. When I couldn't play baseball anymore that spring, I started running track--and I discovered that, while no one came to the baseball games, all the pretty girls showed up for track meets. At Galileo High, I ran in the 880 relays and we set a city record. The same kind of thing happened when I got to junior college: I broke my hand during baseball season, so I joined the track team, ran in the 880 relays and we set a national collegiate record.

[Q] Playboy: How did you injure your hand a second time?

[A] Simpson: You ever hear of an actress named Vonetta McGee? I broke my hand hittin' her brother Donald in the head. That hurt, Jack. It also convinced me to cool it on the fighting.

[Q] Playboy: When did you begin playing football?

[A] Simpson: Oh, I'd always played it, and I was on the team all through high school. But I never thought about playing college ball until the latter part of my senior year. Up until then, we'd always been easy to beat; in fact, in my junior year, we didn't win a game. In my senior year, though, we started winning and I made All-City. But I was overshadowed by the runners on the two top high school teams. I was the third back; and when the All-City team got written up, the papers said, "And O. J. Simpson rounds out the backfield." When I graduated, I didn't get a single scholarship offer.

[Q] Playboy: In retrospect, that seems hard to believe. Why not?

[A] Simpson: One reason was my grades: They were lousy. My only interest in school was in gettin' out, so I took courses like home economics and didn't exactly kill myself studying. I was gonna join the Marines and fight in Vietnam, but before I graduated, a friend came back from Vietnam missing a leg, and I thought I had to be crazy to go there. The football coach at Arizona State had shown some interest in me, but he took one look at my grades and told me he'd be in touch when I got out of junior college. So I enrolled at City College of San Francisco and in my two years there, I broke all the national junior college rushing records. That time around, I got a lot of scholarship offers.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it true that major football colleges staged a virtual bidding war for your services?

[A] Simpson: Right. A whole bunch of 'em were offering all kinds of under-the-table shit. In addition to a regular scholarship, most of the schools were talking about $400 or $500 a month and stuff like a car. One school was gonna arrange for my mother to clean up an office for $1000 a month; another was gonna get my mother a house. A lot of stupid Watergate-type recruiting shit went on in those days, but in recent years, it's changed for the better, because the N.C.A.A. has cracked down pretty hard on a lot of schools. Even then, the N.C.A.A. was tryin', because they let it be known they were gonna investigate whatever school I picked.

[Q] Playboy: Did USC offer you anything under the table?

[A] Simpson: No, and it was probably the only school that didn't. It was also the only school I'd ever wanted to play for. When I was in the tenth grade and had just finished my first season of high school football, USC was playing Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and I watched the game on TV. Early in the game, USC scored a touchdown and all at once, a beautiful white horse was galloping around the field. Right then and there, I thought, "That's the school I want to go to!"

Well, at the end of my first year in junior college, we played in a bowl game--the Prune Bowl, can you dig it? We were playing Long Beach, the defending national champion, and after being behind 20-0 in the first half, we came back and destroyed 'em, 40-20. I scored three touchdowns in the second half and was voted Most Valuable Player, and as I was walking off the field, a guy came up to me and said, "O. J. Simpson, that was a great game. My name is Jim Stangland and I'm a coach at USC. How would you like to be a Trojan?"

The man had just said the magic word. Inside my head, bugles were blowin' and that white horse was gallopin'! But I had a problem: Because of my high school record, USC couldn't get me in after just one year of junior college. I really didn't want to stay in junior college for another year, but USC assistant coach Man Goux convinced me I should. So I did.

[Q] Playboy: How did he get you to change your mind?

[A] Simpson: He guaranteed me that if I went to USC and played the kind of football he thought I was capable of playing, I'd get more money out of pro football than anybody else ever got--much, much more than any other school could offer me. And the reason I love USC so much is that's exactly what happened. I was in the right place at the right time: We were good football players and in the two years I was there, our team was on television 17 times. The L.A. media are very powerful, and all that exposure during my first year helped me get voted U.P.I.'s player of the year. The second year, I won the Heisman Trophy.

I had the time of my life at USC, probably because that's where I started getting recognition--and when you're raised in a poor area, that's what you want more than anything else. It's the same thing Rocky Graziano felt when he was a kid: I am somebody. Recognition is more of a motivating force than money, because it's really hard to sit home and dream about dollars. You can think about what money will buy you, but recognition is really what you want. It was certainly the thing I wanted.

[Q] Playboy: Few football experts, if any, would dispute the notion that you've been the most successful running back of your time. What do you think enabled you to become unique as a runner?

[A] Simpson: That's hard to say. I never consciously tried to develop a running style or to imitate anybody else's, because any time you do that, you ain't gettin' into nothing but trouble. When they hand you the ball, you don't think, because you don't have time to think. You just run. And you react. You gotta be able to recognize certain things that are happening out there and react without thinking. To do that, you have to daydream about running. I can watch a million game films, but I do myself more good driving down the freeway, daydreaming about runs against various teams. Last season, you wouldn't believe how much I daydreamed about running 90 yards against Pittsburgh, which is one reason I was able to do it. When you're really into it, incredible things can happen. I've had teammates come up to me and ask, "How did you fake that cat? You never even saw him!" And I'll look at game films and it's true--I have put moves on guys I didn't see, but the thing is, when you're limning, you can sometimes feel when a guys almost on you. What you have to do is react as if he's already there, 'cause you may not even have the time to look. Some of the guys call that transcendental meditation, but to me, it's just putting yourself out there beforehand and imagining everything that's supposed to happen on every play. You got to be very receptive to that during a game, but that's not always easy. It calls for deep concentration.

[Q] Playboy: At what point during a game does all this concentration become something like pleasure?

[A] Simpson: When I'm doing my thing, man: The rush part of a game for me is running, and the biggest rush is in settin' a cat down. When you're running with the ball and you put an unbelievable move on a guy, just about every fan watching the game feels the same thing you do. It's a rush and the whole stadium shares it with you.

[Q] Playboy: Is that what separates the superstar from his colleagues--the ability to make inspired moves?

[A] Simpson: I think so. In basketball, you can cheer for a solid player like Lou Hudson, who can stand out there and pop for 25 points every night, but then you have to look at the difference between him and Earl Monroe. Well, Hudson comes down and hits his shots and he's methodical and he's great, but the Pearl will show you stuff you ain't never seen before, and suddenly you're on your feet, 'cause he's just too much!

In football, you watch good journeymen running backs like Ed Podolak and Jim Kiick, and they can put that shoulder down and follow their blocking and maybe get a little dippy, but when they make a move, it's usually a move that you saw coming. Then you look at Mercury Morris and just when you think he's trapped in the backfield, he'll do something you never saw before and everybody in the stadium is shouting, "Did you see that?! And your friend's coming up the aisle with beers and you're yelling, "Man, you missed it! Mercury just done some shit you wouldn't believe!

I call that crazy running and guys who do it are cats like Mercury, Chuck Foreman, Greg Pruitt, Otis Armstrong and Johnny Rodgers, who's playing up in Montreal. They all make insane moves that don't seem to have any logic, but somehow it turns out brilliant. And the crowds really dig it; lots of times I've gotten up after gaining maybe all of eight yards and the entire stadium is on its feet. More times than not, even the guy who was tryin' to tackle you is standing there starin', 'cause he knows he's lookin' stupid--and you know you just blew his mind.

[Q] Playboy: How much are you going to miss all that--or are you?

[A] Simpson: Oh, I can't say I'm not gonna miss football; I'll miss it, Jack. But the cold fact of the matter is that I'm gonna have to miss it, because I have no choice in the matter. If I couldn't have played this season, it would've been tougher to take, but eventually, you reach a point where you just can't play anymore. Once an athlete reaches that point of no return--and I'm not far from it--he realizes he's gonna have to retire. So I've tried to prepare myself for it. I've been watching other guys who've left the game and I've tried to evaluate where they are now. I've also thought about whether I could ever reach the same level in another profession that I've reached in football, and that's a tough one to answer. But whatever happens, I think I'll be able to handle it, even though you never know how you'll react to anything until it happens. I guess the only thing I can finally do is look back on what I did and be happy for it. And I am. I always enjoyed football and I think the guys I played with and against will remember me as a pretty good dude. In terms of being remembered as a player, I really think that if the game endures, then I'll endure. Hey, I'm more than willing to settle for that.

"I was upset. I didn't see why I couldn't be traded. I started woundering if it's true that nice guys really do finish last."

"One thing last season proved luas that I couldn't make the Bills champions. We broke an all-time record, but we were eliminated."

"We even had hair and dress codes. I think back on those days and wonder how I ever put up with that crap."

"When there wasn't anything to do, somebody would say, 'Hey, let's go hit the pie factory.' So we'd go down and steal maybe 30 pies."