Ex-Tampa Bay Buc Lee Roy Selmon's Spirit Inspires Holiday Message of Goodwill

This is the season to give thanks, it matters not which holiday you celebrate -- Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa.

This is a time when we should all take a moment and think about that which is really important.

I want to share with you my message sent this year in my cards, I want to share it with more than my inner circle, it should give us all something to think about for the coming year.

Here it is, enjoy:

This year brings more of life's reflections than ever, I suppose that is what age does to us. They say that time is the best story-teller, but it is also that which makes us take time to reflect.

I want to share with you an event that had a very profound effect on me in 2011. On September 4th, the Tampa Bay community lost Lee Roy Selmon. It was my life's pleasure and privilege to know Lee Roy for 35 years. I met him the first day in Tampa when he was flown here following the 1976 draft when he was the first overall pick in the NFL by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Lee Roy was a wide-eyed, humble young man from Oklahoma at that time, raised on a tiny farm in Eufala in a house that had no running water or air conditioning. Lee Roy was 21, I was 27 when our paths first crossed.

It was my good fortune to chronicle his feats as a professional football player and he would wind up in Canton, in the Hall of Fame. It was an even greater thing to grow old with him, our paths crossed often and we shared so very many good conversations and memories.

Lee Roy had a quality about him that was most amazing. If you didn't know about his great football career, if you didn't know he was a Hall of Famer, you'd never know it when you met him.

He treated people with respect, I'd see him greet strangers as if they were family members. If your day wasn't going so well and you happened to meet Lee Roy, well, he had a wonderful way of letting you know that everything would be just fine.

He had this amazing spirit, you knew he was a man of God, a man of strong faith but he didn't tell you about it, he showed you. Some talk the talk, Lee Roy simply walked the walk and it showed in all of his actions.

His God, his family, his friends and his community were his life and he was so full of life.

I don't know why, but about a year ago I started saving emails he's send me and I'd write things down that we talked about.

The last time I saw him, he delivered a touching eulogy for Tom McEwen, who was my boss at the Tampa Tribune for 10 years.

Lee Roy and I spend a lot of time after that memorial service, talking about life in general and I told him that if I had to pick someone to deliver my eulogy, it would be him. He laughed and we joked about it, I told him he'd probably have to address about 10 people.

I remember that hour we spent together, it was so very meaningful, it was a moment that took me back across a 35-year journey. I left smiling, looking forward to seeing Lee Roy again, very soon, probably at a USF football game in 60 days or so.

It was the last time I would see my friend.

Lee Roy was taken from us suddenly and without warning that September weekend. A stroke took down that large, magnificent, wonderful man who touched so many lives in such a short time.

I couldn't believe it. I cried that night as I lay in my bed, it was unthinkable that he was gone.

As we approach this wonderful, joyous season, I just want to remind all of us that we should love and appreciate each other. I keep telling myself that I want to find more ways to be a better person. That is one of the many things I learned from Lee Roy.

As you read this message, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for playing a wonderful role in my life's story. I want you all to know that I think about you and appreciate you. You may be far away, but you are so very close here in my heart and in my memories.

I want to leave you with something that Lee Roy told me a while back, something I wrote down and it's something we can all take to heart:

"Our kindness and goodness are the best things we can offer in life."

                                           Lee Roy Selmon (1954-2011)

I always thought I would see him again. God had other plans and called him home.

Please accept my wishes and prayers for a healthy New Year for it is our health that allows us to carry on and it is our kindness and goodness that we should offer to others on a daily basis.

God Bless You All and God Bless America

Always

TE