Life After Football
After two seasons with the Eagles, O'Brien retired from football to become an agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he worked for ten years. After completing his training, he was assigned to the bureau’s field office in Springfield, Missouri. He was a firearms instructor at Quantico, Virginia, and spent the last five years of his FBI career in Dallas. He resigned from the bureau in 1950 and went to work for H. L. Hunt in land development. He later entered the oil business, working for Dresser Atlas Industries of Dallas. He was also president of the TCU Alumni Association, a YMCA board member, a chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, a supporter of Golden Gloves youth boxing programs, and a deacon of University Christian Church. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1955 and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1956. From 1960–1964, he was the color commentator on Dallas Cowboys telecasts.
In 1971 he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery to remove a kidney and part of his right lung, but eventually died from the disease on November 18, 1977.
O'Brien's 1938, and Tim Brown's 1987, Heisman Trophy awards gave Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas the distinction of being the first to produce two Heisman winners.
In 1989, O'Brien (posthumously, of course) and Brown were inducted together into Woodrow Wilson High School's newly created Hall of Fame in celebration of the school's 60th anniversary.
Read more about this topic: Davey O'Brien
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or football:
“life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)