No telling how many times this sports writer has made the drive back from Oxford to Jackson following some sports event. Hundreds of times for sure. I don’t know, but I do know the strangest and most bizarre — the drive that seemed like it was right out of a Rod Serling “Twilight Zone” episode.

The date was June, 16, 1994, nearly 30 years ago. A cohort and I had covered a press conference during which Ole Miss announced a sordid list of NCAA recruiting violations, highlighted by accusations of cash, cars and airplane tickets being used to entice football recruits, also entertained at Memphis strip clubs. It was seedy stuff. 

We were ready for lighter fare. The NBA Championship series was being played. We wanted to listen. Instead, fumbling through the static of AM radio, we found, of all things, a slow-moving car chase.

It was surreal. The newscast was coming from Los Angeles. A white Ford Bronco, with O.J. Simpson in the backseat, was on an L.A. freeway, being followed by a phalanx of police cars and helicopters. The announcer told us that O.J., the prime suspect in the murder of his wife and a friend, was holding a gun to his own head.

The reporter told us so much more: That Simpson had left a letter, threatening suicide. That people were actually lining the interstate and the overpasses, cheering the procession. One station would fade, and we would find another. The “chase” continued. We were told that Simpson and his driver apparently were listening to the same report we were.

This cannot be real, we thought. This can’t be happening. But it was. And it got stranger still.

Vince Evans, Simpson’s former Southern Cal teammate, called the station and was put on the air with a message for his friend. Between sobs, Evans managed, “Juice, we love you Juice, God, Juice, pull the car over. Just pull the car over…”

Then, John McKay, Simpson’s former coach at USC, called the station and he, too, addressed Simpon. “O.J., this is your coach. My God, O.J., stop this nonsense. If you pull over, I will come out there right now. I’ll stand by you the rest of my life. Please, Juice, I love you.”

Had this been a scene in a Hollywood movie, it would have been panned for not being believable.

But on and on it went. We got back to Jackson about the same time the Bronco pulled up to Simpson’s residence. Subsequently, he was arrested.

The story was far from over, of course. The trial would follow months later, and the trial itself would last 11 months. Incredibly, Simpson was found not guilty. Then came the civil trial, during which Simpson is found liable and later forced to forfeit all his assets, including his Heisman Trophy.

All this — and so much more — was sadly remembered with Wednesday’s news of Simpson’s death at the age of 76. Has there ever been a more sensational crime story in modern times? The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby? The Patty Hearst kidnapping? The Manson murders? I don’t know.

But I think I know what made the O.J. Simpson saga so remarkable it commanded an entire nation’s attention. And that was due to Simpson’s previous persona. He was an authentic American hero. He had it all: amazing athletic ability, good looks, so much charm, such a warm, inviting smile, fame and fortune.

Mississippi icon Archie Manning was a friend of Simpson’s, and I remember calling him the night of the chase and Simpson’s arrest. The two had met when Manning was a junior at Ole Miss and had quickly hit it off. Then, of course, their professional careers intertwined.

“I always considered O.J. the ultimate superstar,” Manning said. “It wasn’t just how great a player he was, but how he carried himself, how he always had time for fans and younger players. He never acted like he was a big deal, and he was a big deal. He’d make the lowliest rookie feel like he was O.J.’s best buddy. I don’t know that I have met a more charming person.

“That’s what has made this all so shocking, so unbelievable,” Manning continued. “My heart says it couldn’t have been him. He couldn’t have killed those people, but the evidence seems so overwhelming. Maybe he just snapped. I don’t know …. I just know that’s not the O.J. that I know.”

I called Manning again this week after news of Simpson’s death. Thirty years later, Archie still values the time he spent with Simpson and can’t comprehend what in the world happened to the guy he considered a good friend. 

“I don’t know what happened. I know some of his friends think it was cocaine, rage, a combination of the two,” he said. “I just know it was tragic, a real life tragedy.”

It was that.

Something else from the news broadcast nearly 30 years ago I remember. Someone read from the letter Simpson had written earlier that day. Part of it went like this. “Think of the real O.J. and not this lost person,” he wrote.

Not then. Not now. Not ever.

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