In 1974, Blenda Gay served the Chargers as a defensive end, playing in only two games but scoring a touchdown in one on a fumble recovery. Two years later, he was dead, his wife having slit his throat while he was sleeping.
His death was not a matter of interest comparable to the murder of Sean Taylor of the Washington Redskins in his Miami-area home or the killing of Darrent Williams of the Denver Broncos on Jan. 1 in a drive-by shooting. Gay never achieved any particular prominence as a football player. He was a journeyman, nothing more. At the time he was attacked on Dec. 20, 1976, he had just completed a second season with the Philadelphia Eagles. He was 26.
Gay, a native of Greenville, N.C., would be buried on Christmas Day in Farmville, N.C. Before his body was taken there for burial, there was a viewing at the Kaighn Baptist Church in Camden, N.J., across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Gordon Forbes, a Philadelphia newsman who is a great gentleman, attended the viewing, as he would.
At the church, Forbes said, was Ed Garvey, then the executive director of the NFL Players Association. Garvey had come from Washington, D.C., on a train to pay his respects. Following the viewing, Forbes would give Garvey a ride into Philadelphia in order that he could get a train back to Washington.
Other than Garvey and some television cameramen, few persons attended the viewing, according to Forbes. After I had contacted Forbes, he called Garvey, now associated with a Wisconsin law firm, and he said Garvey said this:
“Except for onlookers and gawkers, nobody was there. People were standing outside the church because they wanted to see a football player. How sad.”
Gay's wife, Roxanne, 5 feet 1 and 106 pounds, had slain her 6-5, 254-pound husband with an 8-inch kitchen knife. She would say that Blenda Gay had been involved in an affair. Records showed that Roxanne had phoned for police assistance at least 20 times during the couple's 3½-year marriage.
Neighbors of the Gays told the press that when the Eagles lost, Blenda would bounce his wife off the walls of the home they were sharing with an infant daughter. Roxanne once was hospitalized. She had signed a complaint against her husband, then dropped it.
With these disclosures, feminist interests expressed support for Roxanne. At a benefit for her, Gloria Steinem was photographed with her lawyer and her brother.
Gay's family contended Roxanne always had been a disturbed and violent woman. Her trial was put off while she underwent psychiatric testing. A sanity hearing in March 1978 found insufficient evidence that she had been a battered wife. Four psychiatrists, all male, determined that she was a “nervous” and “suspicious” woman and that she had felt that her husband, her family and police were plotting to kill her.
Her own attorney said there was no evidence Gay beat his wife. Murder charges against her were dropped and she was shuffled off to a New Jersey state hospital for the insane, officially listed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
I could find no one who could tell me if Roxanne Gay is still institutionalized, or even if she is still living.
How Gay, who attended Fayetteville (N.C.) State, had come to be a Chargers property is uncertain. The authoritative “Official Encyclopedia of the NFL” says the Oakland Raiders gained title to Gay in a supplemental draft in 1974, but there is no record of the NFL having held such a procedure that year.
The only references to Gay deal with the two games he played for the Chargers and the 14 he played for the Eagles in 1975 and 1976.
Four suspects are being held in the Taylor murder. No arrests have been made in the killing of Williams.
Jerry Magee: (619) 293-1830; jerry.magee@uniontrib.com
