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The Official Web Site of the WVU Varsity Club |
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Profile: Bruce Bosley
As it turned out, his way out of the tanning business happened to be a football scholarship to West Virginia University. Bosley, a third team Class B all-state fullback at Green Bank High School, caught the sharp eye of West Virginia football coach Art “Pappy” Lewis and he was offered a full scholarship to play for the Mountaineers. Even though Lewis knew all about him, others in the state weren’t as quick to notice. Bosley was not one of the 50 high school players invited to play in the 1952 West Virginia North-South all-star game. After the first day of practice, one player got hurt and another got sick and the high school coaches went scrambling to find a replacement. Lewis, watching the two teams practice, finally spoke up: “Hell, I can get you the best damn player in the state. His name is Bruce Bosley.” Quarterback Fred Wyant, who later became a teammate of Bosley's at WVU, spotted the husky Green Bank native the minute he walked out onto the practice field. “We were out on the field and all of the sudden here came this guy who looked like a Greek god,” Wyant remembered. A big, strong country boy, Bosley was the type of player physically capable of playing college football right away. “Bruce was extremely strong, had great football instincts and was intelligent,” recalled Gene Corum -- WVU’s line coach at the time. “I called him a gentle giant. I had seen his tremendous strength on the field and then I had seen him baby sit my two daughters and he was so gentle with them. They loved him.” Not only was Bosley a gifted athlete, he was also a top-rate student who took the hardest courses at WVU. “I don’t remember Bruce practicing very much,” said teammate and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff. “He was in engineering and had a lot of labs.” As it turned out, Bosley didn’t need that much practicing. The 6-foot-2, 240-pound lineman quickly developed a reputation for manhandling opposing players in the trenches. Bosley was an immediate starter and was one of the primary reasons West Virginia went from 5-5 in 1951 to 7-2 in 1952. In 1954, after a dominating performance against Penn State, Bosley was considered one of the country’s top linemen. He was named AP player of the week after West Virginia’s 19-14 victory at Penn State and went on to earn consensus All-America honors as a senior in 1955. West Virginia won 31 of 38 games Bosley played in during his four seasons from 1952-55. Bosley, also an Academic All-American with a degree in chemical engineering, was invited to play in the College Football All-Star Game, the North-South Game and the Senior Bowl. Based on his performances in those games, new San Francisco 49ers coach Norman Stader decided to make Bosley the team’s second pick in the second round of the 1956 draft as a defensive end. By 1957, Bosley switched to line and was the team’s starting left guard, earning his first pro bowl berth in 1961. Two years later in 1963 when the team was searching for a center after an injury to starter Frank Morze, all-pro guard Bosley stepped in and learned that position. In 1965, Bosley was named to the pro bowl again and was honored two more times in 1966 and 1967. Detroit Lions all-pro middle linebacker Joe Schmidt says Bosley was one of the league’s most underrated snappers of the mid-1960s. According to Bosley’s 49er teammate “Tiger” Bill Johnson, Schmidt always voted him to the pro bowl. “(Schmidt) is one of the smartest linebackers in the business,” Johnson once said, “and he thinks Bosley is the greatest center going in the game today.” Even though many of the 49er teams Bosley played on had losing records, San Francisco was always known for its innovative offenses led by quarterback John Brodie and running back Ken Willard. Bosley also had a part in Coach Howard “Red” Hickey’s shotgun offense first introduced in the NFL in 1961. Bosely played in two of the more memorable games in NFL history. The first came on Dec. 22, 1957, at old Kezar Stadium when San Francisco blew a 24-7 halftime lead and lost 31-27 to the Detroit Lions in a one-game playoff to determine the Western Conference championship. Playing without injured quarterback Bobby Layne, the Lions still managed to score three touchdowns in a span of 4:29 in one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history. “At halftime I was thinking about the $5,000 we’d get for winning the game,” said Bosley after the game. Seven years later on Oct. 25, 1964, Bosley was involved in one of the strangest plays in NFL history when Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Jim Marshall picked up a Billy Kilmer fumble and ran the wrong way to his own end zone. Chasing Marshall all the way to the Viking goal line was Bosely, who greeted Marshall in the end zone with a friendly tap on the shoulder to record the safety and an ear-to-ear grin: “Thanks Jim,” he said. By 1967, Bosely was cultivating his other passion: restoring old homes. NFL Films visited his Hillsbrough W.S. Crocker Estate carriage house for a show called “They Lead Two Lives,” which chronicled his career as both a star football player and respected home builder. During the next 11 years he remodeled two other estates in Hillsborough as president of Interior Design, a home building, remodeling, interior decorating, furnishing and real-estate company. Meanwhile, Bosley spent another season with the 49ers in 1968 and a year with the Atlanta Falcons in 1969 before retiring. Bosley became part-owner of a wholesale electrical supply house in addition to his home remodeling business and was also well-known for his civic and charitable activities in San Francisco. Among his most prominent roles was membership on the board of directors for the San Francisco Annex for Cultural Arts, membership on the mayor’s committee for the San Francisco Council for the Performing Arts, and a long-time volunteer role with both the San Francisco Film Festival and the San Francisco Ballet. Bosley also served a stint as the president of the NFL Alumni Association. He lived and thrived in San Francisco until his death from a heart attack on April 26, 1995. Despite spending nearly 40 years of his life in northern California, Bosley never forgot his West Virginia roots. “Things may change and your career may take you away in a different direction but there are things you never forget. I’ve never left my roots. They are in West Virginia,” Bosley told Charleston Daily Mail sports editor Bill Smith several years ago. Bosley is listed on the San Francisco 49ers “Golden Era” team from 1946-69 and he was named to the college football’s 75th Silver Anniversary Team in 1981. Bosley, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, was a part of West Virginia University’s second hall of fame induction class of 1992. More recently, he was named the state of West Virginia’s 30th greatest sports figure in a poll conducted by CNNSI.com. Dave Beronio, sports editor of the Vallejo Independent Press, once wrote of Bosley: “As a newsman of more than 40 years, I have found very few ‘Bruce Bosleys,’ those willing to contribute and participate during and after their days as stars. It would be difficult for me to believe that I will see his equal again in our area.” |
Watching
his father spend long hours treating leather working in a tanning company
in tiny Durbin, W.Va., young Bruce Bosley made up his mind that
there was something better out there for him to do. |
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