Sport: Football
Born: March 1, 1961
Town: Camden, New Jersey
Michael M. Rozier was born March 1, 1961 in Camden, NJ. One of six brothers, Mike was small and sturdy with explosive speed—a well-known, well-liked athlete from a loving family who went on to forge a headline-making career as a sprinter and running back at Woodrow Wilson High School. He broke numerous records as a member of the Mighty Tigers football team on a field that now bears his name, and was also voted the most popular boy in his senior class. Yet despite Mike’s local fame, he was not on the radar of major college recruiters in the late-1970s.
Indeed, Mike was “discovered” by a University of Nebraska assistant, Frank Solich, who was watching game films of future 49er John Taylor, star of the Pennsauken High team that was playing Woodrow Wilson. Solich, a former fullback who coached the Nebraska runners for many years, loved the way Mike bounced off tacklers and then outraced entire defenses in the open field. He guessed that the kid could probably run a 4.4 40, and he was right.
The Cornhuskers offered Mike a full ride provided he could get his academics together, so he spent a year at Coffeyville Junior College in Kansas. Rozier and Mel Gray, a future All-Pro with the Saints and Lions, led the Red Ravens football team to an unbeaten 1980 season. In 1981, Mike suited up for Nebraska and backed up Roger Craig to give the ’Huskers a devastating one-two punch out of the backfield. Craig, a junior, ran for 1,0760 yards, while Mike chipped in 943 as Nebraska went 9–3, losing to top-ranked Clemson 22–15 in the Orange Bowl.
The two swapped roles in 1982, with Mike becoming the featured back and Roger moving to fullback in Tom Osborne’s powerhouse offense. An early season 27–24 loss to Penn State was the only blemish on the team’s record as Nebraska went 12–1, including a victory over LSU in the Orange Bowl. Penn state finished the year with the #1 ranking, while the Cornhuskers finished at #3. Mike ran for 1,689 yards to establish a new school record, but they were not all easy yards. He was slated to sit out the Missouri game in October with a hip pointer, but came back in after Nebraska fell behind. He rumbled for 139 yards in the second half of a 23–19 comeback win.
The Cornhuskers had a season for the ages in 1983 and Rozier—who stood 5’11” and was now a rock-solid 210 pounds—won the Heisman Trophy. He averaged over seven yards every time he carried the ball and finished the year with 2,148 yards and 29 touchdowns. At the end of October, only BYU quarterback Steve Young was still part of the Heisman conversation. From that point on Mike racked up 200-plus yards in each of the season’s final four games—including 230 yards in the first half of a 67–13 win over Kansas—to end that conversation.
The Cornhuskers were 12–0 when they took the field against Miami in the Orange Bowl in a bid to become the first team since World War II to go wire-to-wire as the #1 team in the AP poll. They averaged 52 points a game and beat their opponents on average by more than five touchdowns. The Hurricanes won with defense in 1983 and, true to form, they opened a 31–17 lead over Nebraska in the second half. Mike had a solid first half, amassing 138 yards. But a badly sprained ankle early in the third quarter ended his day. The ’Huskers fought back to make the score 31–30 with under a minute left, but chose a two-point conversion instead of a game-tying extra point. Head coach Tom Osborne called a pass play for Turner Gill, but Miami batted it down to preserve the victory and usurp the #1 ranking.
The USFL was handing out huge salaries to marquee collegians and no one was more marquee than Mike in the spring of 1984. Pittsburgh Maulers owner Edward DeBartolo Sr. (father of the 49ers owner) was intent on making a splash and in addition to luring Mike away from the NFL, he nearly tempted Pitt quarterback Dan Marino to jump to the Maulers, too. The NFL held a supplemental draft that spring for players who had already signed with the USFL, including Steve Young and Reggie White; Mike went second overall to the Houston Oilers.
In his first pro season, Mike racked up 1,051 yards from scrimmage, including a team-high 792 rushing yards. His Orange Bowl injury still bothered him and would continue to nag him for years as a pro. On a talent-loaded team, Mike’s rookie numbers might have been respectable. But there was little offensive oomph beyond him on the Maulers and they lost 11 of their last 12 games to finish 3–15. The Maulers themselves went down in history as one-season wonders, as DeBartolo folded the team and walked away from the USFL.
The Jacksonville Bulls acquired the rights to Mike and he enjoyed the kind of season football expected. He ran for 1,361 yards and 12 touchdowns, and caught 50 passes for 366 more yards and another three scores. After a sluggish start, the Bulls won six of seven midseason games but still finished with a 9–9 record. The team had great fan support and, in fact, when the Houston Oilers began looking for a new home a couple of years later they nearly chose Jacksonville over Tennessee.
The USFL folded after a 1985 antitrust suit against the NFL didn’t pan out, leaving time for Mike and several other players to finish the year with the NFL clubs that held their rights. Mike added 462 yards in 14 games as a member of the Oilers, for a total of 1,783 on the year, making him the answer to the trivia question Who rushed for the most yards for two different leagues in the same season?
Mike’s two best NFL seasons were 1987 and 1988, when he ran for 957 and 1,002 yards, respectively, and scored 13 rushing touchdowns. He was voted to Pro Bowl after both of those seasons. The Oilers traded Mike to the Falcons early in the 1990 season and he did a good job for Atlanta, finishing as the team’s leading ground gainer with 675 yards in 13 games. The wear and tear of a dozen pro and college seasons finally caught up with Mike in 1991 and he called it quits after it became obvious that a chronic foot injury would rob him of his precious speed. In all, he ran for more than 6,500 yards in eight years as a pro—2,153 in the USFL and 4,462 in the NFL—to go with more than 5,000 yards with Nebraska.
After football, Rozier returned to Camden County with his future wife, Rochelle, an attorney. He reacquainted himself with some of his old friends, whose lives unfortunately had not taken the same trajectory as his. In November 1996, at an hour way too late to be on a Camden street corner, Mike found himself in the crossfire of an altercation and was hit three times by bullets from a .357 magnum—twice in the chest and once in the hand. All three passed through him, leaving gaping wounds that ER doctors were able to patch up. The assailant spent 20 years in prison for the assault.
Since then, Rozier has devoted his time to various charitable causes and events, and is a regular attendee of the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York. In 2006, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.