David Lee (punter)

David Lee
Career information
Date of birth	(1943-11-08) November 8, 1943
Place of birth	Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, USA
Position(s)	Punter
Height	6 ft 4 in (193 cm)
Weight	230 lb (100 kg)
College	Louisiana Tech
High school	Minden High
Career history
As player
(1966–1978)	Baltimore Colts
Career highlights and awards
Super Bowl Champion (V) AFC Champion (1970)
Career stats
Punts	838
Punting yards	34,019
Punt blocks	11
Games played	184
Playing stats at DatabaseFootball.com

David Allen Lee (born November 8, 1943) is a former American football punter for the former Baltimore Colts in the National Football League and subsequently retired from a career as a General Motors executive in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, in northwestern Louisiana. He accumulated several sports records in punting for the Colts in a 12-year career from 1966 until 1978.

On October 1, 2011, Lee was inducted into the Louisiana Tech University Athletic Hall of Fame.^[1]

Early years

Lee was born in Shreveport to Roy Lee (1916–1994) and the former Hazel Braley (1919–2007). He grew up in the small town of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish, some thirty miles east of Shreveport.

The house where athlete David Lee grew up in Minden, Louisiana

The family home at the intersection of Goodwill and Ash streets is near a residence where the Country music singer David Houston lived as a child. It is also in the same block as the residence of the late Mayor Jack Batton. It is a short walk from the Minden High School stadium, then a new structure, where Lee made his first successful mark in football between 1957 and 1960. Not only was Lee All-District and All-State in football in his senior year, the fall of 1960, but he excelled similarly in basketball (1961), baseball (1959–1961), and track (1958–1961). He was also elected by his peers to the Student Council during his senior year.

College career

Upon his 1961 graduation from Minden High School, Lee enrolled on a football scholarship at Louisiana Tech, then Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, in Ruston in Lincoln Parish. Similarly successful in college football, the tall, ectomorphic Lee excelled in punting.

Professional career

After graduation from Tech in 1965, Lee joined the Cleveland Browns. They signed the papers in Ruston at the home of the parents of football star Bert Jones. He was transferred after a year to the Colts. As a rookie, Lee won the National Football League punting title.

In 1969, the Colts lost Super Bowl III to the New York Jets, but Lee again won the NFL punting title. In 1971, the year in which the Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys to win Super Bowl V, Lee uncorked a 76-yard punt, the longest in Colts history.

In 1973, Lee's friend, the Colts' quarterback Johnny Unitas, went to the San Diego Chargers after concluding his Baltimore career as the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yardage. Six years after Lee retired from the Colts, the team relocated to Indianapolis.

During his sports career, Lee was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and often gave motivational lectures to young people attempting to develop their athletic abilities.

Personal life

Lee is married to the former Sandra Harper (born 1945), his high school cheerleader and sweetheart. She is the daughter of the late George R. Harper and the former Doris Booth (1923–2011). After the death of George Harper, Mrs. Harper married Eulus E. Wright (1913–2000); she was a past treasurer of the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church and the Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary in Minden.^[2]

The Lees reside in Bossier City, east of Shreveport. The Lees have a son and a daughter. Jared Harper Lee (born 1971) resides in Frisco, Texas, with his wife, Heather A. Lee (born 1974). Whitney Lee Nolan (born ca. 1966), a school administrator, resides in Jasper, Georgia, with her husband, Roger R. Nolan (born ca. 1960), a teacher and coach.

Lee has a younger brother, Danny Roy Lee (born 1953), of Minden, who played high school and college football. Danny Lee was named in 1972 as the state's second-leading collegiate punter while he attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe.^[3] Lee has a sister, Denece Lee Thibodeaux (born 1955), married to Charles E. Thibodeaux (born 1951), of Houston. A second sister, Mildred Diane Lee Doss (1942–1982), was the wife of Harold Wayne Doss.

Lee was among several outstanding football figures from his hometown of Minden during the 1960s:

Charlie T. Hennigan (born 1935), originally from Bienville Parish, graduated from Minden High School in 1953 and played for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches prior to joining the newly created Houston Oilers in 1960.
The somewhat diminutive Fred Haynes (1946–2006), a 1964 Minden High School graduate, became a champion college player at LSU, where he was affectionately known as the "Littlest Tiger".
Larry Brewer (born 1948), a 1966 graduate of Minden High School, went on to play for Louisiana Tech as a teammate of Terry Bradshaw. He joined the Atlanta Falcons after college graduation but was unable to meet the commitment because of an injury. Brewer became a certified public accountant and worked in hospital management until he drowned in 2003 while on a family vacation in Hawaii.
Billy Joe Booth (1940–1972) played professional football for the Ottawa Rough Riders in the Canadian Football League. He was a cousin of Mrs. David Lee.^[4]

References

↑ "Louisiana Tech Announces Hall of Fame Induction Class: List includes Minden's David Lee," Minden Press-Herald, August 31, 2011
↑ Doris Harper Wright obituary, Minden Press-Herald, December 1, 2011
↑ Minden Press-Herald, January 5, 1972
↑ Billy Joe Booth obituary. Shreveport Times, July 2, 1972

External links

Baltimore Colts Super Bowl V Champions

15 Earl Morrall 17 Sam Havrilak 19 Johnny Unitas 20 Jerry Logan 21 Rick Volk 27 Ray Perkins 28 Jimmy Orr 30 Ron Gardin 32 Mike Curtis 33 Eddie Hinton 34 Tom Nowatzke 35 Jim Duncan 36 Norm Bulaich 40 Jack Maitland 42 Tom Maxwell 45 Jerry Hill 47 Charles Stukes 49 David Lee 50 Bill Curry 51 Bob Grant 52 Robbie Nichols 54 Tom Goode 56 Ray May 60 George Wright 61 Cornelius Johnson 62 Glenn Ressler 71 Dan Sullivan 72 Bob Vogel 73 Sam Ball 74 Billy Ray Smith 75 John Williams 76 Fred Miller 78 Bubba Smith 80 Jim O'Brien 81 Billy Newsome 83 Ted Hendricks 84 Tom Mitchell 85 Roy Hilton 87 Roy Jefferson 88 John Mackey

Head Coach: Don McCafferty Coaches: Dick Bielski Bobby Boyd Hank Bullough John Idzik Lou Rymkus John Sandusky

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