FAYETTEVILLE — Gerald Nesbitt played football for the United States Marines before he played for the Arkansas Razorbacks.
After Nesbitt served in the Korean War in 1951, he returned to the United States and was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, where he made the camp football team that included future NFL players Eugene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, a Pro Bowl defensive tackle for the Baltimore Colts; Chicago Bears quarterback Ed Brown; and Los Angeles Rams linebacker Bob Griffin.
Griffin played at the University of Arkansas from 1949-51 and he sent a scouting report praising Nesbitt to UA Athletic Director John Barnhill — who had been Griffin’s coach with the Razorbacks — according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article written by Orville Henry in 1991, when Nesbitt was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Nesbitt had other scholarship offers, Henry wrote, but he decided to sign with Arkansas, where he became an all-around star from 1955-57 playing for Coach Jack Mitchell — Frank Broyles’ predecessor.
Nesbitt, an All-Southwest Conference fullback in 1956 and 1957, died last week in Little Rock. He was 91.
“He was short, big-legged, heavy-hipped with quick feet — the kind people bounce off,” Wilson Matthews, the long-time Little Rock Central High School coach and Arkansas assistant for Broyles, said of the 5-10 Nesbitt, according to Henry’s 1991 article.
Along with being a standout fullback, Nesbitt played linebacker for the Razorbacks and handled punting and placekicking. He was voted a member of Arkansas’ All-Decade Team for the 1950s.
Nesbitt led Arkansas in rushing in 1956 with 129 carries for 663 yards and 7 touchdowns and in 1957 with 145 carries for 624 yards and 7 touchdowns. He led the team in scoring with 49 points in 1956 and 51 in 1957, when he averaged 40.3 yards and 41.9 yards as a punter. He had a team-high four interceptions in 1956.
“He was not complicated,” Don Christian, who played quarterback at Arkansas and was Nesbitt’s teammate for three seasons, told Henry in 1991. “We saw him as a football player who could do anything, but who put the team first, never had much to say about anything, never complained.
“He was the toughest player I was ever around, and probably the best we had in those years.”
Because Nesbitt served in the Marines before he attended Arkansas, he was 23 in his first college season in 1955.
“Gerald Nesbitt? Why, he even looks good tying his shoes,” Mitchell said according to the book “The Razorbacks, A Story of Arkansas Football” written by Henry and Jim Bailey.
After the 1957 college season, Nesbitt played in the East-West Shrine Bowl, an All-Star game in San Francisco. He had 22 carries for 91 yards and 2 touchdowns and caught a touchdown pass to lead the West team to a 27-13 victory and was voted the game’s most outstanding offensive player.
Nesbitt played in the Canadian Football League for the Ottawa Rough Riders for four seasons from 1958-61. He helped Ottawa win the Grey Cup as CFL champion in 1960 when the Rough Riders beat the Edmonton Eskimos 16-6.
After retiring from pro football, Nesbitt moved to Little Rock and worked as a sales representative for an aluminum fabricating company for 47 years. He retired from that job in 2008.
A native of Big Sandy, Texas, Nesbitt was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Honor in 1999.