Brad Ecklund Bradford Ecklund ( May 9 , 1922 – February 6 , 2010 ) was a center in the AAFC and in the National Football League . He was chosen twice ( 1950 , 1951 ) to play in the Pro Bowl . He was born in Los Angeles , California and died in Mount Holly Township , New Jersey . Amateur career . As a senior in high school at Milwaukie , Oregon , Ecklund was named to the Metro all - star team at fullback . He was a four - sport star — baseball , track , basketball and football — and was drafted by the Philadelphia Athletics , but turned down baseball for a full ride at Oregon . He never played for a team — frosh , varsity , military or Oregon — that he wasn ' t named captain of . And he never played in a league where he wasn ' t named on the all - conference team — at fullback in high school , in college or as a professional . Ecklund matriculated at Oregon in 1941 , expecting to play fullback . But the Webfoots were loaded in the backfield , and weak up front . Coach Tex Oliver moved the massive Ecklund to center during fall camp . By the first game , at Stanford , he was first string . He started every game , but flunked out of school . When World War II erupted , Ecklund joined the Marine Corps , and took up boxing for fun . He became the Marine Corps Golden Gloves champion . He played for the Naval Air Station football team in Jacksonville , Florida for two years , before being dispatched for overseas duty at Okinawa . He learned what it meant to be a member of team in the South Pacific , fighting in interminable battles from island to island . " I was in the second wave , " he said in 1993 . " It was the guys in the first wave who got their butts shot up . " The man one sportswriter called " the indestructible giant " returned to Oregon in ' 46 , and picked up where he left off . " By being four years in the service , they forgave me " for flunking out , he said . " When I came back , I never made less than a B average . I ' d matured and realized what I almost lost . " In the next three years , playing both sides of the line , he averaged over fifty minutes per game . He was All - PCC in ' 46 , ' 47 and ' 48 . On Oregon ' s ' 48 team , Ecklund played all 60 minutes of five games — Stanford , USC , Michigan , St Mary ' s and Washington — and was only knocked out of one game all year , when an Idaho player kicked him in the head 4 minutes into the 3rd quarter . He graduated from Oregon in 1949 with degrees in health and physical education . Professional career . He passed up a contract offer from the Green Bay Packers , choosing to join the upstart All - America Football Conference ' s New York Yankees for more money . He stayed with the team after the AAFC - NFL merger , through its sale and relocation to Dallas , then signed with the Baltimore Colts . In 1953 , Ecklund was named the most valuable offensive lineman of the Colts , an honor for which he received all of $ 100 . Having achieved that career milestone , he quit the team and returned to Oregon to coach high school football . Ecklund was an assistant to Len Casanova ' s late - 1950s Oregon teams , then jumped to the NFL in 1960 , where Tom Landry gave him his first coaching gig with the new Dallas Cowboys . He moved to the new Atlanta team in 1966 , where he coached under his former Oregon teammate Norm Van Brocklin , and later coached at New Orleans , Philadelphia and Chicago . A member of the Screen Actors Guild , having earned a role in the movie " North Dallas Forty " , Ecklund also did some acting in TV commercials and appearances as John Wayne ' s look - alike while residing in Los Angeles . Ecklund retired from coaching in 1979 , and spent most of the rest of his working life as a substitute teacher in the Philadelphia area as well as the Southern California area in the 1981 specifically in Orange , California . In 1999 , Brad Ecklund was named University of Oregon " Lineman of the Century . " Ecklund was a charter member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame . A resident of Vincentown in Southampton Township , New Jersey , Ecklund died on February 6 , 2010 , of congestive heart failure at a hospice in Mount Holly Township .