NFL draft: Vikings didn't get OJ Simpson in 1968, but Ron Yary turned out fine - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

With the No. 1 overall pick in the 1968 NFL Draft, the Vikings were thinking hard about a player from the University of Southern California.

They ended up taking star right tackle Ron Yary. But he wasn't the initial USC player they were targeting.

The Trojans were coming off the 1967 national championship with Yary blocking for tailback O.J. Simpson, who rushed for 1,543 yards and finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy. Simpson was a junior and ineligible for the draft, but that didn't stop the Vikings from trying to come up with a way to acquire him.

"We actually tried to trade the pick to somebody so we could get O.J. the next year,'' said Bud Grant, the hall of fame coach who was entering his second season with the Vikings in 1968. "We thought maybe we could go through the league and we could postpone the pick until the next year, but there was no avenue for us.

"It was more of a fantasy. So, we put that to bed and we all agreed Yary was the best player in the draft."

After winning the Heisman Trophy in 1968, Simpson was the No. 1 pick in the 1969 draft, going to the Buffalo Bills — and then making the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But so did Yary, one of the best draft selections the Vikings have made.

Yary played for the Vikings from 1968-81 before finishing his career with the Los Angeles Rams in 1982 and being enshrined in Canton, Ohio, in 2001. He was named All-Pro six times and played in seven Pro Bowls with Minnesota, and remains the Vikings' only No. 1 overall pick since the first combined NFL-AFL draft in 1967.

The Vikings chose Tommy Mason No. 1 in their first draft in 1961 but he wasn't the top overall pick in the AFL draft; that was Denver Broncos pick Bob Gaiters, a running back from New Mexico State. Yary was the first USC player chosen first overall; the Trojans are now up to five, tied with Auburn and Notre Dame for the most by any school.

That record will be USC's alone if quarterback Sam Darnold is selected by Cleveland in the three-day draft that gets underway Thursday in Arlington, Texas.

Minnesota Vikings hall of fame tackle Ron Yary, taken with the No. 1 pick in the 1968 NFL draft, is shown at his home Friday, April 20, 2018 in Murrieta, Calif. alongside the Forrest Gregg Outstanding Lineman Award, a trophy he received from the Wisconsin Pro Football Writers following the 1974 season. (Courtesy of Ron Yary)

'I WENT TO CLASS'

The draft has changed plenty since Yary heard his name called 50 years ago. "It's a circus now," Grant said, "although that is fine."

This year's event will be televised on three networks — NFL Network, ESPN and Fox — for the first time, and more than 200,000 fans are expected to attend.

Players have been auditioning for the draft over the past several months at the Senior Bowl, the NFL scouting combine and pro days held at colleges around the country. There have been countless mock drafts published, and even more opinions dispensed. The top players will attend the draft wearing snazzy suits. The No. 1 pick will be announced by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and introduced on stage.

The 1968 draft was held Jan. 30-31 at the Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York. Commissioner Pete Rozelle was on hand with representatives from each of 26 teams. There were no players there, no fans, no television broadcast and little overall media coverage.

"I had heard from one of my coaches (USC assistant Marv Goux) about a month earlier that the Vikings were considering drafting me as the first player in the first round," Yary, 71, said from his home in Murrieta, Calif. "But it didn't really even enter my mind.

"On the morning of the draft, at about 6 o'clock, I was in my apartment (in Los Angeles). Bud Grant called me on the phone about five minutes before the draft started and said, 'We're going to draft you. Do you want to play for the Vikings?' The call lasted 30 seconds."

Yary answered yes, and that was it.

"It was a normal day just like any other,'' said Yary, a business major at USC. "I went to class."

The Vikings were coming off a 3-8-3 season and had acquired the top pick in the March 1967 trade that sent quarterback Fran Tarkenton to the New York Giants. Yary was selected before Tennessee center Bob Johnson went No. 2 to Cincinnati, and Tennessee State defensive end Claude Humphrey went No. 3 to Atlanta.

Humphrey also made it to the Hall of Fame from that draft. So did running back Larry Csonka, taken by Miami out of Syracuse at No. 8, as well as second-round picks Curley Culp and Ken Stabler, and third-round selections Charlie Sanders, Elvin Bethea and Art Shell.

There were no combines or pro days back then. In their evaluation of Yary, then-Vikings general manager Jim Finks and Grant relied heavily on scouts the Vikings had on the West Coast.

"I had never met him. I wouldn't have known Ron Yary from a fence post," Grant said. "I only saw, I think, one film on him, but we had scouts and they filed reports. It was a consensus for us that Yary was a no-lose option as a pick, and he turned out to be great for us.''

Grant said the phone call he made to the tackle on the morning of the draft was routine.

"We just wanted to make sure he hadn't fallen down and broken his leg the day before," he said. "We asked him if he wanted to play for the Vikings, but that was a standard question. What's a guy going to say?"

Southern California football players, Ron Yary, Tim Rossovich, O.J. Simpson and Adrian Young, left to right, visit the set of the movie "Star!" at 20th Century-Fox Studios in Hollywood, Dec. 13, 1967 and get a football autographed by movie star Julie Andrews. Also on hand is director Robert Wise, third from right, who directs the picture and who also directed Miss Andrews in the movie, "The Sound of Music." (AP Photo/David Smith)

'I HAD TO DELIVER'

Because the NFL and AFL had merged, Yary had little leverage in contract negotiations. He said his first-year salary was $18,000, less than the $25,000 Atlanta linebacker Tommy Nobis made as a rookie in 1966 after being the NFL's final No. 1 pick before the combined draft.

"At the time, it didn't make much difference if I was the first pick or the last pick," Yary said. "To me, I just wanted to play football. It didn't mean as much to me then as it does today. The significance of being picked first today is exponentially more valuable now than it was then. … While I was honored then for the Vikings to take me No. 1, I hadn't done anything for them yet. I had to deliver."

Yary was one of five USC players drafted in the first round that year; the others were tackle Mike Taylor, No. 10 to Pittsburgh; defensive end Tim Rossovich, No. 14 to Philadelphia; fullback Mike Hull, No. 16 to Chicago; and wide receiver Earl McCullouch, No. 24 to Detroit.

That remains tied with Miami (2002) and Ohio State (2016) for the most first-rounders by one school.

"I don't think Yary had thought much about being the No. 1 pick,'' said Hull, who played seven NFL seasons and is now general counsel for Coldwell Banker Real Estate and based in Irvine, Calif. "He's a very humble guy. We were all just delighted he was the No. 1 choice, but he just kind of laughed it off."

Yary moved into Minnesota's starting lineup midway through his second season in 1969 and became one of the top tackles in NFL history. He was named NFC Offensive Lineman of the Year three times.

"Our defense was just starting to form when we drafted Ron, and we needed a good offensive line,'' said hall of fame defensive end Carl Eller, a member of the Vikings' famed Purple People Eaters line. "Yary proved to be an excellent pick. He was a great player."

Yary helped lead the Vikings to four Super Bowls in the 1970s, all of which they lost. Still, Yary looks back at his career with mostly fond memories.

"It's always a disappointment," Yary said of the Super Bowl losses. "But I was lucky to be drafted by the Vikings. I had a wonderful career, a wonderful life there. You couldn't have picked a better team and a better time to be drafted. Somebody was looking over me."

'I WATCH BASEBALL'

Yary doesn't think much of the NFL today. He doesn't like what he calls the "theatrics" of the game.

"I watch baseball," he said. "I don't even watch professional football anymore. I'm tired of players jumping around in front of the crowd and saying, 'Look at how wonderful I am.' "

Yary admits to watching the Vikings at times, when his wife, Jamie, or one of his sons turn on a game. Yary has two sons, Jack, 16, and Grant, 13, who play football, and a daughter, Kinley, 7.

Yary doesn't plan to tune into a minute of the draft a half century after he was taken No. 1. It will take the league three days to get through seven rounds and 256 picks.

"I've never once watched the draft," he said. "I'm not interested in who goes No. 1 or who goes No. 595."

Yary doesn't remember any speculation before the 1968 draft about who might be selected No. 1, and doesn't recall doing a single interview with the media heading into the event. There was a bit of publicity at USC in the afternoon following the first round.

Yary was called and told to go to the football office — "I didn't even know what for," he said — where the other four first-round picks, and Simpson, had also been requested. A United Press International photographer snapped a photo of Simpson congratulating the five bound for the NFL.

The photo ran in the Los Angeles Times the next day, and Hull still has a clipping of it in his office. Yary remembers his mother cutting out the photo and putting it in a scrapbook, which he has in storage.

Yary chuckled when talking about Simpson being in the photo. Yary said he first heard the story from Grant last year at a card show in the Twin Cities about the Vikings having tried to draft him in 1968. Yary didn't deny that the shifty back was quite a big deal back then, which is why he said USC officials wanted him in the photo with the draftees.

"They knew he was becoming a legend and they want halfbacks to come to USC, so they wanted to get him in that picture,'' Yary s

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