Super Bowl Champ Tom Goode Passes Away

WEST POINT, Miss.(WCBI)–West Point native and Former MSU Football All-American and Former NFL Super Bowl Champion Tom Goode passed away at 76.

A day after the passing of legendary football player and coach Tom Goode, Oak Hill Academy head football coach and athletic director Marion Bratton reminisces about Goode’s two requirements; Do right and be on time.

It was after his pro career and super bowl ring that Goode settled down to coach for 33 years. Oak Hill Academy Head Coach Chris Craven was at EMCC at the time.

“Played in the NFL, but you were being coached by someone who had coached at Mississippi State, had coached at Vanderbilt, had coached at Ole Miss, had coached at Alabama. You know it was a lot that was being offered to anybody who got recruited and played for him,” said Oak Hill Academy Football Coach Chris Craven.

“Very knowledgeable guy, he always had the best interest of the players and the team at heart. He was a gentle giant,” Oak Hill Academy Athletic Director Marion Bratton.

Goode played for the Houston Oilers, Miami Dolphins and won a superbowl with the Baltimore Colts in the NFL: During an exclusive interview with WCBI Sports in 2005, Goode talked of the most memorable play of his career with the Colts.

“It would have to be the Super Bowl game in the last actually the last play of my career. We won it in such a fashion. You know a few seconds left on the clock and we kicked a field goal to win the game,” said Tom Goode in December 2005.

“You know 13 to 13 and he kicks a winning field goal to win it 16 to 13 and everybody just goes crazy,” said Bratton.

Tom Goode’s career came full circle, in later years the winning player/coach returns to Oak Hill Academy in West Point, where his last sports instructions in the game of football and life are passed on there.

“I believe the reason coach Goode came back home and wanted to coach at a high school level at Oak Hill Academy is because he believed his life was to touch other people’s lives and thats what he did,” said Craven.

“Dick Butkus is in the Hall of Fame and they asked him who was the meanest or best offensive lineman he’d ever came up against. And he said by no doubt it was Tom Goode. Tom Goode could handle me,” said Bratton.

Funeral services for Goode will be held at First Baptist Church of West Point on Monday at 2 pm. Visitation is Sunday at the church from 5 to 7pm.

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