captainsblog | ...The center of attention in the walls inside my head....

There's sudden sadness in Buffalo today. One of the key players in the Bills' 1990s success passed away yesterday. Longtime Bills center Kent Hull was three months short of his 51st birthday, so, yeah. Younger than me. He never got the headlines or the fame that the Star Star Stars of those teams did, but faithful fans knew him well, and the team honored him with a place on the stadium Wall of Fame in 2002, five years after his retirement.

Former players, and regular fans, have been calling into the local sports talk station all day, interrupting their usual diet of prognostication and claptrap, with genuinely touching memories of a guy who played a position most notable for its anonymity: nobody notices offensive linemen unless they screw something up, and Hull rarely did. One fan called in a remembrance of seeing him, and a few of his teammates, at a Canadian bar sometime after a Bills Super Bowl loss. The fan sent over a round of drinks to the group, which they waved to acknowledge, but when the fan got up to leave, Hull stopped him and gave him a handshake and a personal thanks- and admonished one of his younger teammates for not doing the same.

Class act. Sad loss. Rest in peace, Sir; you're in a place where none of your teammates jump too soon and the field goals are always straight down the middle.