NC State’s Roman Gabriel remembered as a great quarterback but also as great athlete
Roman Gabriel will long be remembered as a great quarterback, at N.C. State and then in the NFL.
His football jersey, No. 18, was the first to be retired by the Wolfpack. He was a two-time All-America in college and later the MVP in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams. He was big, he was strong and he had that majestic football name.
But Gabriel, who died Saturday at 83 of natural causes, was a great athlete. Those of a certain age can recall that the Wilmington native also played basketball and baseball for the Wolfpack.
Gabriel once said he considered basketball his best sport and that legendary Wolfpack coach Everett Case badly wanted him on the varsity roster. Gabriel said his mother objected, believing playing three sports would hinder his classwork, so he gave up basketball.
After lagging grades as a freshman, Gabriel would later be named an Academic All-America in 1961.
The late Frank Weedon, a long-time N.C. State athletics administrator, once said if Gabriel had concentrated on just one sport, “There’s no telling how great he could have been, and that includes basketball and baseball. He was a super athlete. For his era, the best.”
Gabriel came to the Pack as a 6-foot-5, 190-pound freshman, began a weight-lifting regimen and added 40 pounds, making him bigger than some of the Wolfpack’s offensive linemen. While he might have had the strongest arm of any quarterback in college football at the time, he played in era when strong running games and a minimum number of passes were more the norm.
It was also an era when players were used on both offense and defense and Gabriel would say one of his biggest football moments at NCSU came when he was at middle linebacker, not quarterback.
The Pack was playing North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1960 and Gabriel was needed on a late goal-line stand. He forced a UNC fumble, allowing the Wolfpack to take a 3-0 victory.
Named the ACC player of the year in 1960 and 1961, he was the first ACC quarterback to pass for more than 1,000 yards in a season.
Gabriel was the No. 2 pick of the 1962 NFL draft and the No. 1 pick in the then-fledgling AFL. He signed with the Rams and began a 16-year NFL career that had him named the league’s MVP in 1969.
In his 11 seasons with the Rams, Gabriel passed for more than 22,000 yards and 154 touchdowns. Traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973, he was named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year in the ‘73 season and retired with the Eagles in 1977.
While in L.A., ”Gabe” became something of a celebrity in a city filled with them, appearing with John Wayne and Rock Hudson in the movie “The Undefeated,” a Western released in 1969. He also appeared on several TV shows, such as “Perry Mason.”
Gabriel once said he had hopes of becoming the Wolfpack’s head coach after his pro career but never had that opportunity. He did coach pro football at Carter-Finley Stadium – with the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks of the World League of American Football in 1991.
Gabriel was selected for the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989 and was chosen for the inaugural class of N.C. State’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012.
Involved with a number of charitable organizations, Gabriel is credited with helping raise more than $7 million and with opening the first Ronald McDonald House in North Carolina.
One of Gabriel’s sons, Roman III, released the news of his father’s death on Saturday via social media, saying he died “peacefully” at home of natural causes.
