The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Gone Too Soon: Jeff Leiding (1961-2014)
07.18.2014 | Football
Former Texas Football linebacker Jeff Leiding, a consensus All-American as a senior in 1983, passed away recently.
Bill Little, Texas Media Relations
The heart is the strongest muscle in the human body. We value the heart because it pumps life, because with one common thrust of uncommon power it sends new blood through thousands of tiny vessels that, if laid end to end, would cover 60,000 miles -- more than two times around the world, or a little over one million football fields. Then it turns around and does it all over again less than a second later. It is resilient; it is determined.
That is why, when the heart stops -- particularly the heart of a relatively young person -- we experience several emotions. One of those is retrospective: Where did the time go? How can this be? Has it really been 30 years?
They will bury Jeff Leiding Saturday in Saint Ann, Missouri, just 52 short years since they welcomed him into this world, and 30 years since he roamed the collegiate football fields of the Southwest Conference as one of the best linebackers in the league -- and Texas Longhorns -- history.
In one breath, you praise the time he had with us, and curse the narrow window of the same.
From the beginning, it was a sturdy body that you first noticed about Leiding. When he first walked on the UT campus as a freshman in 1980, he stood 6-3 and weighed darned near 230 pounds. With a moustache and shaggy hair that could produce the most menacing of looks, he appeared as though he had been sent straight from central casting when somebody called for a middle linebacker. Odd that it would be that same body which would fail him, both in his quest for a dynamite career in the NFL, and in his short-circuited destiny of life.
There have been eras of great linebackers in Texas history, but in the talent-laden years of the early 1980s, none carried more "star power" than Jeff Leiding. That was partly because his Longhorns career began with a stunning tackle on a kickoff in the opening game against Arkansas on Labor Day night, 1980, when he launched himself over two blockers and separated his shoulder when he crashed into the Razorbacks ball carrier.
By his senior season of 1983, he was the leader of a defense that many have thought was the best in Longhorns history. The numbers on that 11-1 team that went into its bowl game unbeaten as the No. 2 team in the nation were amazing. Leiding and three other players (DBs Mossy Cade and Jerry Gray, and OG Doug Dawson) earned first-team Associated Press All-America honors -- the first time that had happened since Army did it during the World War II years in the mid-1940s. Leiding also joined Dawson and Gray as consensus All-Americans after posting 93 tackles, including 11 tackles for loss, and three forced fumbles. Seventeen Longhorns were taken in the 1984 NFL Draft, including Leiding, who was picked in the fifth round by the St. Louis Cardinals.
For Leiding, who was a team captain and the acknowledged inspirational leader of a defense that included fellow All-Americans Cade and Gray, the chance to play pro football fulfilled a dream he had harbored since he was 5 years old. It was then that he told his dad of his intention to play in the NFL.
But where Leiding differed from others who might have been gifted a similar body frame, it would be "attitude" that would separate him and place him among the all-time best linebackers in Texas history. If you wanted trouble and mischief -- on and off the field -- Jeff was your man. He was never in bad trouble off the field, mind you. But if you wanted a perfect angel, well you'd best look elsewhere.
His youngest sister, Susan Nixon, considered coming to Texas to college, but chose instead to play basketball at Kansas State. Being Jeff's baby sister, living in his rather large shadow (not to mention his protective look) caused her to look elsewhere -- even after a good visit with Longhorns women's coach Jody Conradt.
Years later, while living in Oklahoma, Nixon drew a big laugh from her brother when she told him an Oklahoma City radio station had named him second on a list of the most hated athletes in the state.
When Jeff marveled at the years since he had played, Susan reminded him, "Maybe it was because you went down the halls of Tulsa Union High School singing "The Eyes of Texas" when you committed to go to school there."
That and the fact that Leiding was part of Longhorn teams which defeated Oklahoma three out of four games.
The shoulder separation his freshman year caused Leiding to miss a lot of a 7-5 season in 1980, but he was then a part of teams that produced a record of 30-5-1 from 1981 through 1983. The 1983 team allowed opponents just 212 yards and 9.5 points per game. Leiding racked up 289 tackles, including 27 tackles for loss and 13 sacks, and four forced fumbles in his 34 career regular season games.
As that crowd of outstanding Longhorns headed into the NFL, it seemed no one had a brighter future than Leiding. But injuries short-circuited his early years, and after playing two seasons at Indianapolis in 1986 and 1987, a lower back problem forced him to give up the game. The injury was such that it could have led to a crippling paralysis.
"It was either quit or risk not walking," his sister recalled.
So in 1988, Leiding gave up his dream of being a star in the NFL. He had a family, went into a business partnership where he lived in Round Rock for a time, and then he went into the roofing business and moved back to the Midwest, where he had once lived before spending his senior season at Tulsa Union High School.
"He was always helping people," Nixon recalled. "He was in the roofing business, traveling all over the country. When Katrina happened, he went down there. He was very good at it. It was easy for people to like him, and to trust him."
There are many parts of heart disease, but heredity is one that cannot be discounted. Jeff's dad had his first heart attack when he was 45. He died when he was 56.
And so it was that on a bright Sunday morning in St. Louis on July 13, Jeff Leiding -- a father with two grown children and four granddaughters -- was finally betrayed by the body that had helped earn him fame. His heart just stopped.
His passing reminds us of how fragile life is. Those who saw him play will remember, others will relish in the stories of a larger-than-life football hero. Together, they will recall the story of Jeff Leiding, which, in its own way, conjures the imagines of a recent -- and yet distant -- time in Longhorns football.
For his family, his teammates and his friends, it is a message that death ends a life, and not a relationship. Because in football, and in life, there is a window -- a special place -- where games and fun are just a heartbeat away.
And in that space, we are forever young.
