Marcus Dupree: 'Legends never die, so we ain't dead yet'
Published: 2/18/2011 12:18 PM
Last Modified: 2/18/2011 12:18 PM
A couple of items leftover from my interviews with former OU running back Marcus Dupree last week:
Dupree considers it an honor to be still beloved by OU fans after his dubious exit after losing to Texas midway through the 1983 season. Signing autographs and meeting fans is humbling.
“It’s no different than playing ball,” he said. “It feels good. After all this time. They say legends never die, so I guess we ain’t dead yet.”
Dupree said his younger brother, Reggie, who was depicted in the ESPN 30 for 30 film “The Best That Never Was” as Marcus’ inspiration, is doing well.
“He’s living in Birmingham and he’s married and he’s doing good,” Dupree said. “His wife is from Florida. They’re doing pretty good.”
Dupree relished his continuing relationship with ex-Sooner Billy Sims. Dupree signed autographs at the fairgrounds as part of a promotion for Billy Sims Barbecue.
“Billy was the guy that was recruiting me (in high school),” Dupree said. “We stayed in contact over the years, but now he has a lot of stuff going on. Billy was one of my idols growing up, so it’s an honor for me to hang around him.”
In the film, a young child sat on Dupree’s lap calling him “Pop Pop”. It was his grandchild. He has two sons, Marquez and Landon.
“I’m not married,” Dupree said. “I have one grandson that’s playing ball now, and he’s just turned 7. He’s playing baseball and football, but I’m going to try to push him more to baseball. My other grandson is 4 and he loves football and horses. And I have two granddaughters. One is 2, the other is 8, and they like horses. So we’ll see. We just enjoy family time, have picnics and ride horses and all that other stuff.”
Dupree said he’s been asked to become part of an ownership group for a new professional football league — the United States Football League (yes, the same name of the league he played for with the New Orleans Breakers). The team would be in Jackson, Miss.
“We’ve got an owner’s meeting at the end of this month,” he said.
After he played parts of two seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, Dupree eventually found his way into the other side of pro football, becoming a scout for the Washington Redskins, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Edmond Eskimos of the Canadian Football League. He said being a scout opened his eyes.
“It did; all the different things that went on in the front office,” he said. “We know that the NFL is a business. It doesn’t matter if you’re the top player or not, they’re looking at the bottom line.”
He also was general manager of the af2’s Bossier City Battle Wings, an arena football team that competed against the Tulsa Talons in the early 2000s. Since then he’s scouted and been approached with other opportunities. He said he doesn’t go knocking on doors looking for football jobs.
“Not really,” he said. “People just come to me. If it’s a good deal, I’ll go with it. If it’s not, it doesn’t bother me.”
— John E. Hoover
Written by
John E. Hoover
Sports Columnist
