WVU Sports Hall of Fame
Dick Leftridge, an outstanding fullback from 1963-65, was the first Black student-athlete to sign a grant-in-aid for a football scholarship at WVU in February 1962 and remains the highest WVU player selected in the NFL Draft (third overall pick and first skill position player in 1966).
A native of Hinton, West Virginia, Leftridge and Roger Alford broke the color barrier for Mountaineer football and the Southern Conference in 1963.
After a year on the freshman team in 1962, he became the team's leading rusher as a sophomore and had another fine season in 1964, gaining 534 yards on 125 carries, helping West Virginia to a 7-4 record and a berth in the Liberty Bowl to play Utah. He ran for 73 yards in the loss to Utah and also had an outstanding game against Pitt on regional television.
A 6-foot-2, 230-pounder, Leftridge and Garrett Ford Sr. teamed up to form one of the most formidable backfield tandems in 1965. As a senior, Leftridge ran for 774 yards and scored nine touchdowns in helping the Mountaineers to a 6-4 record. The two combined to run for more than 1,800 yards and 18 touchdowns as one of the East Coast’s best backfield tandems. Their combined figures that year compared favorably to Syracuse’s outstanding tandem of Floyd Little and Larry Csonka, which combined to run for 1,860 yards and scored 18 touchdowns that year.
Leftridges’s best game was against George Washington when he rushed 19 times for 160 yards. The Mountaineers earned Southern Conference championships in 1964 and 1965.
He finished his WVU career rushing 348 times for 1,701 yards and 21 touchdowns. He was named the state’s Amateur Athlete of the Year and was the first Black player to play for the South team in the North-South Shrine Game in Miami. He was a three-year letterwinner and is a member of the WVU All-Time Team (1960-69).
The Pittsburgh Steelers selected him as the third overall pick and the first running back taken in the 1966 NFL Draft. He played one season for the Steelers in 1966.
Leftridge died Feb. 27, 2004, just weeks before his 60th birthday. He is survived by his wife, Wanda, and children, Richard Jr., Jeri and Jeffrey, and seven grandchildren, Zachary, Joshua, Ashton, Kazimire, Hailee, Jeffrey Jr. and Storm.
