RIP Ben Huff

At some point during the XFL era -- if a year can be called an era -- I absentmindedly flicked on a game between the Austin Stone Colds and the Shreveport There Aren't Any Wrestlers Called Shreveports and let my eyes linger over the football-like substance presented therein. Ben Huff was playing for one team or another and sacked the quarterback. I said to myself, "hey! Ben Huff!" and that was that. Like Eric Mayes, Huff had the bittersweet fortune to be a member of the 1997 national championship team in spirit only, watching his senior year from the sideline due to injury. That seemed like a big deal at the time.

Ben Huff died suddenly Monday due to unspecified causes. He was thirty-one.