College Louisiana Tech Name David Lee Punting yards 34,019 Weight 104 kg | Punts 838 Height 1.93 m High school Minden High Role Executive Positions Punter | |
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Date of birth (1943-11-08) November 8, 1943 (age 72) Place of birth Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, USA | ||
Education Louisiana Tech University | ||
1969 baltimore colts punter david lee talks about the differences in this years team than last
David Allen Lee (born November 8, 1943) is a former American football punter for the former Baltimore Colts in the National Football League and subsequently retired from a career as a General Motors executive in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, in northwestern Louisiana. He accumulated several sports records in punting for the Colts in a 12-year career from 1966 until 1978.
Contents
- 1969 baltimore colts punter david lee talks about the differences in this years team than last
- Browns qb coach david lee on deshone kizer s progress
- Early years
- College career
- Professional career
- Personal life
- References
On October 1, 2011, Lee was inducted into the Louisiana Tech University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Browns qb coach david lee on deshone kizer s progress
Early years
Lee was born in Shreveport to Roy Lee (1916–1994) and the former Hazel Braley (1919–2007). He grew up in the small town of Minden in Webster Parish, some thirty miles east of Shreveport.
The family home at the intersection of Goodwill and Ash streets is near a residence where the Country music singer David Houston lived as a child. It is also in the same block as the residence of the late Mayor Jack Batton. It is a short walk from the Minden High School stadium, then a new structure, where Lee made his first successful mark in football between 1957 and 1960. Not only was Lee All-District and All-State in football in his senior year, the fall of 1960, but he excelled similarly in basketball (1961), baseball (1959–1961), and track (1958–1961). He was also elected by his peers to the Student Council during his senior year.
College career
Upon his 1961 graduation from Minden High School, Lee enrolled on a football scholarship at Louisiana Tech, then Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, in Ruston in Lincoln Parish. Similarly successful in college football, the tall, ectomorphic Lee excelled in punting.
Professional career
After graduation from Tech in 1965, Lee joined the Cleveland Browns. They signed the papers in Ruston at the home of the parents of football star Bert Jones. He was transferred after a year to the Colts. As a rookie, Lee won the National Football League punting title.
In 1969, the Colts lost Super Bowl III to the New York Jets, but Lee again won the NFL punting title. In 1971, the year in which the Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys to win Super Bowl V, Lee uncorked a 76-yard punt, the longest in Colts history.
In 1973, Lee's friend, the Colts' quarterback Johnny Unitas, went to the San Diego Chargers after concluding his Baltimore career as the NFL's all-time leader in passing yardage. Six years after Lee retired from the Colts, the team relocated to Indianapolis.
During his sports career, Lee was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and often gave motivational lectures to young people attempting to develop their athletic abilities.
Personal life
Lee Briefly dated United Airlines flight attendant Mary Lustig in the early 60s. They met in Denver. Later, the two broke up.
Lee is married to the former Sandra Harper (born 1945), his high school cheerleader and sweetheart. She is the daughter of the late George R. Harper and the former Doris Booth (1923–2011). After the death of George Harper, Mrs. Harper married Eulus E. Wright (1913–2000); she was a past treasurer of the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church and the Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary in Minden.
The Lees reside in Bossier City, east of Shreveport. The Lees have a son and a daughter. Jared Harper Lee (born 1971) resides in Frisco, Texas, with his wife, Heather A. Lee (born 1974). Whitney Lee Nolan (born ca. 1966), a school administrator, resides in Jasper, Georgia, with her husband, Roger R. Nolan (born ca. 1960), a teacher and coach.
Lee has a younger brother, Danny Roy Lee (born 1953), of Minden, who played high school and college football. Danny Lee was named in 1972 as the state's second-leading collegiate punter while he attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Lee has a sister, Denece Lee Thibodeaux (born 1955), married to Charles E. Thibodeaux (born 1951), of Houston. A second sister, Mildred Diane Lee Doss (1942–1982), was the wife of Harold Wayne Doss.
Lee was among several outstanding football figures from his hometown of Minden during the 1960s: