Former Oakland Raiders star center and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Otto has died, the team announced Sunday. He was 86.
No cause of death was given.
“The Raiders Family is in deep mourning following the passing of Jim Otto…The Original Raider,” the team said in a statement. “The personification of consistency, Jim’s influence on the American Football League and professional football as a whole cannot be overstated.”
Otto, a collegiate standout at the University of Miami, played 15 seasons in the NFL from 1960 to 1974, all with the Raiders. He started and played in all 210 career games for the Raiders, earning 12 AFL All-Star and NFL Pro Bowl selections during his career. Otto also helped lead the Raiders to winning the AFL Championship in 1967, earning a berth in Super Bowl II, where the Raiders lost to the defending NFL champion Green Bay Packers, 33-14.
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“Football as a team game demands sacrifice and discipline,” Otto once said, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in which he was inducted in 1980. “You’ve got to think of the guy playing next to you and try to help him. To do that, you have to sacrifice.”
The Pro Football Hall of Fame issued a statement recognizing Otto.
“Jim Otto personified the aura and mystique of the Raiders,” President Jim Porter said in a statement. “He was ‘The Original Raider,’ leading a new franchise from its inception into its first run of glory years from the late 1960s into the 1970s.
“His legendary reliability — with 210 consecutive starts in the AFL and NFL — and the accolades he acquired serve as a testament to his dedication to the organization and the game. The Pro Football Hall of Fame will guard his legacy with the same diligence and tenacity that he guarded his teammates,” he added.
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