The first Chicken Soup for the Soul book tells the tale of the young lad from the ghetto who didn’t have the money to get a ticket for the game, so he waited outside the stadium until his hero, Jim Brown, came out and get his autograph. He told Brown that he played football too, and one day he would break all of his records. So Brown asks the young lad his name. “Orenthal James. My friends call me O.J.” Yeah, he turned out to be quite the role model.
I also recently read a 1989 book that said that Simpson was “a great looking and all around good guy.” I don’t many would agree with that statement today.
So how can a sports writer balance Simpson’s football legends with his life after he retired?
He’ll be remembered as an excellent football player turned moderately entertaining actor and advertising spokesperson turned wife murderer and generally unhinged individual. It’s possible for people to do good and evil and everything in-between in the course of a life, sometimes simultaneously.
He’ll be just as highly regarded in the future as he is now.
Professional sports are rife with extraordinary players who have done terrible things. His legacy will be "One of the best RBs to ever play the game, a polarizing figure that was the key figure in a right-place-at-the-right-time race war and (insert whatever his life will be from his release 'til he dies).