D.D. Lewis, the great football linebacker, will be remembered at Mississippi State as one of the university’s most beloved athletes who happened to play on some of the school’s most abysmal teams. He died on Sept. 16 after being hospitalized for 12 days in Plano, Texas. He was 79.

In 1967, playing for a State team that did not win a single SEC game and lost nine of 10 overall, Lewis was named the SEC’s most outstanding defensive player and a first-team All American. He really did not make every tackle. It just seemed that way.

There was some football justice for Lewis. After playing for such dreadful teams at State, he was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, the so-called America’s Team for whom he became a cornerstone of their famed “Doomsday Defense.” He played in five Super Bowls and earne

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