Gregory Donald Pruitt is a former American footballrunning back in the National Football League from 1973 through 1984. He was selected to five Pro Bowls, four as a member of the Cleveland Browns and one as a member of the Los Angeles Raiders, the last one as a kick returner. He was also part of the Raiders' Super Bowl XVIII winning team, beating the Washington Redskins. University of Oklahoma American football line coach Bill Michael liked to recruit players from B.C. Elmore High School, where he recruited Pruitt. Pruitt was an All-American at the University of Oklahoma in 1971 and 1972, Greg was All-Big 8 as well in '71 and '72. He ranks third among Sooners in career all-purpose yards. Pruitt gained 3,122 rushing yards, 491 receiving yards, 139 yards on punt returns and 679 yards returning kickoffs. Pruitt scored 41 career touchdowns as a Sooner. He came in second in Heisman Trophy voting in 1972, and third in 1971. An African American, Pruitt was one of the first Black Sooners players to achieve All American status. He established himself as Oklahoma’s best player during a time when other Southern Universities had not fully desegregated their Football teams. The Big Eight conference however which Oklahoma was a part of established itself as the best Football Conference in the country by the start of the 1970s, each team of which was fully integrated with their success coming largely off of their Black Players. Pruitts’ performance against Southeastern Conference schools Alabama and Auburn in the 1971 and 1972 Sugar Bowls helped accelerate each team’s integration expanding their recruitment of Black players. In 1999, he was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame. The Greg Pruitt rule established tear-away jerseys as illegal. Pruitt purposely wore flimsy jerseys that ripped apart in the hands of would-be tacklers. In 1979, Pruitt won ABC's Superstars, an all-around sports competition that pits elite athletes from different sports against one another in a series of athletic events resembling a decathlon.
