Warren McVea, UH trailblazer and Chiefs SB IV champion, dies at 79

Warren McVea, a pioneering Texas college football player and member of the Kansas City Chiefs team that won Super Bowl IV, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles after a long illness, his daughter Tracey Ellis said. He was 79.

McVea rose from Brackenridge High School in San Antonio to become the first Black player to receive a football scholarship at a major Texas university when he joined the University of Houston in the mid 1960s. Known for his speed and elusiveness, he rushed for 1,461 yards and nine touchdowns in three seasons at Houston, added 841 receiving yards and eight receiving scores, and set school marks that included a 1966 single-season all purpose yardage total that stood as a program benchmark.

The running back was selected in the fourth round of the 1968 draft by the Cincinnati Bengals and spent one season in Cincinnati before being traded to the Kansas City Chiefs in 1969. McVea was part of a prolific Chiefs ground attack that season and contributed in the postseason run that culminated in the Chiefs defeating the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV, the franchise's first Super Bowl title. In the game he carried 12 times for 26 yards. Over five professional...