BALTIMORE'S RAYMOND CHESTER
STANDOUT AT DOUGLASS HIGH, MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY AND BALTIMORE COLTS
Raymond Tucker Chester (born June 28, 1948) is a former American Football tight end. After graduating from Douglass High School in Baltimore, Maryland, Chester played college football at the historically Black University, Morgan State. He was a member of the Morgan State Bears’ 1968 undefeated team, scoring the Bears’ only touchdown in their historic victory over Grambling at Yankee Stadium.
Drafted in the first round as the 24th pick overall in the 1970 NFL Draft, Chester began his NFL career with the Oakland Raiders. Pulling in seven touchdowns and over five hundred yards receiving in his NFL debut, Chester received the Rookie of the Year award and secured his first of four career Pro Bowl selections. After a trade in 1973 to the Baltimore Colts, Chester played five seasons with them before returning to Oakland. He played with the Raiders in 1980, becoming a Super Bowl Champion after their defeat of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Born in Cambridge, Maryland, Chester is the fourth of ten siblings born to Ivy and Bertha Chester. His passion for sports began during his years at Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, where he excelled in track and wrestling as well as football. He moved on to Morgan State, concentrating his athletic efforts on football under the guidance of legendary head coach Earl Banks.
During one of the Bears’ three unbeaten seasons in 1968, Chester played in the match-up between Morgan State and Grambling. The historical game was the first of its kind, pitting two historically black colleges against each other on one of the largest stages of that era—Yankee Stadium.
In that epic battle, Chester hauled in Morgan State’s only touchdown, leading to the Bears’ ultimate 9-7 victory over the Grambling Tigers.
Chester was a member of the 1970 College All-Star team.
Chester entered the NFL draft in 1970, selected in the first round by the Oakland Raider (24th overall) legendary owner Al Davis. He started in his rookie season, contributing to the Raiders’ 8-4-2 season and their appearance in the AFC Division Playoffs. Along with his 42 receptions, 556 yards, and 7 touchdowns, Chester’s performance earned him the NFL Rookie of the Year and his first of four Pro Bowl selections. Davis and Chester would remain close friends until Davis’s death in 2011.
Chester returned to his hometown in 1973 when he was traded to the Baltimore Colts. During his five seasons with the Colts, Chester racked up 2,123 yards receiving, 11 touchdowns, and a key contributor to the Colts winning three division titles (’75, ’76, ’77).
After a trade, Chester returned to the Oakland Raiders in 1978. He had his best career statistics in 1979 with 712 reception yards and eight touchdowns. The following year, Chester became a Super Bowl champion when the Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XV (27-10).
After the 1981 season, with an impending move to Los Angeles by the Raiders, Chester decided to retire from the NFL.
He became involved in the development of a new league, the United States Football League (USFL), which consisted of 18 teams, with one coming to Oakland. Chester came out of retirement and played a single season with the Oakland Invaders in 1983. The team won the Pacific division and Chester earned the USFL Man of the Year award.
An avid golfer, Chester managed the Lake Chabot Golf Course for 20 years. Currently he acts as a consultant for golf course development and management. He is a member of the Maryland Athlete Hall of Fame as well as the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
In 2014, a campaign was launched by the Black Sports Legends Foundation to get Chester elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as well. At that time, Chester said: "I think it’s time that the Hall of Fame selection committee go back and recognize some of the guys who were absolutely the best player in their era...And no one can dispute that I was one of the top three players at my position in my era. No one can dispute that." (Wikipedia)
Notable exclusion: Put Chester in Hall
October 29, 200 By DAVID STEELE, Baltimore Sun
You don't have to go far to find friends, family and teammates eager to state Raymond Chester's case for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Just don't ask Chester himself.
He doesn't mind talking about growing up in West Baltimore, playing at Douglass High and Morgan State and with the Colts and Oakland Raiders, and his post-career life and goals. His absence from Canton? Not high on his agenda.
"He's always been like that. That's what we love about him," John Sykes, his former Morgan State teammate, said last weekend. "He doesn't go around bragging, never did."
Sykes - who starred at City and played against Chester in high school - was among dozens of former players on campus for a homecoming-weekend reunion of the great Morgan teams of the 1960s, particularly the one that defeated Grambling, 9-7, at Yankee Stadium in a historic meeting 40 years ago.
Those were legendary, barrier-breaking teams, and to a man, the players acknowledged Chester as the best of them all.
They also wonder why Chester has never even come close to making the Hall of Fame, despite statistics and accomplishments comparable to those of the seven tight ends there. It is the least-represented offensive or defensive position in the Hall, which has no Maryland-born members but does include four Morgan players.
Chester, however, has other things on his mind.
"I am very humbled and grateful for that effort," said Chester, 60, who recently retired from his golf course-managing business in California and from his executive position coordinating ticket sales for the Raiders. "But what's more important to me is to galvanize more support for recognition for my university, for Baltimore, for Douglass, for everything.
"I'm always going to make myself available to do anything I can to help things out here, to make things better, to move things along."
That is why he spent his weekend here talking to Morgan officials about being a more active alumnus and to people at Douglass to see whether he can help stop its steep decline from one of the city's best public schools to one of its most troubled.
The vehicle Chester wants to use? His life and those of his teammates. He was proud to be surrounded not just by players who populated the NFL and AFL with him in the 1960s and 1970s, but also by doctors, professors, lawyers, businessmen and coaches. (And authors - one of his teammates on hand was William C. Rhoden, who chronicled the Yankee Stadium game, and Chester's heroics in it, in 2006's Forty Million Dollar Slaves.) The way Chester grew up, he said, wasn't very different from the way kids in Baltimore grow up now.
"Let's be real. I was supposed to be a thug, a gangster, a drug dealer or dead," Chester said. "Those were the odds of what I would be. When I started in high school, I started on a path of success in sports, and the truth of the matter is the gangsters and thugs, in the neighborhood where I grew up, they pushed me to go to school."
To him, the Hall of Fame would be more of a platform to inspire than an individual honor. Nevertheless, the push by his supporters for 2010 is on. There have been similar pushes recently, but Chester becomes eligible for consideration by the Hall's senior committee next year.
"It would be a great honor to be included," Chester said. "But for me, how can I use that? What will we do to recognize, stimulate and motivate people?"
One way to find out is to elevate him to Canton, where he belongs.