Kent Hull Passed Away

[JÂy RÛßeÒ]

The guy above the guy in the light green jacket is Talley. The older caucasian gentleman is Tom Breshnahan maybe? I think Thurman is in front of Bruce.

[Chandler#81]

Berman's 2 Minute Drill. Don't miss it today/Sat.

[bills44]

I think that the guy on the far left is Ilio DiPaolo's son.

[bbb]

I think that the guy on the far left is Ilio DiPaolo's son.

 

Yes, that looks like Dennis DiPaulo. I remember reading back in the day how Kent would go to Ilio's after the game, and do shots of something with Ilio.

 

Isn't the guy to Thurman's right Bud Carpenter?

[Búfalo Blanco]

I was born and raised in Mississippi and my father has lived in Greenwood for several years... I had always hoped to bump into Kent Hull while visiting my father, but never managed to... That is until I made it up to Memphis once in 1997 to catch the Bills playing the "Tennessee Oilers" at their temporary home, the Liberty Bowl... I met Kent while there that weekend as I was getting autographs from some of the players... He had made it up there from MS. to see some of his teammates and I was able to have a short conversation with him about Greenwood, family and the Bills and I got him to sign a card for me... He was quite honestly, outside of Glenn Parker, the nicest, most genuine football player I have ever met...

 

I had a lot of fun that weekend and even got to go up to the press box and listen to Larry Felser, Vic Carucci, John Murphy and Van Miller do their pregame show... It was a blast until I watched a young Steve McNair and Eddie George trounce on the Todd Collins-led, post Kelly/Hull Bills...

 

But one of my favorite moments in all of that was getting to finally meet my fellow Mississippian and a bear of a man, Kent Hull.... May he rest in peace and know that many of us will never forget him.

[Cornerville]

Wow great picture of the late 80's early 90's Bills players. Thanks for sharing. Just wish it was under better circumstances

[Just Jack]

Local news WABG (It's in the webcast on the home page, about 1/3 in, after the Iraq withdrawl, they interview Kelly and Tasker)

[Mr_Blizzard]

Quote from Cornelius Bennett referring to Kent's funeral gathering:

 

"It's a sad occasion but it's also a great occasion, because it gets us together to show love for one another and support for one another. Kent will always be with us in our hearts and in our minds."

[Frez]

RIP Kent Hull

 

Thank you for all the great memories and God Bless your family in their time of hurt and sorrow.

[Mr_Blizzard]

Link to Wilson and Knight Funeral Home

 

Kent's Obit

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

Saying farewell

 

Greenwood Commonwealth, The (MS) - Sunday, October 23, 2011

 

Author: BILL BURRUS

Sports Editor

 

Judging from the crowd of about 800 who came from far and near to pay their respects, it was obvious KentHull had touched many lives.

 

On Friday, about a dozen of Hull’s former Buffalo Bill teammates, including Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas, former Bills coach Marv Levy, another Hall of Famer, and Bills CEO Russ Brandon attended Hull’s funeral in Greenwood at First Presbyterian Church.

 

Hull , a former star center for Mississippi State University and the Bills, died Tuesday from gastrointestinal bleeding. He was 50.

 

Hull , a Greenwood High School product, was a mainstay on Buffalo’s four straight Super Bowl teams in the early 1990s. Levy called Hull one of the magnificent leaders of those teams.

 

“He didn’t lead by strong-arming them. He led by example, and he got them to join him,” Levy said of his former player, the man many called a “gentle giant.”

 

Former teammate Andre Reed recalls Hull as a special person and a true leader.

 

“ Kent didn’t say too much. He led by example, and his whole life was like that. You can see that by the outpouring by friends and family. They appreciated the little things he did,” Reed said.

 

Hull was a three-time Pro Bowl selection during 11 seasons with the Bills. He was credited for playing a key role in helping run the team’s no-huddle “K-Gun” offense. The Bills honored Hull in 2002 by placing his name on Ralph Wilson Stadium’s Wall of Fame.

 

Hull was a longtime member of First Presbyterian, where he was an elected dean and elder and was currently serving on the church Session. In his eulogy, Dr. Rusty Douglas, the church’s pastor, talked about how much Hull loved his church, his family, his friends and helping others in need.

 

“Coach Marv Levy has said that he hopes Kent one day makes the (Pro Football) Hall of Fame, and I do, too. But he has already made the only hall of fame that really counts,” Douglas said. “And he’s not there, Kent would tell you, because he’s good, but because God is good.”

 

Hull , Douglas said, was a leader on the football field and in life, explaining how he often donated meat from his cattle farm in Carroll County to the Community Kitchen, visited the elderly on Sundays after church and raised money through his celebrity golf tournament for the Blair E. Batson Children’s Hospital at the University of Medical Center in Jackson. Hull often visited sick children who were patients at the hospital.

 

Ex-teammate Darryl Talley called Hull one of the main leaders of the Bills.

 

“ Kent didn’t say a lot, but when he spoke, people listened,” Talley said.

 

Douglas also talked about Hull helping with a Bible study at Delta Correctional Facility and how he helped some of those inmates jobs when they were released.

 

“ Kent had a big heart and always thought of others before himself. Those prisoners would flock to him like a moth to a flame,” Douglas said.

 

Smith, a star defensive end with the Bills from 1985 to 1999, said Hull’s genuine nature made him a friend to all.

 

“He treated everyone as they were special, white or black, old or young, superstar or practice player. That’s why he’s so loved, and that’s why we’re here today,” said Smith, who holds the NFL career record for sacks.

 

Other former Buffalo players in attendance were Steve Tasker, Chris Mohr, Kenny Davis, Ruben Brown and Will Wolford. Bill Polian, former Buffalo general manager and current Indianapolis Colts president, sat next to Levy at the funeral.

 

Former Ole Miss and NFL players Todd Wade and Wesley Walls were also in attendance along with a contingent from Mississippi State that included Hull’s former teammates John Bond, Johnnie Cooks and Greenwood native Glen Young, MSU Associate Athletic Director for Development Straton Karatassos and former Bulldog head coach and current MSU Director of Player Personnel Rockey Felker.

 

After graduating from Greenwood High School, Hull played for MSU from 1979 to 82. He was a consensus first-team All-SEC freshman selection in 1979 and a pre-season All-America selection in 1982.

 

Many of Hull’s teammates and friends gathered Friday night for food and drink and to share their favorite KentHull stories.

 

“It’s a sad occasion, but it’s also a great occasion because it gets us together to show love for one another and support for one another,” said Cornelius Bennett, a five-time Pro Bowler and twice the AFC Defensive Player of the Year. “ Kent will always be with us in our hearts and in our minds.”

 

Douglas ended the service by saying: “Thanks for sending Kent our way. We only wish we could’ve had him longer.”

 

Funeral Photo Gallery:

 

http://www.gwcommonwealth.com/collection_2e89c8ec-fcea-11e0-98af-001cc4c03286.html

[truth on hold]

Great guy, great player. He will be missed

[Mr_Blizzard]

Ode to the Everyman

 

Former Bills center Kent Hull, 50, died of internal bleeding Tuesday at his home in rural Mississippi. After an 11-year career that spanned the Bills' glory years, he retired to his childhood town of Greenwood, Miss., and tended to 800 head of cattle on his ranch. He had been ill for a while with a form of cancer, but his death, at far too young an age, stunned his teammates and hit them hard. "Thurman [Thomas] called to tell me,'' Steve Tasker told me Saturday, "and it was hard to understand him. He was bawling like a baby.''

 

I write about this mostly anonymous man because players like Hull are the bedrock of so many good teams, past and present. Hull did his job and never sought glory. If glory came, as it did in the form of three Pro Bowl nods and two All-Pro selections, he would deflect it. He was the perfect Bill Polian/Marv Levy player. Do your job, be responsible, lead when needed, care only about winning -- and be smart.

 

I am confident in saying he was one of the five or six most valuable players on those four Buffalo Super Bowl teams, because of what he meant to the team in making the line calls on the fastest-moving offense in football, and for what he meant as the last guy out of the locker room ... after every game, after every practice. If a problem needed to be solved, he'd help. If someone just wanted to talk, he'd talk. Part of his football life included being there if anyone needed him; someone usually did.

 

I remember lots of big-talking (rightfully so), boisterous players on those Bills teams, on and off the field, and I remember Hull, with a dip between his lip and gum, accommodating teammates, reporters, fans, and never being too big for any of it. He'd do it quietly. He loved Levy's trademark, "Where would you rather be than right here, right now?'' He lived that. Being a cog in the wheel was his thing.

 

Hull and Jim Kelly were signed by the Bills after the United States Football League folded in 1986. When they arrived in Buffalo, Kelly got in a limo and was cheered by nutty fans on highway overpasses and on the sides of roads on his way to the Bills' offices. Hull got in the back seat of the Bills' equipment van, with his and Kelly's luggage.

 

In Hull's first practice with the team, offensive coordinator and line coach Jim Ringo confused him with another player, a guard, and ordered Hull to get down in his guard's stance for a drill. He had never played guard, but he tried to get down in a stance like a guard, and it wasn't quite right, and Ringo blistered him for being in an NFL camp and not knowing how to line up. "Coach, I'm sorry. I'm a center,'' Hull said. Soon, Ringo and Marv Levy realized that Hull was the kind of technically perfect player and peerless engineer of blocking schemes that made the K-gun no-huddle offense work. Kelly was Lindbergh, and Hull the airplane mechanic.

 

"Someone figured out once that, on average, there were 16 seconds between every play in our no-huddle,'' said Tasker. "Jim would be able to look over the defense and call the formation we'd get in, and make the play call. Then Kent would figure out our blocking assignments and call them out just before Jim would get the snap. Sometimes, Kent would know Jim had made the wrong call for the defense they had out there. Once, Jim got down to get his hands between Kent's legs for the snap, and there was Kent, turning his head around from his stance, shaking his head. Like, 'No, no, no.' And Jim would change the play call. And it got done. No big deal. It just got done.

 

"And off the field, you know, in an NFL locker room, you cannot hide. Guys are in there talking about politics, personal hygiene, world events, whatever. Discussing, arguing, everything. I can't tell you how many times Kent would be in there, just listening, and then you'd hear him give his opinion, and then you'd hear a few guys say, like, 'Yeah. That's what I think.' That's the kind of presence he had.

 

"What a teammate he was. And from being at the funeral [Friday in Mississippi], it was the same in his personal life. He had intelligence, his heart was always in the right place. Nothing in his football career or his life was about him. It was about the guys, it was about the team, it was about winning. Period."

 

That's value. Bruce Smith and Kelly -- you're not winning without them. Thurman Thomas too. And Darryl Talley and Andre Reed: vital players. After that, who? Hull, I'd say. The man who was always there for everyone else.

 

In retirement, not much changed. When one of his herd was slaughtered, Hull often would take 20 or 30 pounds of the prime beef to a community kitchen that served the less fortunate. "Don't tell anybody,'' he'd say.

 

That's a man right there.

 

Peter King --> MONDAY MORNING QB

 

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/10/24/Week7/index.html#ixzz1bvZF2bMe

[Captain Hindsight]

RIP Kent

[Mr_Blizzard]

Hull of a player, a man, and a Dad

 

Business First by Tim O'Shei, Buffalo Business First Managing Editor

 

Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 2:45pm EDT - Last Modified: Wednesday, October 19, 2011, 3:30pm EDT

 

Tim O'Shei Buffalo Business First Managing Editor - Business First

When I heard the news last night of Kent Hull's untimely death at age 50, I knew what I'd be doing this morning.

I stopped by my parents' house and sifted through some boxes in the basement. It took about 10 minutes to find what I was seeking: A dusty old 1995 edition of !@#$, the then official team magazine that was published by Business First.

At the time, I was a 19-year-old college sophomore who doubled as a Bills beat reporter for the magazine. In this edition, I profiled Kent. The story included a locker-room conversation with the then-Buffalo Bills center, an interview with his wife Kay, and a family photo that included both of them with their two kids: Drew, then 8, and Ellen, 5.

There are plenty of tribute columns you'll be reading – in fact, I'll have my own in the Friday edition of Business First. But here, I'll focus on an aspect of him that the public rarely glimpsed, but I was lucky enough to see for my story: Kent Hull as a family man.

One year earlier, 33-year-old Kent had signed a four-year, $5.2 million contract. The Bills wanted to lock him up for the rest of his career. One person was unhappy about it — 8-year-old Drew. He badly wanted a dog, but was told he couldn't get one until the family was done moving between Buffalo and Mississippi.

"We kept saying, 'When Daddy retires, you can get a dog,'" Kay told me.

Then Drew heard – on the radio, no less – that Dad signed a new deal and would be around a while.

"We were in the car when Drew heard the news," Kay said. "He yelled, 'Daddy, no!' He was really upset."

The Bills had good reason to keep Kent around. The team had just lost two key linemen, Will Wolford and Howard Ballard. Kent was a solid mentor to their younger replacements, shared a strong bond off the field with Jim Kelly, and had an almost instinctive relationship with him on the field.

"Jim, gosh, I mean, a lot of times he'll mess the snap count up – he'll want it earlier, and I'll give it to him because I know he wants it," Kent told me. "I can tell from his voice that he needs it and wants it."

Kent was also the finest player spokesman the team had – both then and probably ever. He had a knack for answering reporters' questions in a way that was both straightforward, funny and respectful.

In fact, when Kent retired in 1996, all of the Bills beat reporters banded together to throw him a thank-you lunch at Ilio DiPaulo's Restaurant, a longtime hangout for the players and coaches.

It was a rare sendoff that bridged the gap that usually separates players and reporters. Kent was gracious to us all, and even seemed to appreciate the "gift" – a mock-up front page with a fat headline ("A Hull of a guy") and short tributes from a dozen reporters.

He didn't, however, seem sad. Kent seemed ready to move home to Mississippi, back to the farm life, and have more time with his family.

I don't know if Drew finally got his dog, but I'm certain they all loved having their dad and husband for the 15 years that followed.

 

 

Linky

[Mr_Blizzard]

Bresnahan remembers Hull

 

October 21, 2011 - 9:00 AM | 0 comments

 

 

Here's an excerpt of an interview I did about a decade ago with former Bills offensive line coach and coordinator Tom Bresnahan on the late Kent Hull, who will be buried today in Greenwood, Miss. Bresnahan is one of the most articulate coaches I've ever met and was a great O-line coach for the Bills.

 

“Kent was a great football player. During my time in professional football, he’s as good as it gets. First of all, he was an exceptional athlete in almost every way. There were two centers, maybe three, besides him that I thought were superior centers. Mike Wesbter was around at the beginning of my time. Then there was Dwight Stepehnson. Then Dermontti Dawson. Each were a little different. In comparison to those three, I’d have to rate Kent the No. 1 pass protector of the four. Kent Hull was brilliant as a pass protector. I’m sure (ex-Dolphins coach) John Sandusky would say Stephenson.”

 

“I know what we did in our scheme in those days, sending five receivers out in the pattern, was rare. There were many times we left only the five O-linemen to block all the rushers. Obviously, you cant block ‘em all. Jim Kelly had to read hot. This put tremendous pressure on Kent, not only mentally but physically. If it was an odd defense, if Kent were covered, he was totally alone. All the other guys, if they were uncovered, were peeleing out of there looking for blitzers.

 

"Finally as a run blocker, Dermontti and Dwight Stephenson were quicker off the mark, I’d have to say. But we didn’t ask Kent to do a lot of those kinds of things. We didn’t ask Kent to pull. He was exceptionally quick. He could get position on a big, strong nose man who could overpower most centers. He had unique strength, even though he wasn’t he biggest guy on the line. A lotta Thurman Thomas’ yardage was run just outside of him or to the backside of him."

 

"Now let’s get to the real heart. I coached some really good linemen who I love dearly. But he was the best overall football player I ever coached. The reason why I say it is not just his physical ability, but he had an unbelievable demeanor and an ability to make decisions under pressure and a calmness and a poise under pressure that really kept everybody on the same page. Operating the no-huddle offense, the only other real key besides Kelly was Kent Hull.

 

“A couple other things. The line is together six months a year, and we’re in a room and a lot of ‘em are hearing the same things over and over again. Coaching this was a seminar situation with players and coaches making decisions as a team about what’s the best way to go about this thing. Kent was obviously a key guy in my mind in bouncing things off of. I didn’t hesitate to call him on the phone on Tuesday. A couple times I’d remember he’d even come to the office on Tuesday. I’d ask, ‘Kent, how do you think he can handle this best?’ He would have made an unbelievable football coach. Everybody respected him. His nickname was ‘Tough,’ and that’s because that’s exactly what he was. The finest football player I ever coached.”

 

---Mark Gaughan Link

[bbb]

Wow - that is a great article. Especially so because it was written a decade ago, and not as a eulogy.

[Mr_Blizzard]

Wow - that is a great article. Especially so because it was written a decade ago, and not as a eulogy.

 

Yup; Kent was quite a guy. The Bills were truly blessed to have him for 11 years.

 

RIP Kent