Buster Rhymes

George "Buster" Rhymes (born January 27, 1962 in Miami, Florida) is a retired professional American football wide receiver.

Rhymes grew up in Liberty City, an inner city neighborhood of Miami. He graduated from Miami Northwestern High School. He was a high school All-American and received a scholarship to play college football at the University of Oklahoma under coach Barry Switzer in 1980.^[1]

Buster achieved All-American recognition at Oklahoma as a wide receiver, although he had his share of off-the-field incidents. According to teammate Brian Bosworth, after a snowstorm, some players engaged in a snowball fight and Rhymes was hit. He went back into his room, returned with an Uzi, and fired it into the air. A slightly different version of this story was also written by Barry Switzer.

Standing 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall and weighing 218 lb (99 kg), Rhymes was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth round of the 1985 NFL Draft. Rhymes played in two National Football League seasons for the Vikings in 1985 and 1986, and in 1985 set an NFL single-season record for kick return yardage with 1,345 yards; the league record has since been broken, but the total stood as a Vikings franchise record until broken by Cordarrelle Patterson in the final game of the 2013 season. Following his NFL stint, Rhymes went to Canada and played for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. He spent two seasons there (1988 and 1989), winning a Grey Cup championship ring in 1988.

In 2004, he was convicted of carjacking, and, in a separate incident, possession of crack cocaine.^[2]

Trivia

Rhymes was the inspiration for rapper Busta Rhymes' stage name, which was given to him by Chuck D.

References