SAN DIEGO (KSWB) — Courtney Hall, an offensive lineman who played all eight of his NFL seasons for the San Diego Chargers and captained the 1994 Super Bowl team, has died, according to the team. He was 52.
Hall started 118 games for the Chargers after being drafted by the team in 1989 out of Rice University in Houston. He was a key piece on the offensive line for the 1994 AFC Champion Chargers who went 11-5 and ultimately lost to the high-powered San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX. It remains the franchise’s lone Super Bowl appearance.
In a statement, Chargers owner Dean Spanos said the franchise is “incredibly saddened by the news of Courtney’s passing.”
“Courtney was a natural born leader,” Spanos said. “Wherever he went, people followed — through the holes he opened on the offensive line in the locker room as a team captain on our 1994 Super Bowl team and throughout his post-football career as a J.D.-MBA managing a venture capital firm.
He goes on: “His detractors thought he was too small for his position coming out of college, but it turned out that his intelligence, hunger and toughness were what actually would set him apart from his peers.”
Hall joins a growing list of players from the 1994 Chargers team who have died in the subsequent years. They include Chris Mims, Shawn Lee, Rodney Culver, David Griggs, Lewis Bush, Steve Hendrickson, Doug Miller and NFL Hall of Famer Junior Seau.
“With four Pro Bowl selections in eight seasons, plain and simple, (Hall) was one of the best to ever wear the lightning bolt,” Spanos said. “Courtney had so much more life to live and has been taken from us far too soon.
“Our hearts and deepest condolences are with his wife, LaShann DeArcy, and the entire Hall family during this very difficult time.”