I’m old enough to recall when Miller Lite commercials were something to savor because of their liberal use of former athletes, coaches and other random celebrities … Bob Uecker, Bubba Smith, Billy Martin, Dick Butkus, Rodney Dangerfield, Bert Jones, and, of course, Mickey Spillane.

But I reckon I was too young to remember when Ring of Famer Charley Johnson — with his first name spelled differently — found himself the star of one of these spots in 1979:

I’ve known from meeting Johnson that he is a prince of a man … one of the finest I’ve ever had the privilege of interviewing. His pursuit of a doctorate during his playing days and his subsequent chairmanship of the Chemical Engineering department at New Mexico State also makes his mind arguably the most intelligent to ever pass through the Broncos’ locker room.

Think about this — in 1973, he not only led the Broncos to their first winning season, but published a research piece titled, Processing of Polyimidazopyrrolone Polymers at High Temperature. All things considered, it was a pretty splendid year for Dr. Johnson.

Now we know he’s a pretty fair actor, too.

A true Renaissance man, indeed.

Special thanks to AtlantaFalcons.com blogger and all-around friend of the program J. Michael Moore for passing this along.

Tags: Charley Johnson, Commercials, Ring of Fame

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Archives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.