BOB PELLEGRINI

National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame (1996)

Bob Pellegrini was recruited to Maryland as a quarterback, but made his name as one of college football’s best linemen. In his first season, Pellegrini was a 6-2, 215-pound sophomore guard for the 1953 national champion Terrapins. He played guard again in 1954 in an era when players went both ways, before switching to center for his senior year to fill a Terrapin void.

As a senior, Pellegrini led Maryland to its second 10-0 regular season and ACC championship in three years as the Terps defeated defending national champion UCLA. He was selected ACC Player of the Year, named consensus All-American and pictured as Herman Hickman’s cover boy for Lineman of the Year in 1955.

Pellegrini led the Terps to a 27-4-1 record over his career, with rankings in the top 10 each season. He was the first pick in the National Football League draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. Pellegrini became one of the building blocks of an Eagle turnaround that took the team to the top of the football world. A losing team when he joined, the Eagles defeated Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers for the World Championship four years later with Bob Pellegrini at linebacker.

Pellegrini was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame in December 1996.