Move FM Australian News

Former NFL running back Jim Kiick, a two-time Super Bowl winner in Miami, has died at age 73. The Dolphins made the announcement via Twitter on Saturday.

No cause of death was given, but Sports Illustrated reported in a 2017 profile on Kiick that the former University of Wyoming star had been diagnosed with dementia/early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

On Thursday, Kiick’s daughter Allie tweeted that her father was in an assisted-living facility and that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was not allowed any visitors.

“This isn’t a sympathy post but I really miss my dad,” Angie Kiick tweeted, along with a screenshot of a message she posted about her dad’s condition. “I’m hoping that maybe seeing things from a different perspective helps people understand. COVID19”

A fifth-round pick in 1968, Kiick spent the first seven of his nine NFL seasons in Miami. He ran for 3,644 yards and piled up another 2,210 receiving with the Dolphins, scoring 31 total touchdowns while joining with fullback Larry Csonka to form the “Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid” backfield. Kiick was Cassidy.

He made the AFL Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons, then helped the Dolphins to back-to-back Super Bowl wins after they joined the NFL following the AFL/NFL merger.

In 1972, the Dolphins finished the season 17-0 to win their first championship and become the first and still only NFL team to finish a season unbeaten in the Super Bowl era. Kiick scored at least once in all three postseason games that season. After the club repeated the following season, Kiick played one more season, in 1974, then left for the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League.

But after the WFL folded during the 1975 season, Kiick returned to the NFL and played with Denver and Washington over the 1976 and ’77 seasons.

In all, he finished his NFL career with 3,759 yards rushing, 2,302 yards receiving and 33 total touchdowns.

–Field Level Media