| Chip Oliver | |
| Number: | 56 |
| Position: | Linebacker |
| Birth Date: | 24 April 1944 |
| Birth Place: | Winona, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Height Ft: | 6 |
| Height In: | 2 |
| Weight Lbs: | 220 |
| High School: | San Diego (CA) Hoover |
| College: | USC |
| Draftyear: | 1968 |
| Draftround: | 11 |
| Draftpick: | 298 |
| Pastteams: |
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| Pfr: | OlivCh20 |
Chip Oliver (born April 24, 1944) is a former American football linebacker. He played for the Oakland Raiders from 1968 to 1969.[1] [2] He left the team to join One World Family of the Messiah's World Crusade, he wanted to, but was unable to return to the team in 1971.[3]
Oliver played the son-in-law Richard in "Those Were the Days," a 1969 television pilot which was the second attempt to start a sitcom eventually titled All in the Family.[4] [5] [6]
Oliver was also the author of the 1971 book High for the Game: From Football Gladiator to Hippie, a Former Southern Cal and Oakland Raider Linebacker Tells All.[7] In a commentary on the book, Todd Tobias says "Oliver blasts professional football for treating players as pieces of meat, pumping them full of pain-numbing drugs and amphetamines, and then discarding them like common garbage when they can no longer sustain high levels of play on the field. In a way, Oliver was ahead of his time in his beliefs, and willingness to vocalize them." But that Oliver "loses vast amounts of credibility when he describes attending practices high on mescaline, advocates the use of LSD, and talks about smoking enormous amounts of marijuana."[8]