Bill Glassford and Tippy Dye, at ages 96 and 95, are the seventh and eighth oldest former pro football players at the moment, according to someone who's actually keeping track, OldestLivingProFootball.com.
Glassford coached at Nebraska from 1949 to 1955. Tippy Dye was the athletic director who hired Bob Devaney after the 1961 season.
Both Dye and Glassford played for the old Cincinnati Bengals in an old, old incarnation of the AFL. Neither the league nor the team lasted long, and it's safe to assume both men played pro ball only briefly.
As a lineman in the 1930s at Pitt, Glassford played against Vince Lombardi, who was a guard at Fordham. (There's an old Sports Illustrated article about it.) And here's something else from way back, where it turns out Glassford supposedly was secretly married.
Glassford is still called "Biff" in the New Hampshire record books. He must've ditched his old nickname after took the Nebraska coaching job. Here's a 2007 interview where he talks about his Nebraska years.
Oddly enough, when Glassford took New Hampshire to the 1947 Glass Bowl against Toledo, he coached against his future boss, Bill Orwig. Orwig became Nebraska's athletic director in 1954 and held the job until 1961, when Dye took over and made the hire that turned Nebraska football around. (Nevermind that Hank Foldberg of Wichita was actually his first choice.)
Outside of Nebraska, Dye is probably best remembered as Washington's basketball coach from 1951 to 1959, a stint that included the Huskies' only Final Four appearance. In college, Dye (5-8, 142 pounds) earned nine letters in three sports at Ohio State. He quarterbacked the Buckeyes' football team and was a dangerous punt returner. In basketball, he was a second-team All-America selection. At last report, a few months ago, he was still leading an active life in northern California.
