Paul Lowe

After trying out and being cut by the San Francisco 49ers in 1959 former Oregon State running back Paul Lowe was working in the mailroom of the Carte Blanche Credit Card Corporation. Carte Blanche was owned by the Hilton family, the future owners of the Los Angeles Chargers. The newly formed Chargers GM, Frank Leahy, had been a former coach at Notre Dame and was familiar with Lowe’s collegiate career at Oregon and invited him to tryout for the team. He efforts were not wasted. During the opening exhibition game against the Titans he returned the opening kickoff for a 105 yard return touchdown. Not only did Lowe make the team, he was the Chargers leading rusher his rookie year with 855 yards and had the league’s highest yards-per-carry average with a 6.89 YPC.For the next decade he established himself as one of the AFL’s elite runners finishing as the league’s 2nd All-Time leading rusher with 4995 yards. Twice named All-League and Twice again an AFL All-Star. After leading the league with 1121 rushing yards in 1965 he was named the AFL Player of the Year for that year. When the AFL and NFL merged he was selected as to the AFL’s All-Time Team as the starting halfback. He is still the Chargers 2nd All-Time leading rusher in franchise history.