Roy Swoape Jr. is the first Concord Football player to be inducted into Indiana Football Hall of Fame

 

Elkhart, Ind. -- Concord High School has its first Indiana Football Hall of Famer. Roy Swoape Jr. was a three-sport athlete for the minutemen, played linebacker at Western Michigan, then had short stints with the New York Football Giants and the Ottawa Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.

Swoape was a three-sport athlete at Concord. He played football, basketball and Track his speed was what he attributes to his success later on in football.

“I knew I wasn’t fast enough for track, but it does help in football. Speed kills in football,” Swoape said.

That speed would prove useful in Track for Concord and his willingness to do anything

“I could do a lot of different events. High jump, Pole Vault, I didn’t do Pole Vault very well. It was kind a like if my coach needed me for something I did it,” Swoape tells ABC57.

After graduating from Concord, his next venture was to Kalamazoo to play football for the Western Michigan Broncos, where he switched from Defensive End to Outside Linebacker, because of the formations the Broncos played.

“Well there they called it Outside Linebacker,” Swoape said.

Swoape wasn’t the biggest, but he had a good head on his shoulders, which put him a step above.

Swoape said his size was not a downfall for him, “I was only 220 pounds. But I was quick I was quick off the ball.”

After college Swoape was drafted to the New York Football Giants in 1986, the year the team won the super bowl.

He played two pre-season games before being released.

“I think it was I went to the wrong team, because Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson they were loaded with Linebackers there and I had the option to go to the Pittsburg Steelers and at that time they weren’t really loaded with Linebackers I think Mark Merriweather was the big name at the time,” Swoape said.

After a year and a half with the Ottawa Roughriders, he retired from Football and worked with UPS for thirty-two years.

Swoape recalls the time when he was in High School and met his now wife.

She had moved in with her uncle, Jim Treadway, where she began attending Concord High School where he would meet and eventually marry his high school sweetheart, but it took some work to get her

“Her uncle gave her a choice, there was three guys you can date at Concord Roy Swoape, Roy Swoape or Roy Swoape and she was like well that one didn’t fly so she was dating other guys and I had to woo her in,” Swoape recalls.

Swoape is the only Concord Football player to ever be inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.