Ozzie Newsome

CTL-E-7039 · Person · other · born 1956

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07911 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7039.

Ozzie Newsome Jr. (born March 16, 1956, in Muscle Shoals, Alabama) was an All-America tight end at the University of Alabama in 1977 before the Cleveland Browns made him a first-round draft selection in 1978. Across a 13-season, 198-game career spent entirely with Cleveland (1978–1990), he became, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame's account, the leading tight end receiver in NFL history at his retirement, with 662 receptions for 7,980 yards and 47 touchdowns, ranking fourth among all receivers when he retired. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999. Newsome's second career is the rarer achievement: after front-office work with Cleveland and then Baltimore, he was named general manager of the Baltimore Ravens on November 22, 2002 — the first African American general manager in NFL history, as both the Ravens and the Encyclopedia of Alabama state the claim — and served as the architect of Baltimore's Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII championship teams before stepping down as general manager after the 2018 season and continuing as executive vice president.

The record

• Also known as: Ozzie Newsome Jr., The Wizard of Oz

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0394. Firsts disposition: ASSERTED in its exact form — 'first African American general manager in the NFL' (2002) is stated in that form by two independent authoritative sources, the Baltimore Ravens and the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Newsome is the rare figure who is a Hall of Famer twice over in substance — once for playing the position better than anyone had, and once for running a franchise — and the second career is the one that changed who gets to run a team. Photo: CLEARED — 'Ozzie Newsome (11282161635).jpg' (CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; identity verified from the file's own Commons description/categories, license verified from file-level extmetadata, 2026-11-03).

Sources

• Pro Football Hall of Fame. "Ozzie Newsome." Pro Football Hall of Fame. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Baltimore Ravens. "Ozzie Newsome." BaltimoreRavens.com. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Encyclopedia of Alabama. "Ozzie Newsome Jr." Encyclopedia of Alabama. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)

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Record CTL-E-7039 · Combined Graph record U-07911 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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