Harold Lucious McLinton (July 1, 1947 – October 31, 1980) was an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 player who played linebacker

Linebacker

A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen...

 in the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 with the Washington Redskins

Washington Redskins

The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...

 from 1969 to 1978.

McLinton was drafted

NFL Draft

The National Football League Draft is an annual event in which the National Football League teams select eligible college football players and it is their most common source of player recruitment. The basic design of the draft is each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order...

 by the Redskins in the 1969 NFL Draft

1969 NFL Draft

The 1969 National Football League Draft was part of the Common Draft, the third and final year in which the NFL and American Football League held a joint draft of college players. The draft took place on January 28–29, 1969....

 out of Southern University and A&M College in the sixth round. He spent his entire 10-year career with the Redskins, playing in 127 games. He was a key contributor on the 1972 NFC

National Football Conference

The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL.-Current teams:Since 2002, the NFC has comprised 16 teams,...

 Championship team. He finished his career with four interceptions and one touchdown. McLinton died on October 31, 1980 at the age of 33 from complications resulting from massive injuries sustained after being struck by a passing vehicle on Interstate 295

Interstate 295 (District of Columbia)

Interstate 295 in the U.S. state of Maryland and in Washington, D.C. is a spur route connecting I-95/I-495 and Maryland Route 210 on the Potomac River to Interstate 695 in downtown Washington.-Route description:Although I-295 technically begins at the Capital Beltway , a pair of mainline...

in southeast Washington after stopping to help a stranger change a flat tire. He was survived by his wife, Agnes, and two sons.
He was a 1966 graduate of Harper High School in Atlanta, GA and went on to attend Southern on a football scholarship. He graduated May, 1969 with a Bachelors degree in Marketing & Management.