One of the best football players this state ever produced died last week.

I was surprised his passing didn't merit more attention in his home state, but that's the price Freddie Solomon paid for achieving most of his gridiron glory in Florida and California.

Most NFL fans recall "the Catch" when Dwight Clark caught a pass from Joe Montana to propel the San Francisco 49ers past the Dallas Cowboys in the 1982 NFC championship game. Fewer recall Solomon's key plays on that game-clinching drive.

Sitting in the press box at Tampa Stadium as a young reporter in 1973, I watched Solomon lead the University of Tampa Spartans in one of the most exciting college games I ever saw.

The UPI correspondent in Tampa had asked me to accompany him as a spotter while he covered the local school's game against the University of Miami. Tampa lost 28-26 after failing on a two-point conversion, but the game seesawed back and forth all night.

Had the Spartans defeated the 'Canes, it wouldn't have been a major upset. Tampa had defeated Miami in 1970 and 1972. The latter year Tampa capped a 10-2 season by beating Kent State in the Tangerine Bowl.

Still, home fans saw it as a classic David vs. Goliath story. Miami was a major university. Tampa was a small private institution, which for most of its history had played such teams as Troy State and Appalachian State Teachers College.

Tampa pushed Miami all over the field that night. Solomon was superb. His forte was the option. He would take the snap, move down the line and freeze the defensive end with a ball or head fake, then slip past him in a blur. Once he broke into the open, Solomon was as elusive a runner as I have witnessed.

By no means was it a one-man show. Tampa was loaded with good players. John Matuszak, who later would be a mainstay of the Oakland Raiders defense, was on that team, as was Noah Jackson, another NFL-bound lineman.

Following the 1974 season, Solomon's senior year, Tampa would drop football. The decision had nothing to do with his leaving. The administration had wanted to eliminate football several years earlier but had been dissuaded by local businessmen who promised to underwrite the program.

The city had visions of becoming an NFL city and built a big new stadium to accommodate a franchise. Boosters thought they needed a team to prove they could fill seats, and the Spartans were the only game in town. (The University of South Florida, also in Tampa, was decades away from fielding a football team.)

Their plan worked. After several magical seasons, during which the home team gave such opponents as Miami, Vanderbilt and Mississippi all they could handle, the city landed an NFL franchise. The business community soon withdrew its support, and football was history for the University of Tampa.

Solomon, who at the time held the NCAA single-season for rushing yards by a quarterback (3,299), went on to have a stellar 11-year pro career, first with the Miami Dolphins, then with San Francisco. He caught 371 passes for 5,846 yards, yards, ran back kicks for 8,673 yards, rushed for 519 yards and scored 57 touchdowns.

Unlike so many professional athletes, Freddie Solomon's life isn't best measured by his "stats."

He earned his nickname, "Fabulous Freddie," as quarterback of the 1970 Sumter High Gamecocks - the year high schools became integrated in that city.

He was married to the same woman for 33 years.

He spent 20 years with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department in Tampa, where he worked with at-risk kids.

A few weeks before his death, a "Friends of Freddie" event in Tampa raised $200,000 to endow a scholarship in his name at his alma mater.

At the time he talked to a newspaper reporter about his health, including colon surgery and chemotherapy.

"I have no regrets," he said. "How you handle something like this tells you who you are. In reality, I'm just one of thousands of people who have to compete in this game."

Freddie Solomon indeed was fabulous.