By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

Don Beebe of the Bills

Taken in Round 3 in 1989

Other picks in that round: A couple of centers lead the way in games played: Mark Stepnoski of the Cowboys and Jerry Fontenot of the Bears. The Oilers took Bubba McDowell in that round.  Bills’ fans remember his interception return for a touchdown that gave Houston a 35-3 lead during their playoff game. You might say the game turned around after that.

The details: Beebe isn’t the only NFL player to come out of Chadron State – merely the best and the fastest. Don was a fine wide receiver through the Bills’ Super Bowl run of the 1990s, finishing with 164 career receptions here. Beebe moved on to Carolina and Green Bay to finish his nine-year career.

Other 82s: Not too many fullbacks that weigh 254 pounds earn the nickname of “Speedy,” but that was what friends called Robert Neal. Speedy spent one season with the Bills (1984). Defenseman John Adams, taken by the Sabres in 2002, somehow played for 10 minor-league teams in three leagues during a four-year pro career.

(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)

Budd Bailey

Budd Bailey has been involved in almost every aspect of the local sports scene for the last 40 years. He worked for WEBR Radio, the Buffalo Sabres' public relations department and The Buffalo News during that time. In that time he covered virtually every aspect of the area's sports world, from high schools to the Bills and Sabres and everything in between. Along the way, Budd served as a play-by-play announcer for the Bisons, an analyst for the Stallions, and a talk-show host. He won the National Lacrosse League's Tom Borrelli Award as the media personality of the year in 2011, and was a finalist for that same award in 2017. Budd's seventh and eighth books, one on the Transcontinental Railroad and the other about Ichiro Suzuki, are scheduled to be released in the fall.

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