It is hard now to remember this, but football great and likely murderer O.J. Simpson, who died Wednesday, once was considered one of the “good guys” in sports. His descent into (allegedly) coked-up violence was a massive tragedy.

None of what I write here is meant to excuse what Simpson almost certainly did to his ex-wife and her friend or his other strange forays into crime. It is instead to recall what was lost, and what could have been his legacy, and how he once seemed to embody the right-minded athletic hero.