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Dave Huffman
Dave Huffman
Dave Huffman
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David Lambert Huffman (April 4, 1957 – November 21, 1998) was an American professional football player who was an offensive lineman for 12 seasons in the National Football League (NFL) and United States Football League (USFL) during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Huffman played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, winning a national championship with the team in 1977 and earning consensus All-American honors in 1978. He played professionally for the NFL's Minnesota Vikings and the Memphis Showboats of the USFL.

Key Information

Early life

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Huffman was born in Canton, Ohio. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas, Texas, where he was a member of the high school newspaper staff.[1]

College career

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He attended the University of Notre Dame, and played for coach Ara Parseghian and coach Dan Devine's Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team from 1975 to 1979.[1] As a junior, Huffman was a member of the Irish's 1977 national championship squad. As a senior in 1977, he was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American. His brothers, Tim and Steve, also played for Notre Dame. He was noted for his good humor, which included saying that during games he always wore red-colored elbow pads so that his mother could see where he was in the pile-ups.

Professional career

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The Minnesota Vikings selected Huffman in the second round (forty-third pick overall) of the 1979 NFL draft, and he played for the Vikings from 1979 to 1990 with only one interruption. In 1984 and 1985, he also played for the USFL's Arizona Wranglers and Memphis Showboats. In his eleven NFL seasons, he played in 128 games.

Death

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Huffman died in a car accident November 21, 1998, while on his way to the final Notre Dame home game of the season vs. LSU. He was survived by his wife, Cathy, a daughter, Jessica, and a son, Jack.[citation needed] Each year, the city of Chanhassen, Minnesota, where Huffman served as a Park & Recreation Commissioner after his playing days, hosts a Dave Huffman Memorial 5,000-meter run.[2]

References

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Dave Huffman

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Dave Huffman is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer known for inventing Huffman coding, a foundational algorithm for lossless data compression widely used in digital communications and computing. Born David Albert Huffman on August 9, 1925, in Ohio, he earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University in 1944 at the age of 19 and later served as a U.S. Navy officer for two years. He received his master's degree from Ohio State in 1949 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1953, where he developed Huffman coding in 1952 as a solution to constructing minimum-redundancy codes during a graduate course assignment. Huffman joined the MIT faculty in 1953 and in 1967 moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he became a founding member of the Computer Science Department and served as its chair from 1970 to 1973 before retiring in 1994. Beyond his work in information theory, coding, and signal processing, he pioneered mathematical origami, particularly curved-crease folding techniques that explored the geometry of flexible surfaces and influenced later research in folding algorithms. His contributions earned him numerous honors, including the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 1999, the IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award in 1981, and the Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal in 1955 for his doctoral work. Huffman died on October 7, 1999. His invention of Huffman coding remains a cornerstone of data compression technology applied in formats ranging from image and video encoding to telecommunications systems.

Early life

David Albert Huffman was born on August 9, 1925, in Ohio. He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University in 1944 at the age of 19. Following this, he served as a U.S. Navy officer for two years. Detailed information about his childhood, family background, or high school years is limited in available sources. He later received his master's degree from Ohio State University in 1949 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1953. No college career in football applies to David A. Huffman. His education is covered in the introduction: he earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University in 1944, a master's in 1949, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1953. This section originally described a different individual and has been cleared. After earning his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT in 1953, David A. Huffman joined the MIT faculty that same year, where he remained until 1967. During this period, he continued his research in information theory, coding, and signal processing. In 1967, Huffman moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), where he became a founding faculty member of the Computer Science Department. He played a key role in establishing the department and served as its chair from 1970 to 1973. His work at UCSC included pioneering contributions to mathematical origami, particularly curved-crease folding techniques. Huffman retired from UCSC in 1994 but remained active as an emeritus professor until shortly before his death in 1999. Throughout his academic career, he taught and conducted research in areas such as information theory, data compression, and computational geometry.

Television appearances

No television appearances in sports broadcasts, specials, or related programming are documented for David A. Huffman, the computer scientist and inventor of Huffman coding. The individual described in previous versions of this section refers to a different person, David Huffman, a former professional football player.

Personal life

Family and post-retirement activities

David A. Huffman was married twice. His first marriage was to Jane Ayres Huffman, with whom he had three children: daughters Elise Huffman and Linda Huffman, and son Stephen Huffman (all of Santa Cruz at the time of his death). He later married Marilyn Huffman of Santa Cruz, who survived him along with a stepdaughter, Marti Homer Kehlet (of Sacramento), and a stepson, Darin Homer (of Prunedale). He also had a brother, Donald Huffman, of Westerville, Ohio. After retiring from UC Santa Cruz in 1994, Huffman remained active as an emeritus professor, continuing to teach information theory and signal analysis. He died on October 7, 1999, after a 10-month battle with cancer. David A. Huffman died on October 7, 1999, at a local hospital in Santa Cruz, California, at the age of 74, after a 10-month battle with cancer. A memorial service was held in his honor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Huffman's legacy endures through his invention of Huffman coding, a cornerstone of lossless data compression used in countless digital systems, as well as his pioneering work in mathematical origami and his foundational role in establishing the Computer Science Department at UC Santa Cruz.
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