Sonny Randle

Ulmo Shannon "Sonny" Randle, Jr. (born January 6, 1936) is a sportscaster and former American football player and coach.

After playing college football at the University of Virginia, Randle played as a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) from 1959 to 1968 for the Chicago and St. Louis Cardinals before completing his career with the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys.

In only his second season in the NFL, Randle led the league in receiving touchdowns with 15 and was named first-team All-Pro by the Associated Press (AP), The Sporting News and UPI.

Randle had 65 touchdown catches in 120 games during his career, currently placing him 12th on the NFL's all-time TD-per-game list (minimum 60 TDs). His 65 TD catches were also the most in the NFL during the 1960s; Don Maynard caught 84 and Lance Alworth caught 77 in the American Football League (AFL).

On November 4, 1962, Randle had one of the biggest games statistically by a wide receiver in NFL history as he caught 16 passes for 256 yards in a game against the New York Giants. Randle finished the 1962 season with 63 receptions for 1,158 yards and eight touchdown catches and was named second-team All-Pro by UPI.

Randle once again passed the 1,000-yard receiving mark in 1963, finishing with 1,014 yards on 51 catches, eight of which went for touchdowns.

After his retirement in 1968, Randle became an assistant coach at East Carolina where, after one season, he became the Pirates' head coach, a job he held from 1971 through 1973. He then spent two years as head coach at his alma mater, the University of Virginia (1974–1975), two seasons at Massanutten Military Academy (1976–1977), and five seasons at Marshall (1979–1983).

Since the mid-1980s, Randle has been active in sports broadcasting, participating in radio broadcasts of college football games as a color commentator in St. Louis, Virginia, and West Virginia. In 1991 he became president of S-R Sports, a syndicated talk radio network based in Virginia.

Randle was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1991.

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