by The first Australian to play in the NFL was Colin Ridgway: Aussie Rules footballer, Olympic athlete, and victim of a shocking unsolved crime.
Ridgway was born in Melbourne in February 1939. From an early age he displayed a natural aptitude for sport, particularly football and athletics.
As he grew into a tall, lanky teenager, he showed potential in both: as a promising ruckman on the football field, and a talented high jumper on the track.
Picked up by Carlton, in 1954 he had an early career highlight when he appeared in the under 19 grand final. Interest in the match was high, and a crowd of 4 000 turned out to watch the Blues play Footscray at Princes Park.
One of the youngest players on field, Ridgway kicked a goal but otherwise did not have much impact. More memorable was the match itself, which ended in controversy.
Carlton lead for most of the game, and with seconds to play were ahead by three points. The ball was in Footscray’s forward pocket and appeared to go out of bounds; the Carlton players stopped, allowing Footscray’s Brian Neylon to swoop and kick a goal, putting them in front.
The linesman told the field umpire the ball was out; he was overruled and the goal stood. The siren sounded seconds later, and Carlton’s fans erupted in anger.
Ridgway continued to play in Carlton’s junior teams through 1954-55. At the same time, his abilities as a high jumper were bringing even more recognition.
As a 15 year old, he twice broke the state junior high jump record. And the following year, 1955, a jump of 6 foot 3 inches (190.5 cm) set a new national record.
Easy going and affable, Ridgway handled his rapid advance with maturity. Reporting on his record jump, The Age newspaper called him ‘ever smiling’, and noted his casual nature.
Despite his youth, he was marked as a strong chance for the Olympics, to be held in Melbourne in 1956.
Ridgway would qualify for the Olympic team behind Australia’s leading high jumper, Charlie ‘Chilla’ Porter. Porter was one of the favourites for the event; at 17, Ridgway would be one of the youngest athletes in the games.
The high jump was held on 23 November 1956, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The event would be completed in a single day: starting mid-morning, and finishing in the fading light of early evening.
Portis and Ridgway both performed strongly, but were eventually outdone by black American athlete Charlie Dumas.
Ridgway finished equal seventh, with a personal best jump of 2.00 metres. Portis also made a personal best, clearing 2.10m; The Argus noted he received ‘one of the greatest ovations ever given an Australian athlete’.
But Dumas would go 2 centimetres higher, setting a new Olympic record.
There was terrific tension in the closing stages. Both athletes had been on their feet since 10am. The huge crowd waited in frozen silence for Porter to make his final effort. As he clipped the bar with his trailing knee, a long sigh rippled from the stands.
‘The Argus’, November 24
Dumas had one failed attempt to clear 2.14m and so set a new world record. He had two further jumps available, but had to give up due to bad light.
The medal ceremony took place in near darkness.
After the Olympics, Ridgway continued his parallel sporting careers. He played reserves grade football for Carlton, and made the 1958 Empire Games team, again alongside Porter.
This time he was below his best, missing qualification for the final and finishing 12th. He would also miss out on the 1960 Olympics team.
Paying his own way, he attended the event as a spectator.
But Ridgway’s appearances on the international stage had made an impression. In 1961, he accepted an athletics scholarship from Lamar Tech (now Lamar University) in Texas, and relocated to the United States.
With access to more modern coaching ideas, Ridgway would change his style: switching his run to a forty five degree angle, and learning the ‘western roll’. These adjustments would rejuvenate his career.
In 1962, at an inter-college track meet, he cleared 7 feet, the first Commonwealth athlete to do so.
In addition to track, Ridgway studied economics, and worked part time as a mechanic. He also dabbled in American football; with his Aussie Rules background he was able to regularly kick more than 50 metres, impressing his peers.
But Ridgway was reluctant to play college football, fearing it would distract from his athletics program. Instead, he appeared in practice matches, playing as a punter.
Even at this casual level, Ridgway’s long kicking brought him to the attention of NFL club the Dallas Cowboys. While he had never played an official game of American Football, in 1965 the club took a chance and signed him as an undrafted free agent.
Ridgway’s raw ability impressed in preseason training. In a practice match against the Green Bay Packers, a Dallas newspaper singled him out for praise.
Time after time, when the clutch was on, the Boomer (Ridgway) pounded the ball out of danger. Once he was backed up to the line, with only 11 yards kicking room, and delivered a 48 yard bomb.
‘The Dallas Times Herald’, August 1965
Ridgway was promoted to the Cowboys main roster in November 1965. Cowboys coach Tom Landry, a legend in the sport, predicted the Australian would become, ‘the greatest kicker in the National Football League’.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
Wearing number 88, Ridgway would play three games for the Cowboys. While he delivered some successful punts, he struggled for consistency; his average kicking distance was about 40 yards, well below the league average.
One issue was the style required. Ridgway was used to kicking on the run, and delivered his best kicks in that fashion; in American Football he was expected to stand still, and punt with only a minimal run up.
He struggled to adjust.
After the three games, Ridgway was sent down to a lower tier competition, to gain experience. He played out the rest of the season, and the one following, but the Cowboys did not renew his contract.
Ridgway left American Football subsequently, but retains his historic footnote as the first Australian to play in the NFL.
And there the story may have ended. Except it would have a strange, violent coda.
After graduating college, Ridgway left sports altogether. He stayed in the United States, settling permanently in Dallas, and developed his own business opportunities.
With connections gained from his time in pro football, in the late 1960s he launched a discount coupon business. This would evolve into ‘Club America’, a member organisation that offered discount travel packages.
Club America would peak in the 1970s, with a membership of 70 000. Friends described Ridgway in this period as confident, outgoing, a natural salesman: far removed from the quiet, casual kid from Melbourne.
He also developed a reputation as being reckless with money, and his businesses performed erratically.
In 1977, Ridgway married Joan Jackson, a divorced artist with two children. The pair settled in University Park, an affluent Dallas suburb near Southern Methodist University.
Outwardly, Ridgway lived the life of a successful travel executive. Behind the scenes: there was tension in his marriage, with one trial period of separation, and questions over his finances.
In 1983, while on a business trip to Mexico, Ridgway was involved in a strange incident, where he claimed he was the victim of an attempted abduction.
He was kidnapped by shotgun wielding bandits, who shoved him into the back of a car. Ridgway felt sure they intended to kill him. When the car stopped he pretended to have fainted, then fought his way free and ran away.
‘Death of a High Flyer’, Alan Attwood, Sydney Morning Herald
Ridgway was shot in the lung as he made his escape, but managed to get away. He hid until he could flag down a truck driver, who he paid to take him back to safety.
The entrepreneur would dine out on the story afterwards, and laugh it off as the price of doing business in a developing country. But friends wondered if there may have been another explanation.
Was Ridgway involved in shady dealings to prop up his finances?
Late in the evening of May 13, 1993, Joan Ridgway returned home to find her husband lying face down in a pool of blood. He had been shot seven times, and it looked like the house had been ransacked.
Panicked, she called 911 and emergency services rapidly arrived. Colin Ridgway was still breathing, but shortly pronounced dead at the scene.
Mystery surrounded the murder, right from the outset.
Ridgway had no known enemies, and his wife could not recall any threats or unusual incidents; there was no clear motive for the crime. Another unusual element: the couple had been out for dinner earlier the same evening, and had returned home in separate cars.
There was only a limited time window for the crime to be committed, before Joan returned home.
Local police investigated, but their enquiries made little progress. The FBI then became involved, and presently settled on a suspect: Joan Ridgway.
Their report concluded that the crime was not a random attack, but rather ‘planned and perpetrated by a person or persons with whom Ridgway had a close, personal association.’
By way of a motive, it was discovered that Ridgway carried extensive life insurance, that would pay his spouse up to $750 000.
In September 1994, prosecutors attempted to charge her with murder, but the case was rejected by a grand jury. Joan Ridgway’s lawyer said there was no evidence against her, just ‘gossip’.
Investigations continued. In June 1996, the authorities tried again, arresting a local man named Kenneth A. Bicking III.
Bicking was a friend of Joan Ridgway’s, his wife had gone to police with the sensational claim that he had confessed the murder to her. Investigators now probed a criminal conspiracy between the two: Joan setting up her husband by having him go home alone, where Bicking was waiting to act as trigger man.
The two would then share the life insurance money.
Bicking III always denied involvement, and said he was at home with his father on the night of the murder, watching television. He claimed his wife’s actions were a result of a domestic dispute, between the two.
Police would later link Bicking sr. to the murder as well, speculating it may have been his idea originally.
The case against Bicking III also faltered, with a judge eventually ruling his wife’s testimony inadmissible. The other evidence against him was circumstantial, the case was dismissed in 1997.
With modern DNA testing available, the case was reopened in 2011. Forensic experts were unable to link Bicking to the crime scene.
Although DNA testing did link him to a string of robberies in Texas and Florida, and a sexual assault cold case from 1992. Dallas police still consider him the likely perpetrator of Ridgway’s murder.
Some private investigators have alleged the murder was a hit, and cite the Mexico episode from 1983 as a clue that Ridgway was involved in something illicit. Could he have crossed someone, and paid with his life?
Joan Ridgway always dismissed these speculations, and said she had never seen any evidence her husband was involved in illegal activity.
The murder weapon has never been found, and the case remains officially unsolved.
At time of writing, 19 Australians have played at least one game in the NFL.
