ND star led quiet life at Arlington Hts. business
Jim Seymour managed an insurance agency in Arlington Heights for more than 20 years, and except for co-workers in his office, few in the business community knew of the historic records he set while playing football at the University of Notre Dame.
Mr. Seymour passed away on March 29 after a battle with cancer. The Deerfield resident was 64.
“Jim was part of a magical period in football at Notre Dame, in the early years of the Ara Parseghian era,” said John Heisler, Notre Dame's senior associate athletic director for media and broadcast relations.
When his career — which included three years with the Chicago Bears — ended, Mr. Seymour put aside his Notre Dame loyalties to start an independent insurance agency with partner Jim Burda, a former University of Michigan player.
They opened BGS Insurance in River Grove before moving it to Arlington Heights in 1990.
“Jim was always excited when (Notre Dame's) football season started,” says Debbie Exton, of BGS Insurance. “He was very down to earth, and very much of a family man.
“Most of the time, he kept his Notre Dame loyalties pretty controlled,” Exton added, “except when they played Michigan. Then things began to happen around the office.”
Mr. Seymour was a record-setting wide receiver and football All-American at the University of Notre Dame in the late 1960s. As the favorite target for quarterback Terry Hanratty, the duo became known as “Mr. Fling and Mr. Cling.”
His legend began in his first game against Purdue, when as a sophomore, he caught 13 passes for 276 yards, which remains a Notre Dame record.
During their sophomore year, he and Hanratty graced the cover of Time Magazine on Oct. 28, 1966, with the tag line: “The Power of Talent & Teamwork.”
“He helped Notre Dame win a national championship in that 1966 season,” Heisler said.
By the time Mr. Seymour graduated in 1969, he qualified as Notre Dame's all-time leading career receiver, with 138 catches for 2,113 yards and 16 touchdowns in his three-year varsity career from 1966-68.
He is one of three Notre Dame players on the College Football Hall of Fame ballot this year, with results to be announced in May.
Mr. Seymour was a first-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Rams in 1969, but he spent his three seasons in the NFL with the Chicago Bears, catching 21 passes for 385 yards.
He would play one more season of football, in 1974 with the Chicago Fire in the World Football League, before hanging up his cleats to pursue a career in insurance.
Mr. Seymour and his wife, Nancy, raised their three sons, James, Jeffrey and Todd, in Deerfield, where he was active in coaching football and baseball at their parish, Holy Cross School.
Services have been held.