William P. Fralic, Jr. (born October 31, 1962) is a former American college and professional football player who was an offensive guard in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. He played college football for the University of Pittsburgh, and thereafter played professionally for the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions of the NFL.

Early years[link]

Fralic was born in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. He played football at Penn Hills High School. Readers of the Pennsylvania Football News named him to the "All Century" team of Pennsylvania high school football players. He is listed beside Chuck Bednarik and Mike Munchak as a first team offensive lineman.

College[link]

After high school, Fralic attended the University of Pittsburgh on a football scholarship. While at Pitt he played offensive tackle and was named a consensus All-American his junior and senior seasons.

NFL career[link]

In the 1985 NFL Draft, Fralic was selected by the Atlanta Falcons with the second overall pick. He became a starter for the Falcons at offensive guard during his rookie season. He went on to be named All-Pro in 1986 & 1987, and was named to the Pro Bowl from 1986 to 1989. During this time, the 6'5", 280 lbs. Fralic developed a reputation as a ferocious run blocker.

At the end of his NFL career, he was one of the first players to take advantage of the new free agent system and jumped from the Atlanta Falcons to the Detroit Lions, almost doubling his pay to $1.6 million for the 1993 season.

Life Outside the NFL[link]

Bill Fralic is well known for wrestling when he competed in the 20-man battle royal at "WrestleMania 2".

Fralic served as a color commentator for Falcons radio broadcasts from 1995–97, and currently performs the same role for Pittsburgh Panthers football broadcasts.

In Atlanta, Fralic runs Bill Fralic Insurance Services, which he began during his playing days with the Falcons.

Steroids[link]

During his NFL career, Fralic publicly opposed the use of steroids by NFL players and advocated more rigorous and more random testing to detect steroid use. In May 1989 he testified before the U.S. Senate that steroid use in the NFL was rampant. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, was said to have found Fralic's testimony "refreshing and believable".

External links[link]

• The Pennsylvania Football News All-Century Team Retrieved 2009-05-01.
• 'We Can Clean It Up' Atlanta Falcon Bill Fralic is making it his business to rid the NFL of steroids Retrieved 2009-05-01.
• Perils Of A New Era Retrieved 2009-05-01.
• Fralic not surprised by recent allegations Retrieved 2009-05-01.

Francis Patrick "Pat" Roach (19 May 1937 – 17 July 2004) was an English actor, wrestler and author, from Birmingham. His most famous role is that of West Country bricklayer Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He also played a memorable role as General Kael in Willow. He was the only actor besides Harrison Ford to appear in all of the first three films in the Indiana Jones franchise (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).

This section requires expansion with: Early life before career.

Early life[link]

Roach was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire on 19 May 1937.

Wrestling career[link]

Before Roach broke into acting, he was a well-known wrestler who attracted unwarranted abuse from the crowds who wrongly assumed him to be a typical wrestling heel in a similar mould to the likes of Mick McManus.^{[citation needed]} After his acting career had taken off, he continued to wrestle under the name of "Bomber" Pat Roach, having previously been billed as "Big" Pat Roach, but now receiving affectionate cheering from the spectators. He was trained by Alf Kent and his first official wrestling match was against George Selko. Roach held both the British and European Heavyweight Wrestling Championships.^{[citation needed]}

Acting career[link]

He made his acting debut as the red-bearded bouncer in the Korova Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in 1971. Roach and Kubrick reunited for Barry Lyndon; Pat portrayed a hand-to-hand brawler named Toole, who engages Ryan O'Neal (as the title character) in bare-knuckle combat. Roach enjoyed considerable success via being typecast as muscle-bound supporting characters; these included the non-speaking role of Hephaestus in Clash of the Titans (coincidently, he later appeared as Atlas on "Jim Henson's The Storyteller": Greek Myths in the story of Perseus and the Gorgon, on which Clash of the Titans was based), a SPECTRE-backed assassin in Never Say Never Again, and a bandit-warlord in the sword-and-sorcery yarn Red Sonja. (The latter two pitted him against Sean Connery and Brigitte Nielsen, respectively, in mortal combat; Roach lost on both counts.) Perhaps most notable were his roles as the skull-helmeted General Kael in Willow, and as the Celtic chieftain in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Roach appeared as several burly villains in the Indiana Jones series in the 1980s. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Roach played a Sherpa who fights Jones in a bar in Nepal and also a German mechanic who is killed by a propeller blade on an airstrip in Egypt. He thus had the rare opportunity to be killed twice in one film. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he played a Thuggee overseer who is killed by a crusher while fighting Jones. His final appearance in the series was as a Gestapo officer in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, however he appears only briefly because his main fight scene with Jones was cut.^[6] The role of Colonel Dovchenko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) was a stand-in for Roach, who died in 2004.

Roach is best known to British audiences as Bomber—in the ITV/BBC comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet—a bricklayer who joined the main cast in Düsseldorf and appeared in all four series, but died before the final special was completed.

Personal life[link]

He married his wife Doreen in 1957, they had one son^[7] and one grandchild^{[citation needed]}.

Later life and death[link]

During most of the 1990s Roach had a scrapyard in Arden Road, in Saltley, Birmingham.

Roach died in July 2004 after a long struggle against throat cancer. He is buried in Bromsgrove Cemetery, Worcestershire.^[8]

Selected filmography[link]

His film roles have included:

• A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• Rising Damp (1980)
• Clash of the Titans (1981)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
• Never Say Never Again (1983)
• Superman III (1983)
• Conan the Destroyer (1984)
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• Willow (1988)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
• The Return of the Musketeers (1989)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
• The Big Man (1991)

Championships and accomplishments[link]

• Joint Promotions

• British Heavyweight Championship (once)
• European Heavyweight Championship (twice)

• Premier Wrestling Federation

• Ken Joyce Trophy (1992)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Pat Roach at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Obituary
• Photos of Roach's grave at Findagrave