There are 40 days that separate us from Ohio State's march to Blacksburg. To help pass the time until the Buckeyes put the Sandman to bed I will countdown Ohio State's top 100 players according to the metric* listed at the bottom of this article.

Tom DeLeone has a street named after him in Kent, Ohio. 

NO. 38 TOM DeLEONE, C (1969-71)
Born: 1950 (Ravenna, Ohio)
High School: Theodore Roosevelt
 

OHIO STATE CAREER

• The Buckeyes were 23-6 with DeLeone on the team.
• 1970 National Champion.
• 1970 Big Ten Title.
• 1969 Big Ten Title.

HONORS

• 1971 Captain.
• 1971 Team MVP.
• 1971 All-American.
• 1971 All-Big Ten.
• 1970 All-Big Ten.
• 2002 Inducted into the Ohio State Football Hall of Fame.
• 2003 Inducted into the Kent City Schools Hall of Fame.

NFL DRAFT
Round 5 to the Cincinnati Bengals with the 106th pick of the 1972 draft.

Tom DeLeone's life after football per Wikipedia:

He later went on to work as a criminal investigator with the U.S. Department of the Treasury rising to a Senior Special Agent position within the U.S. Customs Service. He proudly served in the US Customs Service, and he was an important member of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Salt Lake City, Utah during the 2002 Olympic Games in Park City, Utah. In 2003, The U.S. Customs Service became a part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security and he retired from Immigration and CUSTOMS Enforcement in 2007.

He now works as a substitute teacher at  Park City High School  and Treasure Mountain International School in Park City.

Tom DeLeone was team MVP and a captain in 1971. 

Tom DeLeone's biggest battle per Rob Oller of columbusdispatch.com:

One of the more insidious characteristics of cancer is that in many cases it is a slow train coming. A body change, a diagnosis, followed by an estimated “end date.” The patient moves forward trying to live normally while attempting to avoid looking down the tracks.

Tom DeLeone is succeeding in not obsessing over the proximity of that oncoming locomotive, which is not so easy when a small indent in his skull reminds him of the brain tumor that was there. And could return. 

“This thing can reoccur,” DeLeone, 61, said during a conversation from his home near Park City, Utah. “It’s a terminal cancer, supposedly, but the better attitude you have, the better chance you have.”

[…]

As a player, DeLeone learned to ignore injuries as much as possible, because otherwise the unemployment line beckoned.

“You might get a little dizzy out on the field from getting hit in the head, but if you put down your helmet somebody is going to take it and they’ll put someone else in,” he said. “And I didn’t want that to ever happen.”

So he sucked it up and kept playing. When cancer came at him last January, this time trying to take more than his helmet, the Ravenna, Ohio native again sucked it up.

DeLeone was driving his son to work last Jan. 1 when he began making wrong turns. “He grabbed my arm and said, ‘Dad, what are you doing? This isn’t the way you go.’ I got disoriented,” DeLeone said.

That’s just how cancer works, always looking for more ways to embarrass and snatch dignity. Minutes later, doctors performed a CT scan that revealed the tumor. Two days later they removed the avocado-sized mass.

“After the operation I didn’t even get a headache,” he said. “I’ve felt great ever since.’’ 

[…]

“You go online and you see 12 months, two years and it looks very grim for this kind of cancer,” she said. “But it’s pretty interesting when you go in to the doctor. They don’t get into that (how long to live) stuff. They don’t tell you, because they don’t want to eliminate any possibilities. They’re very emphatic that attitude is absolutely everything.”

Tom DeLeone is not the only fighter in this family.

“I went through watching him play football all those years and never really worried,” Mindy said. “I knew he could take care of himself out there, so I wasn’t one of those paranoid wives. I’ve got the same attitude now. Take it day-by-day and don’t look to the future and say, ‘Oh this or that is going to happen.’ Because you just don’t know.”

In other words, count your blessings. The DeLeones certainly do.

“Just have a lot of faith and keep moving forward,” Tom said. “You’re not going to hear any ‘Whoa is me,’ from me, because I’ve had a great run at it.”

The run continues, and mercifully will for a long while more. 

His son, Dean DeLeone played football for Arizona State.

For more information on other players who wore No. 52 go here.

Sources- The Ohio State Team Guide, ColumbusDispatch.com and Wikipedia

ALL PLAYERS COVERED TO DATE