Rodney Peete (born March 16, 1966 in Mesa, Arizona) is a former American football quarterback from the University of Southern California that played in the National Football League for 16 years.
Peete attended Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Arizona as a freshman, sophomore, and junior, and went to Shawnee Mission South High School in Overland Park Kansas for his senior year. He was a three-year letterman in football, baseketball, and baseball. In football, he was named the Arizona High School Player of the Year as a junior.
Peete was the first player ever from USC to win the Johnny Unitas Award as the nation's best senior quarterback. (He has since been joined by Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.) In that senior year, he also finished second to Barry Sanders in the voting for the Heisman Trophy. His USC teams would win both head-to-head matchups in the UCLA-USC rivalry against Troy Aikman's UCLA teams. The 1988 UCLA-USC game was notable in that Peete was stricken with measles the week before the game and had been to the hospital. He led USC to the 1988 and 1989 Rose Bowl games. Peete was also a star third baseman on USC's baseball team. He was named to the all-Pac-10 team. He was also drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays out of high school, and the Oakland Athletics and Detroit Tigers while in college.
Peete did not achieve stardom in his professional career in the National Football League (NFL), but he did play well enough to sustain his place in the league for 16 seasons, primarily as a back-up. His career was also riddled with injuries. He was drafted with the 141st pick of the 1989 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions. He was scheduled to start the opener, which would have made him the first rookie quarterback to start for the Lions since 1968, when Greg Landry started. He sprained his knee in an exhibition game against the Rams and missed the first few games of his first season. He would split time throughout his career in Detroit with Bob Gagliano, Erik Kramer, and Andre Ware. After spending time with Dallas, Washington, Philadelphia, and Oakland, his career appeared to be over until he became the starter for the Panthers in 2002. Peete led the Panthers to a record of 8-7 as starter from 2002 to the beginning of 2003 before retiring at the end of the 2004 season.
After his retirement from the NFL, Peete became one of the hosts the Fox Sports Net sports talk show The Best Damn Sports Show Period alongside John Salley, Chris Rose and Rob Dibble.
Peete has been married to actress Holly Robinson since 1995. The couple has four children. One of their twins, RJ has autism.
Preceded by
Chris Weinke
Carolina Panthers Starting Quarterbacks
2001-2003
Succeeded by
Jake Delhomme
Preceded by
Randall Cunningham
Philadelphia Eagles Starting Quarterbacks
1995-1996
Succeeded by
Ty Detmer
Preceded by
Sean Salisbury
USC Trojans Starting Quarterbacks
1986-1988
Succeeded by
Todd Marinovich
