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In 16 seasons with the Los Angeles Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles, he played in four Pro Bowl games and was voted Most Valuable Player in 1969.

Thompson’s 1971 book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and a later article on the Super Bowl glimpsed much of what has become of these exemplars of American excess.

Off the field, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and taught the subject at Rice and Yale. And he brought computers to the House of Representatives.