Longtime NFL punter Reggie Roby dies Punter Reggie Roby, a 16-year NFL veteran, three-time Pro Bowler and All-American at Iowa, died Tuesday after being found unconscious at home by his wife. He was 43. Reggie Roby averaged 43.3 yards a punt in 16 NFL seasons, including a personal best 45.7 yards a punt in 1991. He had just five punts blocked in 992 career attempts. Melissa Roby found her husband with no pulse Tuesday morning. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at home and in the ambulance, but he was pronounced dead in the emergency room at St. Thomas Hospital at 8:35 a.m. CT, according to a statement released by the family. The cause of death was unknown, the statement said. Roby was a sixth-round pick in 1983 by the Miami Dolphins, where he played 10 seasons. He also played for the Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Houston/Tennessee Oilers and San Francisco 49ers, where he wrapped up his career in 1999. He led the AFC in 1991 with an average punt of 45.7 yards, and he still holds the Pro Bowl record with 10 punts in the 1985 game. At Iowa, Roby's booming punts helped the Hawkeyes earn a share of the 1981 Big Ten championship and a berth in the Rose Bowl. He averaged an NCAA-record 49.8 yards a punt that season and was a consensus All-American. The following season, he again led the nation in punting with a 48.1 average and his career average of 45.4 yards is still the Iowa record. Roby's soaring kicks brought him so much notoriety that Iowa State coach Dan McCarney, then an assistant at Iowa, remembers fans coming out early just to watch the 6-foot-3, 250-pounder warm up. "I've seen punters and kickers through the years and there's a certain sound when the foot hits the ball and then there's a Reggie Roby sound," McCarney said in a 2003 interview. "There was an explosion on the ball when he punted." Roby played football and baseball at Waterloo East High School and was promising enough as a pitcher to get drafted by the Cincinnati Reds. But he was swayed by Hayden Fry's pitch to help in the rebuilding effort at Iowa and joined the Hawkeyes in 1979, Fry's first season. His punting complemented a solid defense that helped Iowa finish 8-4 in 1981 to break a 20-year streak of non-winning seasons and make the school's first Rose Bowl trip in 23 years. Roby, who had six children, had been the marketing and development director for Backfield in Motion, a nonprofit group mixing athletics and academics to help boys in the inner city. "Reggie was just a kid at heart," said Michael Brown, Backfield in Motion's chief executive officer. "Reggie was the ultimate package as far as I was concerned. In this type of work that we are in, there is no question that it was his calling." Pat Sullivan, The Associated Press