“That is kind of ironic because my mother has a tremendous fear of flying, even though Dad was a pilot,” Bruce said. “I guess love overcometh all, but I’m not sure why she got on that flight.”

He retired at age 61 after a Miami-based stint flying for Air Jamaica. Three years after his wife died, he was ready to finish college.

“Well, Oprah, I’m a person that — I don’t like to leave things unfinished,” Bigony told Winfrey at the time. “And so this is something in life that hadn’t been completed, and so I just felt like it would be good to wrap that up before it’s too late.”

Bigony’s football scholarship was retained when he returned to Baylor, and he even dressed out with the team, said Walter Abercrombie, executive director of the “B” Association and Baylor’s all-time leading rusher.

“He was an extremely ardent supporter of Baylor athletics,” Abercrombie said. “He went to all the sports, no matter what. He was very supportive of track and field, the baseball team, the football team. Whenever you saw Weldon, he just had a smile on his face.”