Kent McCord’s tribute to best friend Rick Nelson

“Playing to Win,” Rick Nelson’s 10-track Capitol Records debut, was issued on Feb. 27, 1981. Earlier that week the 40-year-old heartthrob played the Ritz night club in New York City and sat for a photo session with Lynn Goldsmith, who has captured such epochal rockers as John Lennon, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, and Tom Petty. This stark black leather jacket and light pink high collar shirt candid was later selected as the Jan. 20, 1986, cover photo of People magazine’s tribute to Nelson. Photography by Lynn Goldsmith / Corbis / VCG via Getty Images

“I was asleep when I heard my wife Rocky scream at the news on TV.” Kent McCord, rookie LAPD officer Jim Reed on NBC’s enduring Adam-12 series, takes a deep dive into the life of gentle soul Rick Nelson. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alum died suddenly on Dec. 31, 1985, at age 45 while traveling by private plane to a sold out New Year’s concert at the Park Suite luxury hotel in Dallas. For McCord the loss nearly four decades ago still cuts to the quick. In early 1961 he was a freshman football major at Citrus Junior College when he and a handful of pals were recruited to join Nelson’s team for the celebrity touch football match of the century in De Neve Square Park. Their rivals were none other than Elvis Presley and the Memphis Mafia, who had scraped together a streak of wins that had Nelson plotting payback. Nelson’s ringers handily bruised and trounced the hip-swiveling hillbilly cat’s squad that mid-winter afternoon in Bel Air.

A friendship blossomed, and McCord switched gears and stood in and acted on Nelson’s trendsetting family sitcom that took cues from real life, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Accompanying Nelson as a bodyguard, McCord also demonstrated his trustworthiness, carrying a briefcase to collect cash from venue promoters on the road. David Nelson declared that McCord attended more recording sessions with his little brother than anyone…