Tom Topping

{{Short description|American football player (1934–1990)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}

{{Infobox college football player

| name = Tom Topping

| image =

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption =

| school = Duke Blue Devils

| currentnumber =

| currentposition = Tackle

| pastschools = Duke (1955–1957)

| highschool =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1934|11|6}}

| birth_place = Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1990|8|27|1934|11|6}}

| death_place = Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.

| highlights =

• First-team All-American (1957)
• First-team All-ACC (1957)

}}

John Thomas Topping (November 6, 1934 – August 27, 1990) was an American football player.

He was born in 1934 and grew up in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. He attended Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He graduated in 1953 from Roanoke Rapids High School.{{cite news|title=Tom Topping To Be Cited By Hometown|newspaper=The Herald-Sun|date=December 21, 1957|page=10|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104433754/tom-topping-to-be-cited-by-hometown/|via=Newspapers.com}}

He played college football at the tackle position for the Duke Blue Devils football team from 1955 to 1957. He was selected by the Football Writers Association of America as a first-team guard on Look magazine's 1957 All-America college football team.{{cite web|title=Look's All-American Has Two ACC Players|newspaper=The Index-Journal|date=December 6, 1957|page=9|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104433918/looks-all-american-has-two-acc-players/|via=Newspaper.com}}

Topping later lived in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. In 1959, he became employed by Roadway Express, a trucking company in Akron, Ohio. He spent 31 years with the company and became the company's president in 1987.{{cite news|title=John T. Topping, Roadway executive|newspaper=The Akron Beacon Journal|author=Peter Geiger|date=August 29, 1990|page=13|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104433552/topping/|via=Newspapers.com}} He was inducted into the Duke Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.{{cite news|title=Duke Sports Hall of Fame Inducts Topping, Gregory|newspaper=The Dispatch, Lexington, N.C.|date=April 8, 1989|page=10|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19890408&id=HFMcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K1IEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6767,4262773}} He died in 1990 at age 55.