[1] A graduate of Lucy Craft Laney High School in Augusta, Georgia, Rouse attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
[2] On August 5, 1997, at age 37, Rouse suffered a massive stroke at his home in Clarksville, Tennessee; his weight had ballooned to almost 500 pounds at the time.
[3] He was initially not expected to survive, but as of November 1997, he had regained approximately 90 percent of his speech.
In 2003, the Chattanooga Times Free Press placed him on Tennessee-Chattanooga's All-Century Football Team, and in 2005 he was elected to the university's Athletics Hall of Fame.
On Friday May 3, 2013, former Minnesota Vikings teammate Greg Coleman announced on his Twitter that Rouse had died.