LOS GATOS — Joe Kapp made the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1970 with the memorable headline, “The Toughest Chicano.”
The brawling, take-no-prisoners quarterback from Salinas never strayed from the handle even while struggling to recall his colorful past because of the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative condition he attributed to taking too many hits during his long career at Cal and in the professional ranks.
Kapp, the only quarterback to appear in the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl and Canada’s Grey Cup died Monday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He was 85 years old.
“I can remember things way back but I can’t remember what I had for breakfast — or if I had it,” he said in a 2015 interview at his home in Los Gatos.
But the tough-talking quarterback was ready to recount his memorable life and times to anyone willing to listen.
After leading Cal to the 1959 Rose Bowl, Kapp opted to play in Canada where he cemented his roughhouse reputation. Kapp started with the Calgary Stampeders before spending six dazzling years with the B.C. Lions.
His coaching career began at Cal, where his first of five seasons as the head coach concluded with The Play.
It was after that improbable victory that Kapp uttered his famous quote: “The Bear will not quit! The Bear will not die!”
Kapp went on to briefly become the general manager of the BC Lions in 1990.
As his memory diminished in his 70s, Kapp began investigating the concussion issue. He kept a pile of newspaper stories in the shed behind his downtown Los Gatos cottage where Kapp had lived for decades and discussed playing through head injuries.
“One time in Canada I got hit so hard my left side was numb and my left eye was shut,” Kapp said. “The guys wouldn’t let me go off the field. The ethic of football is still the same. You play through it. That’s how we did it for 20 years.”
The quarterback had pledged his brain to Stanford researchers to study after death. The degenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy can only be diagnosed when examining brain tissue of the deceased. The disease known as CTE is believed to be caused by repetitive blows to the head in sports such as football.
Kapp, though, never lost his sense of humor even while educating himself on the causes and symptoms of traumatic brain injuries.
“I’ve got delusions of dementia,” he said during a long interview in 2015. When asked if he had ever suffered a broken bone, Kapp replied, “Do you want me to start at the top or the bottom — never mind the head?”
But the vocal quarterback didn’t focus all of his attention on the daily challenges of his cognitive dysfunction.
“I’m like Walter Mitty,” he told this news organization.
The lean, hardscrabble Kapp wasn’t referring to the meek character of James Thurber’s novel. He meant he had lived an inspiring life resembling Mitty’s fantasies. That, no doubt, wasn’t far off.
Kapp had a role in some of football’s momentous times, including two of the biggest legal cases in NFL history. He sued the league in 1971 on antitrust grounds in a free agency battle similar to Curt Flood’s in baseball. Kapp also was a plaintiff in the landmark concussion lawsuit against the NFL that led to a $1 billion payout to former players.
Even his brief coaching career is part of the hallowed history of football. Kapp took over Cal’s program in 1982 although he had never coached before. He was on the sideline for The Play, the famous five-lateral kickoff return that led the Golden Bears to score the winning touchdown on the final play of the Big Game against Stanford.
“I love Stanford,” he said in 2017. “They were the one school we could beat.”
Kapp lasted five years in Berkeley before settling into retirement in Los Gatos where he watched son Will Kapp and grandson Frank Kapp play for the Bears.
The old raconteur seemed most present when looking back.
“The Rose Bowl, the toilet bowl, I’ve been to all of them,” he once said when recounting his resume.
The last quarterback to lead Cal to a Rose Bowl held court at his favorite Los Gatos haunt, C.B. Hannegan’s, where in later years he would scream over the background music because his hearing was shot.
“If you heard as much booing as I did you would too,” he once said, before letting out his characteristic laugh.
Kapp arrived in Salinas from New Mexico when entering fifth grade. He loved all sports, but particularly basketball. Kapp played in the church leagues in east Salinas. The skinny kid also learned to box.
No one considered him quarterback material because of his small stature. He was a receiver at Salinas High School. Kapp recalled suffering from Osgood-Schlatter disease, a painful inflammation of the lower front of the knee.
It wasn’t until the 6-foot-2 Kapp had a growth spurt that he became a quarterback. The transformation happened in his junior season at Hart High in Newhall after he had moved to Southern California to live with an aunt.
“I just took over,” he said of becoming the signal caller. “I don’t know why.”
Kapp returned to the Bay Area after developing into an L.A.-area star. He credited a middle school teacher who took him and a friend to tour the Cal campus to piquing his interest in the school.
But the football player needed one unit of language to become eligible for UC Berkeley. He arrived the summer before his freshman year to take an Italian class and do yard work around Memorial Stadium.
Coaches and academic counselors thought Kapp would have an easier time passing Italian than Spanish although the Latino quarterback spoke his family’s native tongue.
He started three consecutive seasons, throwing for 1,896 yards and seven touchdowns in an era of the running game. Kapp led the Bears to their last Rose Bowl appearance a year after Cal had gone 1-9. He also played on the basketball team in 1956 and ‘57. Because of the Rose Bowl, he wasn’t part of coach Pete Newell’s team that won the ‘59 NCAA title.
“When I played I set my sights to be the best on the field,” Kapp said.
After finishing fifth in the Heisman Trophy vote, Kapp was passed over in the ‘59 NFL Draft. Washington finally took him in the 18th round with the 209th selection. It was the start of his frustration with NFL officials.
“Washington never called me,” Kapp recalled. “So I said, ‘If I want to play pro football, I’ll go to Canada.’ It was a beautiful country, it was worth a lifetime.”
He forged a Hall of Fame career at Calgary and British Columbia in the Canadian Football League.
Kapp joined the NFL in 1967, replacing the legend Fran Tarkenton in Minnesota. He played three seasons for the Vikings, leading them to the 1970 Super Bowl. Earlier that season, Kapp threw for seven touchdowns against the Baltimore Colts, the single-game record shared with George Blanda, Drew Brees, Adrian Burk, Nick Foles, Sid Luckman, Peyton Manning and Y. A. Tittle. Kapp refused the team MVP award that season, saying, “There is no one most valuable Viking. There are 40 most valuable Vikings.”
But he signed a four-year deal with Boston after the Super Bowl. The Patriots went 2-12 in Kapp’s only season in New England, leading the team to draft quarterback Jim Plunkett out of Stanford as the top overall selection in the 1971 draft.
Also, then-commissioner Pete Rozelle had demanded Kapp sign a standard player contract, which he refused to do because the quarterback already had a four-year deal with the Pats. The dispute ended in court and Kapp never played again.
He threw for 28,636 yards and 176 touchdowns over 13 years in the two leagues combined. Kapp also rushed for 3,395 yards in 698 carries with 31 more touchdowns.
“I never went to a practice or a meeting where it felt like work,” he said. “I spent so many hours watching film it was never work. Not one day, not one minute.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com