Joe Kapp, the rugged quarterback who spent eight seasons within the Canadian Football League earlier than making it to the NFL with the 1967 Minnesota Vikings, then took them to (*85*) Bowl IV in January 1970, died on Monday in San Jose, Calif. , at 85.
His son, JJ Kapp, mentioned that his father died at an assisted residing facility from problems of dementia.
In the NFL, he gained a status for resilience within the face of damage.
“I’ve performed with cracked ribs and a punctured lung and a torn knee and separated shoulder and a half-dozen different accidents,” he wrote in a first-person article. “I’ve been referred to as ‘one half of a collision in search of one other.’ You will not see me working out of bounds to keep away from a bit bodily contact with a linebacker.”
“Maybe this goes again to my Chicano childhood and machismo,” he added. “Machismo means manliness, a willingness to act like a person, and if a child did not have machismo within the polyglot neighborhoods of the San Fernando and Salinas valleys in California, the place I grew up, he had it robust.”
Kapp, who was partially of Mexican descent, was labeled “the hardest Chicano” by Sports Illustrated on its July 1970 cowl.
The Vikings noticed him because the successor to Fran Tarkenton, who had been traded to the Giants.
Kapp tied a single-game National Football League document — one held by a number of quarterbacks — when he threw seven landing passes in opposition to the defending league champion, the Baltimore Colts, in September 1969.
He threw 19 landing passes throughout the 1969 common season, main the Vikings to the 1970 (*85*) Bowl in opposition to the Kansas City Chiefs, the champions of the American Football League, which was in its final season earlier than it merged with the NFL. The Vikings, anchored by The Purple People Eaters, a fearsome defensive position with Carl Eller and Jim Marshall at the ends and Alan Page and Gary Larsen at the tackles, had been sturdy favorites, however the Chiefs defeated them, 23-7.
Kapp incurred a badly injured shoulder when he was hit on a bootleg play, however he remained within the sport, finishing 16 passes for 183 yards, though he was intercepted twice. “The Kansas City protection seemed like a redwood forest,” he instructed The Minneapolis Star-Tribune afterward.
Kapp joined the Boston (later New England) Patriots in 1970. The Patriots completed with a 2-12 document, then drafted quarterback Jim Plunkett of Stanford, the Heisman Trophy winner.
Having already been concerned in a contract dispute with the Patriots, Kapp refused to signal an ordinary gamers contract for the 1971 season and give up the workforce in July, then filed an antitrust go well with in opposition to the NFL. A jury declined to award him damages, however the case represented an early problem within the gamers’ in the end profitable wrestle to win free company rights.
Joseph Robert Kapp was born on March 19, 1938, in Santa Fe, NM, the oldest of 5 youngsters of Florence Garcia Kapp, who was of Mexican heritage, and Robert Kapp, a salesman, who was of German descent.
His household moved to California when Joe was younger. He performed soccer and basketball in highschool and acquired an athletic scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kapp led the Golden Bears to the Pacific Coast Conference soccer championship in 1958 and a berth within the Rose Bowl sport, a loss to Iowa. He performed basketball for the Cal groups that received a pair of Pacific Coast championships.
A bruising 6 toes 2 inches and 205 kilos, Kapp set a profession speeding document for Cal quarterbacks, working for 931 yards in three seasons. But the Golden Bears employed a split-T formation favoring quarterback-option working performs over the passing sport, so Kapp wasn’t chosen within the 1959 NFL draft till the Washington workforce, now referred to as the Commanders, selected him within the 18th spherical. They by no means contacted him, so he went to the Canadian Football League.
Kapp spent a season and a half with the Calgary Stampeders, then was traded to the British Columbia Lions after present process knee surgical procedure. He led them to the 1963 Gray Cup sport for the CFL championship, a loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, however they defeated Hamilton, 34-24, for the 1964 Gray Cup title. He was a two-time CFL All-Star, threw for 136 landing passes and was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1984.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
Kapp turned to performing after his NFL profession ended. He appeared on the TV crime collection “Ironside” and within the football-themed films “The Longest Yard” (1974) and “Semi-Tough” (1977).
He was named the pinnacle soccer coach at California in 1982, a season that famously ended with “the play,” a five-lateral kickoff return by Cal for the profitable landing in opposition to Stanford. He posted a document of 20-34-1 for 5 seasons at Berkeley.
Kapp was the British Columbia Lions’ common supervisor for a lot of the 1990 season and head coach of the Arena League’s Sacramento Attack in 1992.
Kapp lived in Los Gatos, Calif., in his later years. In addition to his son JJ, he’s survived by his second spouse, Jennifer Kapp; one other son, Will; his daughters Emiliana and Gabriela; his brother, Larry; and his sisters Joanie Ebberson, Linda Rorher and Suzie McDonald. His first spouse, Marcia, died in 2005.
Pro soccer gamers aren’t simply intimidated, however Kapp’s depth made a determined impression.
“He’s a sorry passer and actually not an ideal quarterback, however he is an ideal chief,” the Kansas City defensive finish Jerry Mays was quoted by Sports Illustrated as saying after the workforce’s (*85*) Bowl victory over the Vikings. “I hated to play in opposition to him. You felt his presence irrespective of the place he was, on the sidelines or on the sector. He’d look at you and problem you along with his eyes. When I consider him, I consider his eyes.”