Joe Kapp, Quarterback Who Led Vikings to Super Bowl IV, Dies at 85
Joe Kapp, the rugged quarterback who spent eight seasons in the Canadian Football League before making it to the N.F.L. with the 1967 Minnesota Vikings, then took them to Super Bowl IV in January 1970, died on Monday in San Jose, Calif. He was 85.
His son, J.J. Kapp, said the death, at an assisted living facility, was caused by complications of dementia.
In the N.F.L., he gained a reputation for resilience in the face of injury.
“I’ve played with cracked ribs and a punctured lung and a torn knee and separated shoulder and a half-dozen other injuries,” he wrote in a first-person article. “I’ve been called ‘one half of a collision looking for another.’ You won’t see me running out of bounds to avoid a little physical contact with a linebacker.”
“Maybe this goes back to my Chicano childhood and machismo,” he added. “Machismo means manliness, a willingness to act like a man, and if a kid didn’t have machismo in the polyglot neighborhoods of the San Fernando and Salinas valleys in California, where I grew up, he had it tough.”
Source: The New York Times
