These Bay Area college hoopers made the leap to gridiron football
How many college basketball players can say they made it to a Super Bowl?
The late Joe Kapp could make that claim. He played two sports at Cal, best known for leading the Bears to their most recent Rose Bowl following the 1958 season.
But the man who later quarterbacked the BC Lions to a Canadian Grey Cup championship and the Minnesota Vikings into Super Bowl IV also played hoops for the Bears.
He was an All-American in football, a backup guard on the basketball team. Kapp played the 1956-57 and ’57-58 seasons, averaging just 1.8 points each season.
But legendary coach Pete Newell often talked about the toughness and leadership Kapp brought to a program that was a year away from winning a national championship. Newell credited Kapp with being a difference-maker.
With the Super Bowl descending on the region this week, here are other former Bay Area college athletes who made their name playing both football and basketball, although none of them made it all the way to the Super Bowl:
TONY GONZALEZ, Cal: Before becoming the most prolific tight end in NFL history, catching 1,325 passes and scoring 111 touchdowns, Gonzalez was a star-caliber player in both sports with the Bears.
At 6-foot-5, Gonzalez caught 89 passes for 1,302 yards in three seasons at Cal, including 10 receptions for 150 yards in the 1995 Big Game. He also played three seasons of basketball, averaging 6.4 points and 4.3 rebounds.
His big basketball moment came in the second round of the 1997 NCAA Tournament when he outscored future NBA lottery pick Tim Thomas 23-11 in the Bears’ victory over Villanova. A stop at the Sweet 16 preceded his Pro Football Hall of Fame career.
He played five seasons in the NFL with the Duluth Eskimos and the Chicago Cardinals. In 1931, his final season, he earned All-Pro honors after setting an NFL record by scoring 40 points in a game, including six touchdowns.
Nevers was in the inaugural class for both the college and pro football halls of fame. Besides all that, he was a pitcher of modest success for three seasons in the late 1920s with the St. Louis Browns baseball club.
JOHN PAYE, Stanford: Paye has the distinction of being a freshman starter at quarterback (as John Elway’s successor) and guard on the basketball team in 1983-84. Over his career, he passed for 7,668 yards and 38 touchdowns while averaging 4.0 points in basketball.
A 10th-round pick of the 49ers, Paye spent three seasons with the franchise but never saw game action on a team featuring Joe Montana.
JOHNNY JOHNSON, San Jose State: A scholarship running back, Johnson rushed and caught passes for nearly 3,000 yards with 29 touchdowns in three seasons through 1989.
When 10 players boycotted the final 12 games of the 1988-89 basketball season, citing “mental cruelty” by coach Bill Berry, Johnson was the best of the walk-ons to fill out the roster. He averaged 11.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists, but the Spartans lost all 12 games.
A seventh-round draft pick of the Phoenix Cardinals in 1990, Johnson was a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie and wound up with 5,591 all-purpose yards and 26 touchdowns before retiring due to injury.
TEYO JOHNSON, Stanford: A 6-7, 240-pound wide receiver, Johnson caught 79 passes for more than 1,000 yards and 15 TDs in 2001 and ‘02 with the Cardinal. As a freshman, he was a reserve power forward on the 2001-02 basketball team that was 31-3 and ranked No. 1 in the nation before losing in the Elite 8 round of the NCAA Tournament.
Selected by the Raiders in the second round of the 2003 draft, Johnson played parts of six seasons in the NFL, spent a year in NFL Europe and two in the Canadian Football League.
And one who seemed a natural to join the club . . .
BOB ST. CLAIR, USF: An 11-year offensive tackle for the 49ers, St. Clair played football for USF in 1950 and ’51 before transferring to Tulsa. At 6-foot-9, he somehow never found his way onto the basketball team, which a few years later rode the talents of another big man, Bill Russell, to a pair of national championships.