TUPATALK: Finding sports and discovering a hero

Last week, I wrote in a column my deep sadness about the recent passing of former NFL star quarterback Joe Kapp.

I offer his family, other loved ones and friends my condolences for the departure of this remarkable man.

As for Joe, I can feel happy he’s free of the pains and challenges of elderly life. He had turned 85 just a few weeks prior to his final breath.

My sorrow is more selfish, I suppose. As long as Joe lived, I felt there was a mortal link to some of the happiest moments of my childhood. Following sports as an impressionable young teenager was like eating a banana split every day — sweet and filling.

As an elementary-aged child, I never followed sports. We moved an average of every nine months so the boundary of my world was confined mostly to the four-wall boundaries of whatever house or apartment we lived in and family solidarity.

But, as a young teenager, I started to look for new interests. We played football on the elementary school playground (I was always one of 50 offensive linemen during our games at recess) and I became interested in the sport.

One weekend day in the fall of 1969, I did a little channel surging — which back then was pretty vanilla because we had three network channels (ABC, NBC, CBS) and two public stations to choose from. I came across a NFL game between the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings. I decided to watch some of it.

The Vikings crushed the Bears, I believe by a score of 31-0, but that’s just from memory. Anyway, I made a snap decision I would be a fan of the Bears because of the underdog thing.

But, t felt some magnet of fascination about the purple-clad Vikings. I soon adopted them as my team — a link that has endured more than 50 years. (How can I stick with a team that went 0-4 in the Super Bowl, hasn’t been back to it 46 years, and twice went 15-1 only to lose in the NFC championship game? Some things are beyond explanation.)

But, the biggest force of machismo on the 1969 Vikings was Kapp. To me, he became the epitome of rugged manhood, the toughest guy on the field, a warrior who willed himself and his team to greatness despite his less than polished skills.

He became my sports icon and a hero that somehow transcended all the other sports heroes I have grown to totally admire — and there have been many. Even now, Kapp still occupies a special part of my heart that sets him apart. I guess it’s because he was that kind of distant role model I needed without a dad in the house. No reason to over-analyze it. It just was.

Oh, I also grew to love (in a manly sense) the other Vikings on the ’69 team — fullback Bill “Boom Boom” Brown, halfback Dave Osborn, wide receiver Gene Washington, middle linebacker Lonnie Warwick, defensive back Karl Kassulke, defensive ends Carl Eller and Jim Marshall, interior defensive linemen Alan Page and Gary Larsen, offensive linemen Milt Sunde, Ron Yary and Ed White, kicker Fred Cox, and many others — as well as head coach Bud Grant.

(Within the next few years, Kassulke would be paralyzed in a motorcycle accident, I believe while he was headed to training camp. Eller, Marshall, Page and Larsen would be known as the Purple-People Eaters, arguably the greatest defensive line in NFL history. Page would be named to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Marshall set the record for the most consecutive games played in an every down position. Considering he played one of the most violent positions, at defensive end, his feat has a singular feel.)

As many football fans know, the Vikings fell victim in Super Bowl IV (January 1970) to one of the biggest championship upsets in history. The upstart Kansas City Chiefs pummeled the Vikings, 23-7, with Jan Stenerud booting three field goals. (He would play later in his career for the Vikings.)

In the waning minutes of the game, I went outside, stood behind a lilac tree and wept.

About 20 years later, I had a chance to personally interview Kapp. We spoke about many, many subjects, including that Super Bowl, in which he had injured and taken off the field. I confided in him at the end of our interview how I had wept about that contest.

As I left, he signed an autograph and on the bottom he scrawled, “P.S. I cried too.”

Perhaps some more reflections later.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TUPATALK: Finding sports and discovering a hero