Vikings’ Super Bowl QB Dies at 85: Report

Getty Former Vikings Super Bowl quarterback Joe Kapp died at the age of 85 on Monday, May 8, 2023.

Joe Kapp, the quarterback who led the Minnesota Vikings to their first Super Bowl in 1969, has died at the age of 85.

His son, J.J. Kapp, confirmed his father’s death to the San Francisco Chronicle, writing in an email that Joe died on Monday, May 8, after a “15-year battle with dementia.”

Playing three seasons with the Vikings from 1967 to 1969, Kapp was known for his rugged running style and notoriously wobbly passes. He led the Vikings to a 12-2 record in 1969, earning a Pro Bowl nod en route to a Super Bowl appearance that included playoff wins over the Rams and Browns. Minnesota fell to the Kansas City Chiefs 23-7 in Super Bowl IV.

Kapp proved the Vikings were a Super Bowl-caliber team even after Fran Tarkenton had been traded to the New York Giants. He played just one more season after 1969 with the New England Patriots before leaving pro football in the aftermath of a contract dispute.

Playing for USC in college and the CFL, Kapp is the only quarterback who has led a team to the Rose Bowl, Grey Cup and Super Bowl. He is also considered the first Mexican-American Super Bowl quarterback and paved way for more Canadian quarterbacks to be recognized in professional sports.

Joe Kapp, a Cultural Trailblazer

Born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to a Mexican-American mother and a father of German heritage, Kapp’s upbringing was significant in his journey to the NFL.

Later moving to Salinas, California, where his parents were lettuce pickers, Kapp grew up in housing projects and learn to throw a football by practicing with heads of lettuce, which some sportswriters attributed his fluttering passes to learning on the laceless lettuce heads.

Kapp also developed a machismo in Salinas, where he witnessed gang violence regularly.

“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,” Kapp told Sports Illustrated in 1970. “When I was little I saw guys lying in their own blood at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Hollister Street in San Fernando. Sometimes the Mexicans would fight the Anglos; sometimes it would be the Mexicans and the blacks from Pacoima. They had gang fights going all the time and even an occasional shoot-out or knifing.”

Kapp’s hard-nosed ways followed him to the pros.

“You won’t see me running out of bounds to avoid a little physical contact with a linebacker, and you won’t see me ducking out the window when somebody wants to tangle,” Kapp added.

Kapp rarely turned down a fight, even tangling with Vikings teammate Lonnie Warwick. Both leaders tried to take responsibility for a loss to the Green Bay Packers, and neither would let the other take the blame, leading to a tequila-fueled scrap outside.

But under all the machismo was a unifier in the locker room who helped connect the Vikings locker room amid the Civil Rights era.

“One of the better things we had as a team was our closeness of a team among black and white players,” Carl Eller said. “I think Joe Kapp was a key to that.”

“There were some parties going on with the Wall Street gang over here and maybe some over here with the black guys…I said, ‘hey man, why don’t we have a party together, you know, I’m a Mexican…I get invited to both, why don’t we all have a party,’ ” Kapp added.

 Joe Kapp an Advocate for Player Safety

While Kapp defined his career by taking the attack to the defense and hitting back, his dementia he attributed to his playing career and has advocated for player safety. He was a litigant in a lawsuit against the NFL, which argued that the league had downplayed the effects of head trauma in the league.

The man Sports Illustrated dubbed “The Toughest Chicano,” Kapp embraced his battle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) throughout his final days and donated his brain for research on the disease.

Kapp’s son confirmed his brain will be sent to the University of California San Francisco, per the San Francisco Chronicle.