Page 5 - lw3599

my jugular by about half an inch. At 7 minor league experience. Canadian foot- you're involved with people, and you
o'clock the next morning there was a ball is a wide-open, fluid game, with ac- make it or don't make it in proportion
knock at my door, and I opened it to tion and movement all over the place. to how you make it with the people.
find the guy who had hit me. He apol- There are five backs and no rules against Looking back on it, it's easy for me
ogized and said, ''I don't know what motion and plenty for a quarterback to to pretend that I figured out a brilliant
you should do to me, but go ahead and think about. But both leagues have one approach to the problem and then went
do it." thing in common: a quarterback is paid out and applied my genius, but the truth
I said I didn't want to do anything to to win. is that I just did something spontaneous,
him; we were teammates, and we'd both I never missed a game in Canada. I without much thought. I wanted to get
been drinking, and it was one of those played the exhibition game the week af- involved with the Vikings, and so when
things. ter my 100 stitches. I started and fin- it came my turn to run the ball club in
Three years later, after I'd been trad- ished a game when my knee was twist- the scrimmages I laid a $1 bet on the
ed to the British Columbia Lions, the ed and torn.· Later on the doctors took whole defense. I would give them $1
linebacker showed up looking for a job, out bone chips and torn cartilage and for each interception if they would give
but there was nobody in our office at everything else. One of them said that me $1 for each bomb I threw over them.
the time. He went out and knocked on he couldn't believe so much matter could They accepted the challenge. The other
the door of a rectory, and when a pi;iest come out of one man's knee and they pre- two quarterbacks, Bob Berry and Ron
answered the guy killed him with a shot- dicted that I would never play again. VanderKelen, would run through their
gun. Ever since then he's been in a men- When the next season started, I was out plays and then I'd step in and the whole
tal hospital in Vancouver. A paranoid there. Too dumb to know better, I guess! field would come alive. You'd hear Ear-
schizophrenic. A very sick boy. It was After the 1963 season I picked up the sell (Evil) Mackbee, one of the more out-
my bad luck to be around before his nickname "El Cid." Football players go going cornerbacks in the league, scream-
sickness was diagnosed. to the movies often, and I go more of- ing, " Oh, oh, look who's here! It's easy-
ten than most, and we had all seen El money time. I got you, Kapp. I want a
Some Americans look down their noses Cid and that great scene where they strap little bit of that! " A pro fo_otball player
at the Canadian Football League, but Charlton Heston into the saddle so that would rather have $1 easy money than
that only shows ignorance. I spent eight he can lead the Spanish into battle and $1,000 the hard way.
years up there, on teams that wound up scare the hell out of the enemy, even For a while I was throwing in luck,
losers and on one team that went on to though he's dead. Right after that I was and I collected a couple of dollar bills
win the Grey Cup, Canada's Super Bowl dressing for a game and easing my uni- and a lot of friendly gripes, but then I
game, and I don't look back on it as form around all my injuries. One finger threw one a little short and Lonnie War-
was dislocated and taped to the next wick picked it off. I wouldn't have mind-
one. One knee and both ankles were ed, but he had to make an epic pro-
taped. I had bruised ribs and they were duction out of it, a big linebacker
for horseplay. "Every time I turned around
he had a ball in his hand," says his mother. taped, and my shoulder was taped up straight-arming and swivel-hipping his
Here it's as a junior high forward in Salinas. because of a slight separation. I was haul- way down the field as if he were Gale Say-
ing 10 pounds of adhesive around, and ers or something. Usually, in a situa-
our captain, Norm Fieldgate, looked at tion like that, the quarterback would
me and said, "Hey, it's El Cid!" I took say, " Aw, --"and go to the end of the
that as a compliment. I liked my rep- line, but when I saw this 240-pound wood
utation as a guy who finished the games nymph roaring down the field I took
he started, and I still do. In fact, this after him and banged him. He was
year's Super Bowl was the first time in shocked! Who ever heard of a third-
my career that I \-\tas knocked out of a string quarterback putting a shoulder
game. shot on the · great Lonnie Warwick in
It was 1967 before I finally reached practice? He got up screaming, " Yah!
the National Football League, and then Yah! Yah! Kapp, we'll get you!" You
it was as a 29-year-old, third-string rook- know how those big defensive players
ie quarterback on the Vikings. Not are. But I liked it, and so did he. Now
only did I reach the NFL late in life, we were all involved.
but I had a small legal battle in ex- In the second game of the 1967 sea-
tricating myself from the Canadian son the Rams were slaughtering us and
Football League, and I wound up miss- roughing up VanderKelen and Bob Ber-
ing training camp. By the time I showed ry, and Coach Bud Grant had no choice
up, the team was playing its fourth ex- but to send in our last surviving quar-
hibition game and I didn't even know terback- me. I figured the best thing to
the numbers yet. Furthermore, I bare- do was challenge the Rams, so I went
ly knew any of the Vikings, and this in shouting. I don't remember exactly
was hard on my whole theory of quar- what I shouted, but it was something
terbacking, which is that you're not like, " All right, you sons of bitches,
involved with a football out there, here I come! Let's see how good you
co11ti11ued
29