Joe Kapp, former Vikings quarterback and Cal coach, dies at 85

Joe Kapp, a fiery hard-nosed NFL and CFL quarterback and later college football coach, has died at the age of 85.

Kapp died Monday "after a 15-year battle with dementia," his son J.J. Kapp told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Kapp holds the distinction of being the only quarterback to ever lead his team to the Rose Bowl, Super Bowl and Grey Cup.

An All-American at Cal, Kapp began his professional football career in Canada, playing eight seasons in the CFL with Calgary and British Columbia. He took the B.C. Lions to a pair of Grey Cup games before joining the Minnesota Vikings in 1967 and reaching the Super Bowl two years later. However, the Vikings lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 23-7 in Super Bowl 4.

His NFL career ended after one final season with the Boston Patriots in 1970, refusing to re-sign after the team selected Stanford quarterback Jim Plunkett with the first overall pick in the 1971 draft. He later filed an antitrust suit against the league but lost the case.

After dabbling in Hollywood as an actor and producer − his credits included "The Longest Yard" and "The Six Million Dollar Man" in 1974 and "Over the Edge" in 1979 − Kapp returned to Berkeley and his alma mater as head coach in 1982, despite no previous coaching experience.

In his first season on the sidelines, Kapp led a downtrodden Cal squad to a 7-4 record that was highlighted by one of the most famous plays in college football history, the multi-lateral game-ending kickoff return touchdown against rival Stanford (and its marching band) that was dubbed, simply, "The Play."

He coached the Bears for five seasons, compiling an overall record of 20-34-1.

Kapp was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and Canadian Football Hall of Fame, in addition to the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame and Cal Athletics Hall of Fame.

A pillar of the Latino community, Kapp was once dubbed "The Toughest Chicano" by Sports Illustrated. And he frequently helped raise money for Cal and organizations supporting Latinos.

However, the contact he welcomed as a player also took a toll on his health. According to a Bay Area News Group story in 2016, Kapp struggled with memory loss and feared that he suffered from the degenerative brain disease CTE.

Kapp's son told the Chronicle his brain will be sent to the University of California San Francisco for study.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Kapp, who quarterbacked the Vikings to Super Bowl 4, dies at 85