Plaque will honor ex-coach, QB Kapp

As former Cal football player and Berkeley legislator Tom Bates tells it, during a 1956 basketball game at Madison Square Garden, head coach Pete Newell told Joe Kapp to check into the game and rough up Wilt Chamberlain.

Kapp proceeded to shove the 7-foot-1 center until it escalated into a fight that caused both players to be ejected, and Cal beat top-ranked Kansas.

Of course, none of that happened. The game was played at Harmon Gym, and Kansas won 66-56.

Kapp’s larger-than-life personality has been spun into an endless number of similar yarns, and Bates is making sure the legacy of Cal’s 1959 Rose Bowl quarterback is remembered forever in Berkeley.

Bates spearheaded an effort to have a plaque honoring Kapp installed on the Goldman Plaza that leads up to Memorial Stadium. After an April reunion of the 1958-59 team, it took only three weeks to raise $36,000 for a fund aimed at giving athletes exposure to post-career business opportunities and the money for the plaque.

A public revealing of the plaque had been scheduled for Friday afternoon, but was canceled because of poor air quality. The public is invited to attend a reception — sponsored by Pappy’s Boys, an alumni group — at the International House.

The 4-by-4-foot plaque will hang where the players walk up the steps to the plaza and head for the north tunnel that leads to the field. It includes renderings of Kapp’s days as a quarterback and a head coach (1982-86), with the phrase: “The Bear will not quit. The Bear will not die.”

“It’s the perfect place,” Bates said. “The players come out right there, and there’s Joe reminding them that Bears never quit.”

Kapp was the head coach for Cal in the 1982 Big Game, which provided “The Play” and prompted his most famous phrase. He was saying stuff like that, even as a player, especially during the 1958-59 season.

Playing in 1958 on the road against a Washington squad that went on to win the 1960 and 1961 Rose Bowls, Cal called a timeout. Instead of heading to the sideline, Kapp went to the line of scrimmage and yelled at the Huskies’ players.

“He told them that we were going to kick the bejesus out of them,” Bates said. “He was saying: ‘We’re going to beat you now and then again after the game.’

“I couldn’t believe it, but we had to come back and beat them.”

Cal did. It won 12-7 and later played in the Rose Bowl — something the program hasn’t done since then.

“I think the program is definitely headed in the right direction, and I’m very impressed with coach ( Justin) Wilcox. I think he’s doing a fabulous job, and hopefully, they can go back to the Rose Bowl,” Bates said. “… The Rose Bowl has changed, just like everything else in the world. It used to be the Pacific Coast Confernece champs playing the Big Ten, and that’s not the case anymore.

“So, I tell Cal fans that the Bears go to the Rose Bowl every other year. I mean, that’s where they play UCLA.”