He’s truly an original
’46 Niners player, 100, has led life well lived
Ken Casanega, born three years after World War I and eight years before the start of the Great Depression, is still going.
The oldest living member of the 49ers, 73 years removed from his last game, celebrated his 100th birthday Feb. 18 at The Springs at Veranda Park, a senior living center in Medford, Ore. Casanega is believed to be one of the NFL’s oldest living players — the league’s alumni association doesn’t have complete records — but what is certain is that he is the last surviving player from the 1946 49ers, the first team in franchise history.
Casanega, an AllAmerica halfback at Santa Clara when the nowdefunct program was a national power, has spent most of his life juking and stiffarming Father Time. At 97, he was still golfing and living in an independent senior facility in Monterey. At 98, he made it to Levi’s Stadium to serve as the 49ers’ honorary game captain, handling the coin toss for the second time in three seasons.
Now, however, the No. 16 overall pick in the 1942 NFL draft by the Steelers and one
the best players on the 1946 49ers, is, at long last, showing signs that, well, he has been around for 1,201 months.
He can’t see from his right eye because of macular degeneration. He can barely speak because of three strokes. And, although he can walk, he now shuffles with a walker when he’s not using a wheelchair after separate falls in recent years resulted in a skull fracture and a pelvis that was fractured in five places.
Still, he has stoically endured a series of shots in his eye. And he consistently has beaten his doctors’ rehab timelines, showing the resilience he developed when he grew up poor in Oakland, raised by a single mother during the Depression.
After surgery to repair his pelvis and hip, the family had to hire a caregiver to stay with him at the rehab hospital in Monterey because he kept getting up to leave. On his checkout date, he released himself and was waiting in the parking lot, in a wheelchair, with a ready response when asked why he was already outside: “Get me out of here,” he said.
“They said he’d never walk again after his (last) stroke, and there he is marching out on the field at the 49ers’ game” in 2019, said his daughterinlaw, Paula Carroll. “He bounces back. And he’s determined. The physical therapists like working with him because he’ll do whatever they ask him to. And anyone he interacts with, they can feel that coming from him. He squeezes the nurses’ hands. He waves at them. He gives them salutes. And they’re always like, ‘Yay, Ken!’ They can’t even talk to him and they’re like, ‘We love your fatherinlaw.’ ”
Casanega’s athletic accomplishments and milestone birthday inspired this story.
But his story, upon closer examination of his 100 years, is about far more than long runs from long ago and longevity. His welllived life has little to do with how well he played football. Instead, his legacy is about his enduring qualities that informed the decisions he made — to serve his country, to prioritize his marriage and to honor a college teammate — that came at the expense of gridiron glory.
“Most in our family,” said his grandson, Chris, 53, “would call him simply the best human being they’ve ever known.”
Len Casanega, 74, Paula’s husband and the oldest of Ken’s three sons, became a college running back and educator like the dad who inspired him.
“I told him — and I wrote on his (birthday) card — I couldn’t imagine a better father,” Len said.
One of the 49ers’ first stars and their oldest living player barely played professional football. Casanega’s 15game career consisted of his brilliant 1946 season and a final game with the 49ers in 1948. That’s partly because Casanega — drafted by the NFL but not the military — chose to serve in World War II.
Casanega was selected by the Steelers on Dec. 22, 1941, and he played in his final college game, the EastWest Shrine Game, then the NCAA’s only allstar event, on Jan. 3, 1942. However, he was stirred at the time by events of Dec. 7, 1941. Casanega later would disagree with the Vietnam War, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor inspired him to enlist on principle in the Navy and become a pilot, flying torpedo bombers.
Casanega served on aircraft carriers, flew missions in the Philippines and Japan, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1945, his plane was struck, opening a 2foothole in a wing, and he narrowly avoided ejecting by pushing the control stick to one side to keep the plane level before landing on another aircraft carrier.
Years later, Len Casanega learned about his dad’s heroic, neardeath experience ... in a book.
“I said, ‘Dad, did that happen?” Len Casanega said, laughing. “And he said, ‘Yeah.’ That was it.”
Ken Casanega was a math teacher, became the principal at Napa High School when he was 31, earned his Ph.D. from Cal and was the superintendent of the San Benito High School District in Hollister when he retired in 1980. The lifelong educator’s least favorite subject: himself.
His family, which includes four grandchildren and seven greatgrandchildren, was still learning about some of his athletic accomplishments, via the internet, last month in preparation for his 100th birthday. Casanega, who was named CastlemontOakland’s Athlete of the Decade for the 1930s and entered Santa Clara University’s Hall of Fame in 1965, didn’t display his trophies or war medals. In fact, the signed game balls he was given at Santa Clara and with the 49ers were ruined because they were given to his sons to play with in the street.
At Santa Clara, where he played from 1938 through ’41, he was a headliner on nationally ranked teams that filled Kezar Stadium and annually competed against fellow titans such as Oklahoma, Michigan State and UCLA, which was led by Jackie Robinson. In 1946, with the 49ers, Casanega contributed on offense, defense and special teams: He lined up at quarterback and halfback, and ranked second in interceptions and third in puntreturn yards in the AllAmerica Football Conference, which merged with the NFL after the 1949 season.
“I’d say 90% of what we’ve learned about him, if not more, has come from other sources. Dad was the least help,” said Len Casanega, who was a running back at UC Davis. “Nothing was volunteered about himself. But when he’d introduce us, my brothers or myself, he’d go on and on.”
Casanega’s devotion to family inspired him to leave the NFL, at 25, after the 1946 season. In 1947, Casanega, despite cajoling to stay from 49ers owner Tony Morabito and head coach Buck Shaw, became a teacher at John SwettCrockett, where his $2,300 salary was $4,300 less than he earned with the 49ers. Morabito and Shaw, his coach at Santa Clara, succeeded in bringing him back in 1948, but Casanega left football for good after playing one game.
He made the career switch because of his wife, Helen, his college sweetheart whom he’d married in 1943. After they were apart for nearly four years during the war, Casanega had misgivings about leaving her for long periods during the 49ers’ many road trips. In 1946, the 49ers played in Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, Miami and had two games in New York.
It was an unusual decision. But it wasn’t the first time Casanega had stepped aside for the benefit of someone close to him.
On Nov. 30, 1940, in Santa Clara’s 3313 win over Oklahoma in their season finale, Casanega, a junior, had a performance that kept fellow halfback, senior Jimmy Johnston, his close friend and competitor for playing time, on the bench. Johnston finished the game when Casanega left with an apparent knee injury early in the fourth quarter.
The Chronicle’s Herb Caen, however, got the scoop. Wrote Caen: “What nobody knew was this: Casanega realized this would be Johnston’s last game for Santa Clara — therefore he faked that knee injury so his beloved enemy could play!”
Eightyone years later, Casanega’s beloved wife remains by his side.
Helen turned 99 on Jan. 30 and, now in their 77th year of marriage, the indomitable pair hold hands in bed at night and enjoy afternoons sitting in the sun, listening to Frank Sinatra songs.
“She says, ‘He can’t talk and I can’t hear,’ ” said Chris, Ken’s grandson, “‘but together we make a full functioning human being.’ ”
How does one make it to 100? The family wonders whether leaving a violent sport early has contributed to its patriarch’s longevity.
And, if Ken could talk, he’d no doubt say Helen, the woman he chose over football, has helped sustain him.
It was a good decision. One of many in what was — and still is — a great life.