San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
With athleticism running in family, tight end Kittle destined for success
George Kittle’s parents, Bruce and Jan, both two-sport Division I athletes, quickly realized their oldest child had athletic gifts.
Based on his memories of touch-football games, Bruce recalled the kid “had nice hands. Could run a pretty good route. Wasn’t afraid to mix it up.”
That scouting report isn’t surprising, considering the youngster grew up to be the 49ers’ Pro Bowl tight end, right? But here’s the thing: Bruce was describing his daughter, Emma, George’s older sister, his first opponent and one of an endless parade of accomplished athletes in their family.
“Back in the day, I was able to kind of dominate George,” said Emma, a former volleyball
player at Iowa and Oklahoma who is three years older than her only sibling. “I was taller, way faster and just reached above him. It was great.”
George evidently learned from those beatdowns: In 2018, Emma’s little brother has often treated linebackers and safeties in the same way his sister used to abuse him.
Kittle, 25, enters Sunday’s season finale against the Rams with 1,228 receiving yards, which ranks seventh among tight ends in NFL history. He needs 100 yards Sunday to break the league record set by New England’s Rob Gronkowski in 2011, although Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce has 1,274 yards entering Week 17. Few saw this coming. Kittle was the seventh tight end on the depth chart early in his career at Iowa. He was a fifth-round pick in 2017 after he had just 48 catches in college. And he had a rookie season (43 catches, 515 yards) that didn’t suggest second-year stardom.
But George’s family is accustomed to seeing him rapidly ascend great heights. They have bonded over the years on summer trips from Iowa to Colorado, where they have scaled some of the more than 50 mountains in the state that are at least 14,000 feet.
One of those, Quandary Peak, was no problem for George.
“I’ve seen George do the craziest stuff with his body: I have this vivid memory of George running up a mountain and running down it,” said Emma, who sprained both ankles trying to catch him. “When I think about those memories I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re such a freak.’ He’s just built to perform.
“So, yes, some of (this season) has been surreal. But at the same time, we’ve been waiting for him to do it. We’ve been waiting for other people to see it.”
The belief George would have huge success was rooted in the history of a family used to making history.
Bruce was a wrestler and offensive tackle at Iowa, where he was a co-captain on their 1981 team that reached the program’s first Rose Bowl in 25 years. Jan is a member of the Iowa High School Sports Hall of Fame in basketball and softball. She played both sports at Drake, where the basketball team reached the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament in 1982.
Jan is one of 10 sisters, seven of whom played a college sport. One sister, Barbara, was a basketball player who was the first female to receive a full athletic
scholarship at Indiana.
George’s cousin, Jess Settles, was an Iowa Mr. Basketball who was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year at Iowa. Another cousin, Brad Carlson, is Iowa’s career home run leader.
On Sunday, George will reunite with his cousin, Henry Krieger-Coble, a tight end on the Rams’ practice squad.
There is more. Plenty more. In fact, the family has so many big-time athletes that George can’t keep track of some details. He recently couldn’t recall how he was related to Xavier Nady, a Cal alum who had a 12-year major-league career (Nady is a second cousin).
George played several sports growing up, but football was the passion he shared with his dad, who was also an assistant coach at Iowa (1982-1985) and Oklahoma
(2010-2012). They packed a football for every family vacation.
“We’d be on the roadside for an hour playing football,” Bruce said, “and would forget about the trip.”
George didn’t just get his dad’s genetics. He got his time.
Bruce, a criminal defense lawyer, worked for a firm in Madison, Wis., when George was born. But he switched to careers that were less demanding — and less lucrative — to spend time with his children.
He earned a master’s in divinity at Chicago Theological Seminary and worked as a pastor. He was an assistant law professor and later used his degree at several nonprofits: He provided legal services to inmates in state prisons and served as a mediator between criminals and the victims of their crimes. “Sometimes he was making almost no money,” George said. “But he said, I’d rather hang out with you guys than make a bunch of money. That’s one of the biggest things I learned from him: Family is more important than really anything else.”
Bruce’s career change allowed him to coach his children in youth sports, with Jan also leading many of Emma’s teams.
At Northwest Junior High in Iowa City, Bruce led an undefeated team that allowed six points during George’s seventhand eighth-grade years (Bruce terms these the “dynasty years”).
George laughed when recalling his dad’s video sessions and their middle linebacker, who wore a wristband covered with play calls. Bruce adds the Vikings also had playbooks, which, he notes, his wife thought was “a little over the top.”
“We had four different (defensive) fronts,” Bruce said. “We played three different coverages. We did go man-free if we needed to. We played a threedeep (zone) and a two-deep and had a pretty good blitz package, as well. (Opponents) didn’t have any idea what was happening.”
Years later, the same has appeared true of teams trying to cover Kittle. He’s been wide open on the two longest touchdowns by a tight end in franchise history, 82- and 85-yard scores he finished by outracing the secondary.
His long catches have led to his glamour-guy numbers this season. But he’s also hailed as a hard-nosed blocker, a reflection of the old-school education he received from his dad.
Bruce, who coached tackles and tight ends at Oklahoma, doesn’t discuss catches or touchdowns when talking about his son’s achievements. In college, Bruce was proudest of the fact that George never missed a workout, allowing him to add about 60 pounds of bulk. This season, he’s proudest that his son was voted a captain by his teammates.
George has strayed in one area: Bruce jokes about his son recently purchasing a Gucci backpack. But that horror has been offset by the lunch-pail mentality George still packs despite his newfound fame.
“In run blocking, when he climbs to the second level, that’s hard,” Bruce said. “People don’t appreciate the level of athleticism it takes to keep your hips down and hit a Mike ‘backer coming over.”
Bruce’s career change led to more family time — and plenty of moving vans. George has lived in three states, six towns in Iowa and he attended three high schools as a sophomore. The myriad moves helped foster the Kittles’ closeness. They banded together navigating new experiences, and their bond is symbolized on their bodies: They each have a tattoo of a bear paw.
“It’s about our tribe,” Bruce said.
It’s also a nod to their outdoor activities, which include their regular treks up 14,000-foot mountains.
The rocky terrain is hard on feet and ankles. And that’s why George, now a professional athlete, will join his family in Colorado this summer but won’t sprint up Quandary Peak.
He’ll rejoin them at the summits when his career is over, after he’s done adding to the family legacy by reaching great heights.