Les Richter
Is he the best football player ever to come through Cal?
Transcript
00:00 I'm guessing 10, 12 years from now, we'll probably be saying that Aaron Rodgers is the best
00:05 player, football player, ever to come out of Cal, but he plays a position quarterback that gets a lot of notoriety.
00:13 He is a four-time MVP, but
00:17 linebackers and centers just don't win that award no matter how good they are.
00:24 Les Richter played those positions as well as anybody that's ever come out of Cal, so that's why I have a little bit of
00:31 thought that he might be the best player to ever play at Cal.
00:35 I mean, I know Brickmower back in the 20s or whatever was a real stud and
00:41 Rod France was a great lineman and Tony Gonzalez was probably the best tight end to ever play the game.
00:47 But again, Tony Gonzalez played a glamour position.
00:52 He was able to rack up a lot of statistics that were really impressive. Now Richter,
00:56 he had a bunch of interceptions and a lot of fumble recoveries as an NFL player, but that's the only really kind of
01:03 statistics he could really
01:05 pile up.
01:06 Tackles are not even measured in those days to any
01:10 any real degree that made up a legitimate.
01:15 So he didn't really have much to go on except the trained eye to see that he was really good.
01:21 And he was a two-time consensus All-American, eight-time
01:26 pro bowler, even after he took two years off from football to play it to join the Army,
01:33 play it and fight in the Korean War.