Jack Kemp

After being selected by the Detroit Lions in the 17th round of the 1957 NFL draft, Kemp was cut from the team before the 1957 NFL season began. He spent 1957 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and 1958 on the taxi squads of the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants. The Giants hosted the NFL championship game, known as the "Greatest Game Ever Played" and the first overtime NFL playoff game, but, as a third-string quarterback member of the taxi squad, Kemp did not take the field. In 1958, Kemp joined the United States Army Reserve and he served a year on active duty as a private to complete his initial training. He was a member of the San Diego–based 977th Transportation Company from 1958 to 1962. When his unit was activated for the Berlin Crisis of 1961, Kemp received a medical exemption for his chronically separated left shoulder. The injury led to his discharge from the Reserve in July 1962. In 1959, Kemp played one game for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League, which made him ineligible for the NFL, in 1959. According to his older brother Tom, his parents drove him from California to Calgary, Alberta, only to see him cut. By this time, Kemp had been cut from five professional teams (Lions, Steelers, Giants, 49ers, and Stampeders) and his family encouraged him to get on with his life. On February 9 and 11, 1960, the newly formed AFL agreed to "no tampering" policies with the NFL and CFL respectively, protecting each league's players. Players like Kemp, with…

Regular season

Postseason statistics

Youth

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kemp was the third of four sons of Frances Elizabeth (née Pope) and Paul Robert Kemp Sr. Paul turned his motorcycle messenger service into a trucking company that grew from one to 14 trucks. Frances was a social worker and Spanish teacher. Kemp grew up in the heavily Jewish Wilshire district of West Los Angeles, but his tight-knit middle-class family attended the Church of Christ, Scientist. In his youth, sports consumed Kemp, who once chose the forward pass as the subject of a school essay on important inventions, although his mother attempted to broaden his horizons with piano lessons and trips to the Hollywood Bowl. Kemp attended Melrose Avenue's Fairfax High School, which was, at the time, known for its high concentration of both Jewish students and children of celebrities. Over 95% of Kemp's classmates were Jewish, and he later became a supporter of Jewish causes. His classmates included musician Herb Alpert, baseball pitcher Larry Sherry, and academic Judith A. Reisman. During his years in high school, Kemp worked with his brothers at his father's trucking company in downtown Los Angeles. In his spare time, he was a rigorous reader, preferring history and philosophy books.

College

After graduating from high school in 1953, he attended Occidental College, a founding member of the NCAA Division III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Kemp selected Occidental because its football team used…

Kemp graduated from Occidental in 1957 and married Joanne Main, his college sweetheart, after she graduated from Occidental in 1958. Main had grown up in Fillmore, California, and attended Fillmore High School in Ventura County. Kemp's Biblical Literature professor, Keith Beebe, presided over the wedding. The Kemps had two sons. Both were professional football quarterbacks: Jeff Kemp (born in 1959) played in the NFL from 1981 to 1991, and Jimmy Kemp (born in 1971) played in the CFL from 1994 to 2002. Significantly for a man with his demanding schedule, Jack never missed one of their games as children or in college. They also had two daughters: Jennifer Kemp Andrews (born in 1961) and Judith Kemp (born in 1963). Joanne Kemp once suffered a miscarriage, which Kemp later said made him re-evaluate the sanctity of human life and affirmed his opposition to abortion. Following his wedding, Kemp converted to his wife's Presbyterian faith. He identified as a born-again Christian. Kemp was a 33rd degree Freemason in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.