Doctor Joe Kopcha—An Overlooked Great

By John Turney 

It's possible that in the first decade of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, voters succumbed to Packers' and Bears' fatigue. I say that because they excluded a few notable players from those two franchises, clubs that not only dated back to the league's creation but had the most early success.

For the Packers, it was Verne Lewellen and Lavie Dilweg, both perennial All-Pros on winning teams. For the Bears, it was a a 6-0, 220-pound guard named Joe Kopcha.

Never heard of him? Get in line.

Kopcha is one of the greatest players from the league's first two decades and someone who's been overlooked by Hall-of-Fame selectors. He's never been discussed as a finalist.

But that should change, and here's why: Kopcha was a decorated lineman, three times named a first-team All-Pro and once a second-teamer. He was also part of a championship team. Two, in fact. The 1932-33 Bears.

But his football resume goes beyond playing the game and strikes at something bigger in today's NFL -- player safety. He redesigned players' shoulder pads, with his basic designs still in use today -- an accomplishment that can't be overstated. It helped to change the game.

No, he'd didn't get a patent or fee for his invention, but Kopcha didn't care.

"There's a lot of guys walking around today without banged up shoulders who otherwise might be crippled," he told the PFRA's Bob Carroll in 1980. "That's a terrific reward!"

Kopcha was a guard out of Chattanooga (now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Terrell Owens' school) and played on the Southern Conference champions in 1927 and 1928. In addition to being a two-time all-conference football star, he lettered in basketball, baseball, track and swimming and was the Templeton Award winner as the school's outstanding all-around athlete

He began his NFL career with Chicago in 1929, playing both ways, but then stepped away from the game for two years to attend the University of Alabama's School of Medicine to earn his M.D. He returned to the NFL in 1932, passed the tryout, made the team and regained his starting position at right guard for coach Ralph Jones while finishing his M.D. at Rush Medical College in Chicago (Halas' idea).

It was a good move for both parties. Kopcha (known as "Doc" to teammates) became a three-time All-Pro (1933-35) and a second-team All-Pro in 1932, while the Bears won two NFL championships and were a runner-up in 1934.

In 2019, the Chicago Tribune named Kopcha No. 45 on its list of the 100 Greatest Bears. He blocked for Hall-of-Famers Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski and "Paddy" Driscoll and was a top blocker for Beattie Feathers, the NFL's first 1,000-yard rusher. He was also one of two opponents whom Hall-of-Fame tackle Cal Hubbard named as the toughest he faced. The other was Hall-of-Famer Link Lyman.

"Dr. Joe Kopcha," a United Press reporter wrote in 1934, "a ripping, slashing terror on offense and defense."

Kopcha played in four of the most historically significant games in early NFL history. The first was when the Chicago Cardinals' Ernie Nevers scored 40 points. The second was the 1932 indoor game against the Portsmouth Spartans on a short field. The third was the first official NFL championship game, and the fourth was the "Sneakers Game," the NFL title contest when both teams wore gym shoes to get better traction on a frozen field.

That last one is somewhat controversial because newspaper accounts record that Kopcha was injured and missed the "Sneakers Game." But, in an interview with Stan Grosshandler of the Pro Football Researchers Association (PFRA), Kopcha disputed that account, saying he played in it.

It wouldn't be the only time Kopcha demonstrated toughness. Prior to a 1934 Thanksgiving Day game, he tried to play with a broken hand.

"Nobody loved to play the game more than Kopcha," the Bears' George Halas said then.

But even Kopcha saw limits to playing injured. After he used a meat cleaver to shave off parts of the cast on his right hand, Halas intervened and convinced him to sit down.

"Kopcha didn't play," he said. "I would not take a chance on ruining on what has since developed into a distinguished medical career."

Halas must have grown fond of his All-Pro guard. When Kopcha in 1936 wanted to study obstetrics and gynecology at Harper Hospital in Detroit (one of the best programs in the nation), Halas accommodated him -- allowing him to play one more year in the NFL as Kopcha wanted by trading him to the Lions, where he started his final season under Potsy Clark.

Kopcha's playing career would be enough to merit Hall-of-Fame consideration, but there's another side to his story that makes his case so intriguing. And that's his role as an inventor.

When he suffered an injured shoulder in 1929, he altered his shoulder pads to prevent further damage by adding an extra layer of padding to the front of the equipment. The idea was to protect his chest, and the results were cups over the shoulders that became standard for almost a century.

How that happened was a mystery to Kopcha. When he worked on his pads, he said a salesman for the Spalding Athletic Company, a Chicago-based sporting goods firm, saw him and asked what he was doing. Kopcha told him and thought nothing more of it. But when he returned to the Bears in 1932, he worked with a Spalding salesman (he didn't recall if it was the same individual) and the design was revised and perfected by the next year.

By then, they were everywhere.

Ever concerned about player safety, Kopcha was a pioneer of shin guards, too, and always toyed with extra padding for his helmet.

"A lot of guys got hurt needlessly in the old days," he said. "I like to think that my ideas helped change some of that."

After football, he served for nearly two years in the Pacific during World War II and was Dr. Joe Kopcha, M.D., achieving his dream of becoming an obstetrician. Kopcha died in 1986, having lived a full life as a football player, all-around athlete, inventor, physician, trainer (he earned extra money for helping with players' injuries while he played), U.S. military veteran and football enthusiast (he was a charter member of the PFRA).

He was one of the best football players of his era and one of the most overlooked of all time. That's why it's time Hall-of-Fame voters take a look at "Doc" and refuse to make the same mistake their predecessors did in the nascent years of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Don't let him fall through the cracks again. At the very least, Joe Kopcha deserves to be the subject of a Hall-of-Fame conversation.