Part Two of Former USC and Rams Tight End Bob Klein’s Talk with Denny Lennon
A Palisadian through and through, Bob Klein went to Corpus Christi School, then went to St. Monica Catholic High School in Santa Monica before attending USC on a football scholarship. The three-year starting tight end was a key part of the Trojans’ 1967 national championship team under Coach John McKay and he played in three Rose Bowl games. The 21st pick in the 1969 NFL draft by the Los Angeles Rams, Klein enjoyed a stellar pro career with the Rams (1969-76) and San Diego Chargers (1977-79). Over that span he had 219 catches for 2,687 yards and 23 touchowns. After a post-NFL career in real estate, the 73-year-old Klein now serves as President and CEO of the St. John’s Health Center Foundation. He and his wife JoAnn met in first grade at Corpus Christi, married after Bob graduated from USC and are active members of the Palisades community. Their daughter Kristin was a four-time All-American volleyball player at Stanford, was the 1991 Women’s Volleyball National Player of the Year and played on the USA Olympic Team in 1996 in Atlanta. Their son Jimmy played football and volleyball at Stanford and their son Patrick also played volleyball at Stanford, leading the Cardinal to their first national title in 1997. Their twin granddaughters Michaela and Caitlin led Stanford to three NCAA women’s volleyball titles. Their grandson James is a sophomore on the Stanford men’s basketball team, their grandson Dillon is a volleyball star at Loyola High and their granddaughters Kerry and Keili play volleyball at Marymount High. Bob was recently at Casablanca Restaurant in Venice for a “Sports Stories with Denny Lennon” podcast about his life, his family and his career. Here is Part Two of that interview. The link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwC8INUzkSM or visit the website: SportsStoriesDL.com.
DL: What do you remember about your freshman football season at USC?
BK: First of all, freshmen couldn’t play varsity back then, so we had a freshman team and we played four games, but our main job was practicing against the varsity. Frankly, for someone who wants to strut their stuff and make an impression that’s the place. I can remember a couple times practicing against the defensive backs who are three or four years older than you and I made some catches and instead of the coach chewing out the defensive back he said ‘You know we have a good recruiting department.’ We had 18 guys on scholarship and we played UCLA, Cal Poly and we took one road trip up to Strawberry Canyon to play Cal. So we played four games and the rest of the time we scrimmaged against the varsity. In my class there was a guy named O.J. Simpson, who didn’t come to USC until we were juniors and seniors, so what they did with all these guys is have them go to JC (junior college) where they could really participate and play and see how they do. Then, they’d bring them in to the program. So we had a lot of JC transfers.
DL: So you played on the freshman football team and freshman basketball team? Did you also run track?
BK: No, I wasn’t good enough because I had a knee injury then and a shoulder injury and that took a little bit of an edge off. However, we discovered the sport of rugby in the spring. I stopped playing basketball because it was evident to me that I was going to be one thing and only one thing. We had a guy named Ron Taylor who was a seven-footer and of course UCLA had Kareem (then Lew Alcindor) and my whole job was to get Taylor angry and get him ready to play Kareem. So that’s all I did. After one season I’d had enough of that. So then rugby appeared and I played two years of rugby, my junior and senior years. Of course we were national champions in football and a lot of the guys I played with ended up playing rugby and we won the national championship in rugby up in Monterey. And we were devastating because the guys who played football then go to play rugby forget sometimes that they’re not wearing a helmet… I mean, most people don’t want to play against that team. We were really good and it was a lot of fun.
DL: What was it like being part of the USC program at that time under Coach John McKay?
BK: You didn’t play when you were a freshman so you got to mature a little bit and there was also the element of these JC transfers where all of a sudden you may be competing with someone new and different from the class you came up with. Coach McKay had a very dry sense of humor. He was very witty but he basically coached by just looking at you. I’m there for four years and in those four years he spoke to me four times. The last time he spoke to me was when we’d just finished playing New Year’s Day in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State. We get in a huge limo to go to LAX to fly to Hawaii for the Hula Bowl. So I’m sitting there with all the first round draft choices and guys that are coming into the league togerher together and we were there for a week to have a great time and then you play a little scrum at the end of the week and literally the last time he’d talked to me was about a year before that when he said ‘You know, if you don’t stop getting so big you’re going to end up being an offensive tackle because you’re getting too big and you can block and everyone wants you to turn into a lineman. I suggest you tone it down a bit.’ Then on the plane going over to the Hula Bowl he came and sat down next to me and he called me Bobby, which he’d never called me before. He’d sit up in the tower and the assistant coaches would be on the field and he’d never talk to you, he’d just look at you and it was all contrived. We had the most unbelievable conversation, he wrote this book and it turns out I’m one of the guys he liked. I never knew that. He was amazing. That’s why I think he had a hard time in the pros when he went to Tampa Bay because in the pros sometimes you’re as old as they are in some fashion. Like right now with the Rams, these are young guys and he just didn’t have that in him.”
DL: You were an exceptional blocker. With your speed you could not only blow out your side but get ahead of the ball and make another block. What made you good?
BK: Actually I’m famous, and I show this to my buddies all the time, because I caught up to O.J. Simpson, a world class sprinter, in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State. If he hadn’t been bobbing and weaving and cutting back and forth I never would’ve caught up to him. Abe Gibron (who later became the Chicago Bears head coach) was their head scout at the time and he walked into the locker room after that game and he said to me ‘If you hadn’t caught those passes today and chased O.J. down you know what you were going to be? You were going to be a Chicago Bears offensive tackle.’ Anyway, blocking was an important part of what a tight end did back then and if I were coaching against me I can now look at the film and know exactly what I’m doing— I’m going right, I’m going left or I’m going straight ahead. I could tell by my stance. The collisions back then with the suspension helmets we were wearing, they didn’t have air helmets and that kind of stuff, that’s why you’d say you got your bell rung. There was a lot of that. Frankly, one of the things that helped me become a good blocker was the fact that when I was at SC the practices were a scrimmage. It was like a game and here I’m going up against Tim Rossovich and Adrian Young and all these guys who end up being first round draft picks. The practices were like game conditions, they really were.
DL: You were 26-6-1 in your years at USC and played in three Rose Bowls? What are your best memories of that era?
BK: The Purdue team we played my sophomore year was some really, really tough guys. I remember that. The next year it was the Cardiac Kids from Indiana and they’d never been to the Rose Bowl nor have they been since, then my last year it was against Ohio State for the national championship. I remember reading that Ohio State had come to town and was sequestered at some monastery out in Sierra Madre and we’re going to Lawry’s for the Beef Bowl and to Disneyland and all that kind of stuff. It was our third straight year going to the Rose Bowl and what happened in that game is that we woke up in the second half. We had to start throwing the ball and so what happened to me is I started catching passes instead of just blocking so all of a sudden I went from being an offensive tackle to a tight end. We ended up moving houses and I had a film called crosstown rivals that had footage from that year and I was going to talk at a club downtown and I went online and was trying to find this rivalry film and all of a sudden what pops up is this January 1, 1969 Rose Bowl and I’d never gotten to see the film of that game. It was only $6.95. So I have that now and it was a good game for me, which helped me get to the pros. I got to catch the ball, chase O.J. down and I remember Chris Schenkel and Kyle Rote were doing the announcing and they were so boring, but I do recall it being a beautiful day in Pasadena, the San Gabriel Mountains were gorgeous.
DL: Did you consider UCLA or Notre Dame a bigger rival?
BK: Notre Dame, because of the national scope of it and also being a Catholic kid. Those were wonderful years.
DL: The 1967 USC-UCLA game is the most famous in the history of the rivalry. The Bruins were ranked No. 1 behind QB Gary Beban, who was going for the Heisman Trophy and you had O.J. Simpson, who had that famous game-winning 64-yard touchdown run that you were right in the middle of. Can you talk about that?
BK: It’s known as one of the great plays in college football history and a painting of that run was done by General Motors I think and I was in it. In fact I’m wearing that 1967 national championship ring, only now it’s a little harder to get off my finger.
DL: Did you feel you were going to win at that point?
BK: I don’t recall. I just know beating UCLA is a special thing in this town. That was on an audible. Our quarterback Steve Sogge was very bright and ended up being a catcher in professional baseball. Whatever gameplan the coaches gave him he could execute and so we ran a lot of audibles. It was 23 Blast and make it last—that’s what they used to say. Basically just come off on the ball, you’ve got a running back and a fullback, ours was a little stocky guy with a big neck brace named Danny Scott and I don’t think he ever carried the ball. He was primarly just a blocking back.
DL: Another player on that ‘67 team was Steve Grady, who went on to become a great coach at Loyola High. What do you remember about him?
BK: What Steve is most famous for from all the guys who played with him is that when we were sophomores I got the nod to start at tight end for USC and we’re going to Austin to play the University of Texas, the defending national champion, and it was just two months after the famous shooting from the tower, which you can see from anyplace on the campus. The other remarkable thing about that game is that we had someone on the sideline with us who played football at SC and was a bigger celebrity than anyone on our football team—John Wayne. Hook’em Horns, baby! They were so enthralled with him. It was on ABC, it was the opening game that season and we beat them, 7-6. Steve Grady ran for about three or four yards but ended up in Sports Illustrated with a picture of him with the ball laying down on the ground right over the goal line. Steve didn’t play much but he was in the right place at the right time. And he was a great coach at Loyola—my boys played for him.
DL: Were you on any of the special teams units at USC?
BK: I was on the field goal kicking and extra point teams, yes. And when I was a sophomore I covered punts and kickoffs.Our backup quarterback was Super Bowl XXXI champion head coach Mike Holmgren. He was a year behind me on the freshman team so we practiced against him. He was a great big, chunky kind of guy and of course became a fabulous NFL coach. Al Cowlings was on that team, he went to junior college with O.J. so they came to USC together and were buddies. Al lived in the Palisades and I think he’s still got a house here. As a matter of fact someone had made a signifcant donation in Al Cowlings’ name at Saint John’s where I work in the Foundation and in the thank you note I wrote ‘Is this my Al Cowlings? If it is, call me.’ And he called me and we had a really nice conversation. So we play in the Rose Bowl, we’re seniors and O.J. signs with Chevrolet, he’s their guy. His wife at the time, Marguerite, has a Corvette and The Juice has a big, big Chevy Impala. My wife JoAnn is going to school in San Francisco and every weekend Al and O.J. are driving back and forth to the Bay Area, so they said if you ever want to hitch a ride with us you can and I said ‘Let’s go!’ So they left from SC at 5 o’ clock in the morning, picked me up, and I’ll never forget that I layed down on the backseat of the car and I remember is that we’re at the far end of the Valley and the next thing I remember is we’re going down the grapevine and I get thrown onto the floor of the car because O.J., who’s driving, hits the breaks. We get pulled over and who walks up to the window but Mr. Highway Patrol wearing one of those big Smokey the Bear hats. The conversation kind of goes like this: ‘May I see your driver’s license?’ O.J. says ‘Yes sir.’ He pulls it out and shows him his license and of course the name on it is ‘Orenthal James Simpson.’ Well, this guy is from Bakersfield or somewhere, is not a big football fan and has no idea who Orenthal James Simpson is and O.J. is trying to explain to him who he is. The officer tells O.J. ‘At the speed you were going—115 miles per hour—you’re supposed to go to jail. So I’m going to write you up for 95 (or something like that) and you’re going to pay a big fine, but you’re not going to jail. Mr. Simpson, drive safe’ and he hands him a ticket. O.J. was probably the most famous guy in the country.
DL: USC also had a player named Bill Hayhoe, who was tall, about 6-7 or 6-8, and he blocked a couple of field goals in that famous 1967 game with UCLA Do you remember much about him?
BK: Yes, he was that big. Bill played at LA Valley College and he had a brother. I think both of them were junior college transfers and very nice young men. Bill was a defensive end for us, he made those great plays againsty UCLA and he went on to play offensive tackle in the pros for the Packers.
DL: Coach McKay joked about you becoming a lineman. Was that ever a consideration?
BK: The lineman we had at the time was a guy by the name of Ron Yary, who of course would soon become a Hall of Fame offensive tackle. Well, he was the No. 1 pick in the [1968] Draft by the Vikings! And then, of course, we had O.J. who was the No. 1 pick the year after that. Anyway, USC had this model for what a lineman should be. In retrospect I’m glad I stayed at the position I did. Even though Coach McKay and I had that two minute conversation, which was the longest conversation I’d ever had with him. As I said, his personality was such that he was more suited for college than the NFL.
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