Hall of Famer Curley Culp, part of Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl IV team, has cancer
No NFL team scored more points during the 1969 NFL season than the Minnesota Vikings, who advanced to Super Bowl IV, where they were stopped in their tracks by a ferocious Kansas City Chiefs defense.
The Chiefs rolled to a 23-7 win, using their “triple-stack” defense that relied in part on defensive lineman Curley Culp. Minnesota had just 67 rushing yards and was held to 20 points below its season average.
Culp was chosen to the Pro Bowl that season, the first of six appearances in the NFL’s all-star game. Culp later played for the Houston Oilers and coach Bum Phillips, before finishing his career with the Lions. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2013.
Now Culp, 75, faces the biggest challenge of his life. He shared in a Twitter message that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
“To my followers, family and friends I have stage 4 pancreatic cancer,” Culp wrote. “Do donate to your local cancer organizations so this dreaded disease is eradicated. Love life, family and friends. pray to God for all physical and spiritual healing. Love, Curley Culp HOF#13.”
The Cancer Treatment Centers of America says stage 4 means the cancer has spread from its origin to distant parts of the body. It is sometimes known as metastatic cancer.
Culp was originally selected by the Broncos in the second round of the 1968 AFL Draft. Denver traded him to the Chiefs for a fourth-round pick after he didn’t fit in well on the Broncos offensive line.
In Kansas City, Culp became a key part of the Chiefs’ dominant defense that included five future Hall of Famers: tackle Buck Buchanan, linebackers Bobby Bell and Willie Lanier, and cornerbacks Emmitt Thomas and Johnny Robinson
“I was surrounded by good people; what can you say?” Culp told The Star in 2013. “When you’re on a team with great athletes all around, you kind of fit in. I tried to work hard at my craft and tried to improve as much as I could.
“I was young in my career, and it was exciting to be involved with that group. They had an opportunity to play in Super Bowl I, they had a lot of experience from that, and we built on that.”
