Inside a locked box in Los Angeles lie three Super Bowl rings belonging to the late Mel Kaufman, Cal Poly hall of famer, who passed away two weeks ago of natural causes. A man who accomplished what no other Cal Poly football player has, came back to his alma mater last year as an assistant coach, hands bare of any sign of his success.
“If I had a Super Bowl ring, I’d be showing it to everybody,” senior linebacker Dominic Rickard said. “By not wearing his and locking them away was just a symbol of how humble of a person he was.”
Members of Cal Poly Athletics and football team boarded a bus to attend Kaufman’s funeral service in Los Angeles Friday.
There they gathered with family, friends, former teammates and coaches of the former linebackers coach, Super Bowl winner, Cal Poly Athletics hall of famer and member of the 1980 Mustangs’ NCAA Division II national championship team to mourn and share stories of Kaufman’s humility.
“Some of his old teammates and coaches spoke about how the little things he had done affected their lives in big ways. I think that put things in perspective for all the guys on the team who were fortunate enough to go,” said Pat Johnston, whose father Craig led the 1980 team to its first national championship with Kaufman.
Many members of the 1980 team were there, including head coach Joe Harper.
“The funeral was probably a great example of how much people thought of him,” Harper said. “There were 300 people there and they all seemed to be on the same accord that he was a giving person and very consistent, which was my experience with him as (a) player. Not only did he play well, but he always played well.”
“He was very giving and humble, not very talkative though,” Harper explained. “He was a leader by example. He did really good things but didn’t talk about it. He wasn’t the ‘rah-rah’ kind of guy.”
Arguably the best Cal Poly football player to grace the NFL, a glance at Kaufman’s résumé reveals much to “rah-rah” about.
After signing as an undrafted free agent with the Washington Redskins in 1981, Kaufman quickly saw success in his eight years playing with the team. He played linebacker in three Super Bowls with the Redskins, two of which they won (Super Bowl XVII in ’83 and XXII in ’88). When he retired in 1989, he became a scouting supervisor with the Redskins and saw the team win Super Bowl XXVI in ’92. He would remain a scout until 1998.
The ’80s was, without a doubt, a winning decade for Kaufman. It started in 1980, when he helped the Mustangs defeat defending champion Eastern Illinois in the NCAA Division II National Championship Zia Bowl at Albuquerque, N.M.
“He definitely had more experience playing football than any other coaches I ever had,” Rickard said. “When he came in and coached us he already had that level of respect because we knew that he played in the NFL. The level of respect some coaches have to earn, he came in and had it.”
And although new Mustangs head coach Tim Walsh’s time working with Kaufman was brief, he saw in the linebackers coach what wasn’t conveyed to him in words.
“He did incredible things in his life, but he didn’t talk about it,” Walsh said. “His sister passed away 10 years ago and he really became a caretaker for her children and actually gave up what he was doing to move back to Los Angeles to help raise her children. He was always about doing things for other people.”
During his time with the Redskins, Kaufman was the team’s volunteer director of the minority internship program and a training camp. He also worked with Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Washington, D.C., served on the board of directors for the American Lung Association Northern Virginia chapter and worked with children and adults as a spokesperson for the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. military.
“He was an amazing guy, very quiet, a really selfless person who cared a lot about his team and players when he was coaching,” Johnston said.
When the 50-year-old suddenly passed away, it stunned those who knew him.
“It was complete shock,” Harper said. “We had no idea he had a medical problem and he probably didn’t know neither.”
Walsh agreed, “When you looked at his appearance and the way he was, he didn’t show any sign that he was ill. From what I’ve gathered, he had been complaining of having stomach pain.”
The autopsy revealed the cause of death as an intra-abdominal hemorrhage (bleeding within the abdomen) due to hemorrhagic pancreatitis.
The coaches’ time together was brief. Walsh was hired in January to replace Rich Ellerson who left to head coach the Army Black Knights of the U.S. Military Academy at WestPoint. Kaufman had been hired by Ellerson in 2008 to coach the linebackers at his alma mater. When Ellerson left, Kaufman didn’t go with him.
“He didn’t get picked up on the next coaching staff for Cal Poly,” Rickard said. “He was telling me he was thinking about going back to recruiting for an NFL team, maybe the Saints or the Redskins.”
Despite the limited tutelage Rickard received, he said the impact would last a lifetime.
“I’m just glad that he came into our lives, even if it was just for a year,” he said. “He not only helped us turn into better football players, but better men.”
During his time coaching at Cal Poly, the Mustangs went 8-3, won the Great West Conference title and made their second NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoff appearance.
“I joked around with him the last week of the season. I told him that everything he touched turned to gold. He won a national championship in 1980, went to the Redskins and won two Super Bowls, and then he came here; his first year here we win the conference championship and we haven’t done that in the last three years I’ve been here,” Rickard said. “That’s kind of his legacy. All the people that he touched, everything that he left behind turned to gold.”