Rex William Kern (born May 28, 1949) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player. He played professional football in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

at defensive back for the Baltimore Colts and Buffalo Bills. In college, Kern was the

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for the

Ohio State Buckeyes The Ohio State Buckeyes are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Ohio State University, located in Columbus, Ohio. The athletic programs are named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Ohio and after the state tre ...

from

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Janu ...

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...

; the Buckeyes went undefeated in 1968 and were

national champions National champions are corporations which are technically private businesses but due to governmental policy are ceded a dominant position in a national economy. In this system, these large organizations are expected not only to seek profit but als ...

. Kern was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2007.

Early years

Born and raised in

Lancaster, Ohio Lancaster ( ) is a city in Fairfield County, Ohio, in the south-central part of the state. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 40,552. The city is near the Hocking River, about southeast of Columbus and southwest of Zanesville. It is ...

, and the son of a

barber A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave men's and boys' hair or beards. A barber's place of work is known as a "barbershop" or a "barber's". Barbershops are also places of social interaction and publi ...

, Kern was a star three-sport athlete for Lancaster High School and graduated in 1967. In

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, he was drafted by the

Kansas City Athletics The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun as a charter member franchise in the new American League in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 for 13 sea ...

, and was offered

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...

s to

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

, and

Ohio University Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation and subseq ...

. However Kern had long sought to play basketball for Fred Taylor of

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

and had fostered a relationship with Taylor that led to a scholarship offer. During the recruiting process, he was also recruited by

Woody Hayes Wayne Woodrow Hayes (February 14, 1913 – March 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Denison University (1946–1948), Miami University in Oxford, Ohio (1949–1950), and Ohio State University (1951 ...

and committed to Ohio State to play both sports.

College career

At Ohio State, Kern quarterbacked the freshman team in 1967, which included 11 high school All-Americans, but suffered a back injury playing freshman basketball. Despite back surgery in June, Kern recovered in time to be named first string quarterback for the varsity football team ahead of senior Bill Long, who had quarterbacked the Buckeyes in 1967. Kern was the leader of the Buckeyes' Super Sophomores, and guided the Buckeyes to an undefeated season and a consensus national championship in

. The Super Sophomores finished their three-year varsity careers with a record Kern was a fine passer and a dangerous runner. In the 1968, 1969, and 1970 seasons, he ran for 583, 524, and 597 yards respectively—high numbers for a Big Ten quarterback. The 1968 team shut out top-ranked Purdue on October 12 and went on to an undefeated season, a

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

championship, and a berth in the Rose Bowl. Kern was named Most Outstanding Player in the bowl as Ohio State defeated O. J. Simpson and the

USC Trojans The USC Trojans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC), located in Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the ''Trojans'', the women's athletic teams are referred ...

, and were consensus national champions. In

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

, the Buckeyes were expected to repeat as national champions. Kern directed a high-scoring (averaging 46 points per game) junior-dominated Buckeye offense that cruised through its first eight games. But Kern and the Buckeyes were devastated by a at

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, a game in which Kern threw four

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team ...

s. Despite the loss, Ohio State finished as Big Ten co-champions with Michigan and Kern was third in balloting for the 1969 Heisman Trophy. He was also named a first-team All-American. Ohio State did not play in a bowl game, because prior to the

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

season, the Big Ten and Pac-8 conferences allowed just one bowl team each, to the Rose Bowl. The super sophomores rebounded as seniors in

to win the Big Ten title outright, gaining revenge against

. The Buckeyes finished the regular season undefeated earning another trip to Pasadena. However, they were upset by the led by quarterback

Jim Plunkett James William Plunkett (born December 5, 1947) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for sixteen seasons. He achieved his greatest professional success during his final eight seasons with the ...

, the Heisman Trophy winner. Kern, a

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

, finished fifth on the 1970 Heisman ballot. Kern was elected to the

Ohio State Varsity O Hall of Fame The Ohio State Varsity "O" Hall of Fame is the athletic hall of fame for The Ohio State University. Its purpose is to recognize individuals who have contributed to the honor and fame of the university in the field of athletics. An athlete must h ...

in 1978, was selected to the

Ohio State Football All-Century Team The Ohio State Football All-Century Team was chosen in early 2000 by the Touchdown Club of Columbus. It was selected to honor the greatest Ohio State Buckeyes football players of the 20th century. No effort was made to distinguish a first team or s ...

in 2000, and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2007.

Professional career

Kern was selected in the tenth round of the

1971 NFL Draft The 1971 National Football League draft was held January 28–29, 1971, at the Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York City, New York. The Boston Patriots, who did not officially change their name to New England Patriots until after the draft, used th ...

by the defending NFL champion Baltimore Colts and played in all fourteen games in his rookie season, supplanting Jim Duncan as starting

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover Wide receiver, receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such Play from scrimmage, offensive running plays as sweep ...

. He only made five starts in

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

due to a recurrence of his back injury, and recovered to play a full season in

1973 Events January * January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union. * January 15 – Vietnam War: ...

, with two interceptions. Kern was the Colts' National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) representative during the union's strike prior to the season. After the strike ended, he was waived when Baltimore general manager Joe Thomas acted on his threat to cut players who had walked out. Kern played eight games with the Buffalo Bills that season before ending his career as an active player due to chronic back problems.Klingaman, Mike. "Catching up with...former Colts cornerback Rex Kern," ''The Baltimore Sun'', Friday, November 3, 2017.
Retrieved November 3, 2017

Personal

Kern earned three degrees from Ohio State, a

baccalaureate Baccalaureate may refer to: * ''Baccalauréat'', a French national academic qualification * Bachelor's degree, or baccalaureate, an undergraduate academic degree * English Baccalaureate, a performance measure to assess secondary schools in England ...

, a

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

, and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in education. He credited his success to his education, and his education to Woody Hayes, with whom he had a lifelong friendship. In 2001, he created the Anne and Woody Hayes Endowment for the prevention of child abuse to Columbus Children's Hospital. Son Miguel Kern

References

External links