A couple of sports writers were gabbing the other day before a Kansas University men’s basketball game about the best KU player who does not qualify to have his jersey number hoisted high in the south end of Allen Fieldhouse.
By consensus, the scribes agreed it had to be Kirk Hinrich.
The discussion never shifted, however, to the best KU football player whose name does not appear in the ring of the north end zone at Memorial Stadium. That honor is bestowed only on first-team All-Americans, and Willie Pless never was a first-team All-American.
Nevertheless, Pless was the best defensive player ever to put on a Kansas University football uniform.
Later, Pless became the best defensive player ever to suit up in the Canadian Football League — a fact reinforced last week when he was named to the Canadian Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Pless’ election to that shrine was as inevitable as a Canadian sunset, yet he stressed he wasn’t expecting it.
“Actually, it is a surprise,” he told me from his home in Edmonton, Alberta, where he operates a personal training business, “because so many others deserved to go in before me.”
The humility is genuine. That’s the kind of person Pless is.
They say records are made to be broken, yet the number of tackles Pless compiled during his 14-year CFL career (1,241) may last forever. Five times he was named the CFL defensive player of the year. In Canada, Pless has evolved from a star into an icon.
Pless hardly is an unknown at Kansas University. He is in the school’s athletic hall of fame, and each year the Jayhawks’ leading tackler has his name inscribed on the Willie Pless Trophy. Still, I don’t think people fully understand just how over-the-top his tackling numbers were.
People don’t talk about tackling output the way they discuss yards gained, passes caught or touchdowns scored. You won’t find individual tackles in fantasy football. People talk about offense. Yet Pless’ defense was dynamic.
Let’s use a contemporary analogy. Linebacker Nick Reid led KU’s football team in tackles last season. Reid was so good he earned first-team All-Big 12 Conference honors, a rarity for a Jayhawk. How many tackles did Reid make? He was credited with 109 in 11 games. That’s a lot. Only a handful of Big 12 defenders broke the century mark last fall.
Now check these numbers: Willie Pless had 188 tackles in 11 games in 1983, he had 206 tackles in 11 games in 1984 and 191 tackles in 12 games in 1985.
Those are staggering numbers. They are the top three tackling seasons in school history. No. 4 on the list is Curtis Moore, a linebacker who spent countless minutes on the field during the dismal 1-10 season of 1988 and had 170 stops.
Pless, who played on KU teams with basically .500 records, concluded his college career with 633 tackles. That number includes the 48 stops he made as a freshman in 1982 when he logged most of his time on special teams.
How do those 633 tackles compare with other KU players? They’re an eye-opening 230 more than the No. 2 player on KU’s career list — linebacker Rick Bredesen (1984-87).
Looking at it from another angle, if Reid stays healthy during his senior season this fall, he is likely to pass Bredesen and move into second place. Reid, in fact, will need exactly 100 stops to eclipse Bredesen. But Reid will have to accumulate 330 tackles — an impossibility — to pass Pless.
If you’re wondering if Pless is the all-time leading tackler in NCAA history, the answer is no. But that may be only because the NCAA did not recognize tackling as an official statistic until the year 2000.
The NCAA record book lists Rod Davis of Southern Miss as the career leader in tackles (360) and stops-per-game (7.66). But Pless had, as mentioned, 633 tackles and that translates into an average of 14.1 stops per game, or almost twice as many as the NCAA record-holder.
Kansas University has had some great football players over the years — Gale Sayers, John Riggins, John Hadl, etc. Pless may not have possessed their flash and dash, but in his own way he truly was extraordinary.
