Only one college offered Colin Kaepernick a football scholarship, and he rewrote its records
Colin Kaepernick got most of his high school praise as a baseball pitcher and had scholarship offers in that sport. He wanted football, and only the University of Nevada, Reno, offered him a place. He left as the first major college quarterback to throw for 10,000 yards and run for 4,000.
Born in Milwaukee in 1987, he was adopted at five weeks by Rick and Teresa Kaepernick, who had lost two sons to heart defects. The family moved to California when he was four. At Pitman High School in Turlock he kept a 4.0 grade average and was nominated for all-state honours in football, basketball and baseball; in one playoff basketball game he scored 34 points, only to be outdone by future NBA player Ryan Anderson's 50.
At Nevada he was freshman of the year in his conference and twice its offensive player of the year. As a sophomore he joined a club of just six college players ever to top 2,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in a single year. The Chicago Cubs drafted him in the 43rd round in 2009, but he stayed with football. On his final home game in 2010 he led Nevada to an overtime win that ended undefeated Boise State's 24-game streak, which his coach called the most important victory in the programme's history. He graduated with a business degree and a 4.0 average.
San Francisco traded up to take him in the second round of the 2011 draft. When Alex Smith was concussed in 2012, Kaepernick stepped in and kept the job. In his first playoff start he ran for 181 yards against Green Bay, an NFL single-game record for a quarterback, and he led the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII, which they lost 34–31 to Baltimore. He later signed a six-year extension worth up to $126 million.
In 2016 he sat and then knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality. No team signed him after that season; he filed a collusion grievance in 2017 and settled confidentially with the league in 2019. Kneeling later spread to protests in other sports.
Source: Colin Kaepernick
