EAGAN, Minn. — The Vikings are mourning the loss of former quarterback and punter Bob Lee, who passed away Aug. 17, just 10 days after he turned 81.
Lee holds the distinction of punting in Minnesota's first Super Bowl appearance (IV) and throwing the most recent touchdown by a Viking in a Super Bowl (XI), a 13-yarder caught by Stu Voigt in the fourth quarter against the Raiders.
He made the Vikings roster in 1969 and played in the NFL through 1980, totaling 77 regular-season games played for Minnesota, Atlanta and the Los Angeles Rams. In 30 starts at quarterback, Lee posted a 19-11 record with the Vikings. He played in eight postseason games, making three starts.
That's pretty impressive, considering he entered the NFL as a 17th-round pick (441st overall out of 462 picks) out of the University of the Pacific in 1968.
Lee made his pro debut in the 1969 season opener, punting six times in a game at the Giants in which Fran Tarkenton led New York to a comeback win against his previous and future team.
The following week, after Joe Kapp tied an NFL record with seven touchdown passes against the Baltimore Colts, Lee attempted his first pro passes, going 4-for-6 with 35 yards in the 52-14 Vikings win.
Lee first met Kapp (with Vikings 1967-69) long before they became teammates.
In fall 2019 both were among attendees during a 50th anniversary celebration of the 1969 NFL Champions. The reunion included panel discussions, during which Lee shared his memory of meeting Kapp the first time when Kapp was QB at Cal and Lee was 12.
"I met Joe Kapp when I was 12 years old and he was a junior at the University of California on a 1-9 team," Lee explained. "My dad ran The Associated Press in San Francisco. They were in competition with other wire services. They hired a college senior journalism student to do the postgame stories. Those stories for the Eastern papers paid a nickel a word. They were 1,500 words, so 75 bucks, which was a big deal in 1957.
"The senior didn't show up. They said, 'The press pass works. Go down there, write a bunch of notes. We'll turn it into a story.' The first guy I listened to was Joe Kapp," Lee continued. "Joe took all the blame for the loss. Nobody else. It was his fault. … He was a leader. He didn't push himself in certain directions on other people."
Lee attempted one pass in a 51-3 win over Cleveland on Nov. 9, 1969, and went 3-for-4 with his first touchdown, a 7-yard strike to John Henderson in a 52-14 win over the Steelers two weeks later.
During the 1969 postseason, Lee punted three times in a 23-20 win over the Rams and thrice more in a 27-7 victory over the Browns, helping Minnesota advance to Super Bowl IV. He punted three times in that game as well.
After making two starts as a backup late in 1970 but not punting that season, he returned to those duties in 1971.
Lee made four starts in the regular season, as well as the playoff game against Dallas in the Divisional Round. Lee also handled punting duties in that loss to the Cowboys. That was the final time he punted in an NFL game.
Tarkenton's return to Minnesota in 1972 led to Lee returning to a reserve QB role before he was traded to Atlanta in 1973, when he posted his best results, going 8-2 for the Falcons. After one more season there, he returned to Minnesota in 1975. Lee backed up Tarkenton over the next four seasons and went 4-1 in five starts from 1976-77.
"Bob Lee was under appreciated at how good he was at quarterback," Tarkenton said. "He was a great backup QB for us and a good starter for the Atlanta Falcons. Plus, Bob was an absolutely great human being that you could depend on anytime. He was as good of a teammate as you could ever have."
When Tarkenton suffered a broken leg in mid-November of the 1977 season, Lee won three of four starts to help Minnesota finish 9-5. Playing through a broken right hand during the stretch, he then quarterbacked the Vikings to a win over the Rams in the Divisional Round of the NFC Playoffs, a game that came to be known as the "Mud Bowl."
"Playing on a field like this is worse than snow," Lee said after the game. "You're slipping, your runners are slipping and your receivers are slipping. I think the thing that I was most impressed by was the way our ball carriers and receivers held onto the ball. It's kind of amazing that we didn't have one turnover."
Rams QB Pat Haden threw interceptions to Nate Allen, Paul Krause and Jeff Wright.
The Cowboys, however, prevailed over the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game on the way to a convincing win in Super Bowl XII.
Lee capped his career with two seasons as a backup with the Rams. His final scoring pass was a 41-yarder against the Vikings in a pivotal 27-21 overtime win for L.A.
From 1991-96 Lee proudly served as director of athletics at University of the Pacific, helping expand the school's athletics and fitness facilities. He became one of 22 charter members in the Pacific Athletics Hall of Fame in 1982.
Other roles Lee held including serving on the board of directors for the Northern California chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, as well as chairman of the San Francisco Special Olympics in 1981.
