James Lee Kearney (born January 21, 1943 in

Wharton, Texas Wharton is a city in and the county seat of Wharton County, Texas, Wharton County, Texas, United States. This city is southwest of Houston. The population was 8,832 at the 2010 census and 8,627 at the 2020 census. Wharton is located on the Colora ...

) 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 with ...

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

who played twelve seasons 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 ...

and the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

from 1965-1976. In college, he played

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

Prairie View A&M Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU or PV) is a public historically black land-grant university in Prairie View, Texas. Founded in 1876, it is one of Texas's two land-grant universities and the second oldest public institution of higher learning ...

, where one of his wide receivers was future

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The tea ...

teammate Otis Taylor. He was drafted in the 11th round of the

1965 NFL Draft The 1965 National Football League draft was held at the Summit Hotel in New York City on Saturday, November 28, 1964. The first player selected was Tucker Frederickson, back from Auburn, by the New York Giants. The draft was marked by the failur ...

by the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

. He then played for the Chiefs from 1967 through 1975 and for the

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...

in 1976. He started in

Super Bowl IV Super Bowl IV was an American football game played on January 11, 1970 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was the fourth and final AFL–NFL World Championship Game in professional football prior to the AFL–NFL merger taking eff ...

for the

. In 1972, he tied an NFL record by returning 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 b ...

s for

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s. He also led the league with 192 yards on interception returns. He wore jersey number 46 while with the Chiefs. In retirement, he has taken up golf and coached little league football in the Kansas City area. Jim taught science for many years at Washington High School in Kansas, City, Kansas.

References

See also