Jules Yakapovich (1921–1993) was an

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 ...

coach and former

NFL 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 major ...

player for 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 ...

. Born in

Tonawanda, New York Tonawanda (formally ''City of Tonawanda'') is a city in Erie County, New York, United States. The population was 15,130 at the 2010 census. It is at the northern edge of Erie County, south across the Erie Canal (Tonawanda Creek) from North Ton ...

, he served during World War II as a U.S. Marine Corps

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...

. Yakapovich was head football coach at

Kenmore West High School Kenmore West Senior High School (nicknamed Ken-West) is one of two public high schools in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District. The other is Kenmore East Senior High School. History Founding In 1938, a WPA grant of about $700,000 ...

in New York from 1950 to 1976. His undefeated 1969 team was named number-one in the state by the New York State Scholastic Writers Association and chosen number-one in the nation by the Junior Super Bowl Committee, which at the time published the principal national ranking of high school football. Yakapovich devised the all-standing "radar defense" in which a defender's initial movement is lateral, rather than forward or backward. The radar defense was influential in college football during the 1970s and remains in occasional use in professional American football, such as in the Buffalo Bills-Dallas Cowboys game of October 2007. Quotation:

''Hard work is often not followed by success, a puzzling phenomenon for the young mind. But it is better to follow the hard path that may be rewarded than not to aspire to any goal at all.''

Bibliography

* —— ''The Radar Defense for Winning Football'', Prentice-Hall, 1970.

References

1921 births 1993 deaths Colgate Raiders football players High school football coaches in New York (state) People from Tonawanda, New York Players of American football from Erie County, New York United States Marine Corps officers United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II {{Amfoot-coach-stub

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