Anthony Francis Cline (July 25, 1948 – July 23, 2018) 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 wi ...

defensive end Defensive end (DE) is a defensive position in the sport of gridiron football. This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formations over the years have substantially changed how the position is ...

who played professional football 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 ...

(NFL) for the Oakland Raiders from 1970 to 1975 and the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

from 1976 to 1977. He played college football at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...

. Some researchers claim that he holds the American Football Conference (AFC) rookie sack record with 17½ in 1970, but the NFL has only recognized a sack as an official statistic since 1982, so Cline's record is not officially recognized. His son, Tony Cline Jr., also played in the NFL. His son-in-law,

Jason Kapono Jason Alan Kapono (born February 4, 1981) is an American former professional basketball player. He was the first National Basketball Association (NBA) player to lead the league in three-point field goal percentage in two consecutive seasons, and ...

played 8 seasons in the NBA.

References

1948 births 2018 deaths American football defensive ends Miami Hurricanes football players Oakland Raiders players San Francisco 49ers players People from Michigan City, Indiana Players of American football from Indiana Sportspeople from the Chicago metropolitan area {{defensive-lineman-1940s-stub