John Kissell

Kissell grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire and attended Nashua High School, where he played basketball, track and football in the late 1930s under head coach Pete Chesnulevich.[2][3] He was named an all-New Hampshire tackle in two of his years at Nashua.[2] He later attended La Salle Military Academy, a private Roman Catholic high school in Oakdale, New York.[2]

After graduating, Kissell enrolled at Boston College on an athletic scholarship.[3] He was on a Boston College Eagles football team that finished the 1942 season with an 8–2 win–loss record under head coach Denny Myers and lost to Alabama in the Orange Bowl.[3][4] Kissell then entered the U.S. Army as American involvement in World War II intensified.[3] He was a private stationed at first at Fort Hood in Texas, and played for the base's service football team before being sent to Europe.[2] He spent time at the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in Fontainebleau outside of Paris in 1945, and also served in Africa and the Middle East.[5][6] Kissell returned to Boston after the war and played as a defensive lineman in the 1946 and 1947 seasons.[3][7]

Kissell was selected by the National Football League's Los Angeles Rams in the 12th round of the 1947 draft, but instead joined the Buffalo Bills of the rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1948.[2] Buffalo finished the regular season 7–7 in a tie with the Baltimore Colts for first place in the AAFC East.[8] After beating the Colts in a playoff, the Bills lost the AAFC championship game to the Cleveland Browns.[8] The Bills finished 5–5–2 the following season, losing again to the Browns in a playoff.[9] Kissell was named an All-Pro defensive tackle by the International News Service after the season.[10] The AAFC disbanded at the end of 1949 because of financial struggles stemming from poor attendance and competition over player salaries, and three of its teams – the Browns, Colts and San Francisco 49ers – were absorbed by the NFL.[11]

In 1950, players from the AAFC's defunct teams – including the Bills – went into a dispersal draft.[12] Kissell, however, was sold along with halfback Rex Bumgardner and guard (American football) Abe Gibron to the Browns in a deal that gave Bills owner James Breuil a 25% share in the team.[13][14] In the Browns, Kissell joined a team that had won all of the AAFC's four championships behind an offense that featured quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley and ends Mac Speedie and Dante Lavelli.[15] Yet while the Browns had been the league's best team, many sportswriters and owners doubted that the team would continue its string of success in the NFL starting in 1950.[16] Cleveland began the season by beating the previous year's NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles and went on to win the NFL championship over the Los Angeles Rams.[17] Kissell finished his education at Boston College in 1950, graduating with a bachelor's degree in education and government.[6][7]

With the Browns, Kissell had a reputation as a mean and exceptionally strong defender playing beside defensive end Len Ford and linebacker Bill Willis under head coach Paul Brown.[18] He was "a little bit rowdy", teammate John Sandusky later recalled, and once hit a blocking sled in practice so hard that he broke it.[18] Cleveland finished the 1951 season with an 11–1 record and again reached the championship game, but lost this time to the Rams.[19][20] Sportswriters named Kissell a second-team All-Pro after the season.[21]

The Browns again contended for the NFL championship in 1952 but lost to the Detroit Lions.[22] After that season, Kissell decided to jump to the Canadian Football League, signing with the Ottawa Rough Riders for $9,500 a year plus bonuses – $2,000 more than he was making with the Browns.[23] He joined numerous other NFL players, including teammate Mac Speedie, in a player exodus to the CFL, which was trying to build its talent pool by offering better salaries to American players.[24] The move, however, prompted a drawn-out legal case between the Browns and the Rough Riders in the Canadian courts at the beginning of the 1953 season.[23] Kissell was allowed to stay in the Canadian league as the proceedings continued, and the Rough Riders finished the season with a 7–7 record, falling short of an appearance in the league playoffs.[23][25] The Browns and Rough Riders settled their differences the following April, agreeing to send Kissell back to Cleveland.[23] Kissell said he had "made a mistake" by going to the Canadian league and thanked Brown for giving him a second chance.[23]

The Browns won two more championships in 1954 and 1955 while Kissell was with the team.[26] He recovered a fumble in the 1954 championship game against the Lions and was part of a defensive front with Ford, Don Colo and Bob Gain that kept the Rams' offense off balance in the 1955 championship game.[27] His last season in Cleveland was in 1956, when the team had its first-ever losing record.[28]

Kissell took two years off of football before signing in the summer of 1959 to play for the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, a Canadian team.[29] Bob Jauron, a coach from Nashua, had been hired to lead the team, which played in the Ontario Rugby Football Union.[29] He played there for one year.[30]

After his professional career, Kissell went back to New Hampshire and was the recreation director at Spring Street Junior High School in Nashua, later serving as a teacher there until 1985.[3][31] In 1964, he took a job as line coach for the short-lived Nashua Colts, a team in the semi-pro Eastern Football League.[3] The Colts won the league championship in 1966.[32] Kissell died of cancer in 1992.[31] He had two children.[6] Three of his brothers, Adolph Kissell, Veto Kissell and Ed Kissell, also played professional football.[33]

• Career statistics and player information from Pro Football Reference