1. John Jay "Big John" Kissell was an American football defensive tackle who played for the Buffalo Bills in the All-America Football Conference and the Cleveland Browns in the National Football League in the 1940s and 1950s.
26 Facts About John Kissell
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John Kissell played there for the 1942 season, when the school's football team made the Orange Bowl but lost to Alabama.
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John Kissell then entered the US Army during World War II, serving in Europe, Africa and the Middle East for three years.
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John Kissell returned to college after the war and played football for two more seasons.
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John Kissell signed with the Bills in 1948 and played there for two years before the AAFC dissolved and the team disbanded.
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John Kissell was then sent to the Browns in a deal orchestrated by coach Paul Brown to acquire former Buffalo players.
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John Kissell played in Cleveland through 1956, interrupted by one year with the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League.
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John Kissell spent two years away from football after leaving the Browns, returning to play for the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen in Canada for the 1959 season.
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John Kissell then retired from playing and became a junior high school teacher back in Nashua.
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John 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.
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John Kissell was named an all-New Hampshire tackle in two of his years at Nashua.
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John Kissell later attended La Salle Military Academy, a private Roman Catholic high school in Oakdale, New York.
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John Kissell then entered the US Army as American involvement in World War II intensified.
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John Kissell 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.
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John Kissell spent time at the Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in Fontainebleau outside of Paris in 1945, and served in Africa and the Middle East.
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John Kissell returned to Boston after the war and played as a defensive lineman in the 1946 and 1947 seasons.
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John 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 in 1948.
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John Kissell was named an All-Pro defensive tackle by the International News Service after the season.
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John Kissell finished his education at Boston College in 1950, graduating with a bachelor's degree in education and government.
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John Kissell was "a little bit rowdy", teammate John Sandusky later recalled, and once hit a blocking sled in practice so hard that he broke it.
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John Kissell 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.
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John Kissell said he had "made a mistake" by going to the Canadian league and thanked Brown for giving him a second chance.
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The Browns won two more championships in 1954 and 1955 while John Kissell was with the team.
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John Kissell 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.
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John Kissell took two years off of football before signing in the summer of 1959 to play for the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, a Canadian team.