The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Alex Cappa

  • HSU Alum is a Super Bowl champion

    HSU Alum is a Super Bowl champion

    Humboldt State University alum Alex Cappa did not play with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in this year’s Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs. However, after being a valuable piece in the Buccaneers offense throughout most the season, he will be going home with his first Super Bowl ring of his young career.

    Cappa has now played two seasons for Tampa Bay, but suffered a fractured ankle on Jan. 9 in the Wild Card game against the Washington Football Team. Though he was out for the Super Bowl, Cappa started in all 17 games of the regular season as quarterback and seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady. This is a huge accomplishment for Cappa, one of HSU’s very own, in assisting Tampa Bay towards a Super Bowl Championship.

    Strength and conditioning coach Drew Peterson, who has been with the Athletic Department since 1991, remembers the first time he saw Cappa during one of their recruiting weekends. He recalls him being an unassuming, quiet and humble guy coming up from Dublin, California.

    “It was a big deal, you know, you have these large diverse groups of parents and potential players coming up here,” Peterson said. “And you know for two to three months it was every weekend. I remember his particular recruiting weekend there was a huge group of people, he was standing up in the back and he was this tall, skinny guy, with long, straggly blonde hair and I thought he was somebody’s family member.”

    Jonathon Rowe, an assistant offensive line coach at the University of Washington and former offensive lineman for the HSU Jacks from 2011-2015 shared his first impression meeting Cappa on his recruiting trip.

    “He was very soft-spoken and a little shy,” Rowe said. “But I found out rather quickly how hard of a worker he was, especially in the weight room. He came in at 245 lbs and by his redshirt freshman year he was 294 lbs.”

    Cappa spent a total of four years at HSU from 2013-2017. He studied kinesiology and did an internship his senior year with Coach Peterson, where Peterson recalled him becoming everyone’s favorite quite early on.

    “He was just always taking time with them, working with them and telling them what to do,” Peterson said. “He’s just this larger than life figure, and he was not anymore this tall straggly kid. He was a 300lb, sculpted football player.”

    It was during the 2018 NFL draft that he was picked up by Tampa Bay in the third round as the 94th pick overall. Cappa was originally projected to be a fifth round pick. This followed after his time playing in the 2018 Reese’s Senior Bowl and attending the scouting combine in Indianapolis.

    “My initial reaction when he was drafted to the Bucs was that I couldn’t have been more excited,” Rowe said. “Because I knew how hard he had worked just to get to that point.”

    It was a year later in 2019 that Tom Brady retired himself as a New England Patriot after winning the Super Bowl, leaving New England behind and looking toward Tampa Bay. This resulted in Alex Cappa becoming right guard to Brady himself.

    “I was even more excited when I found out he would be playing with probably one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game,” Rowe said. “I’m extremely proud of him for how far he’s come and the position he’s put himself in. He’s only going to get better from here.”

    According to the NCAA, there are over 1 million students playing high school football in the United States. Of those students, about 73,000 actually participate in the NCAA and only about 16,000 of them even become eligible for the NFL draft. Only a mere 254 of those players are drafted, actually landing themselves a spot in the NFL.

    To play professionally is one of many young and collegiate athletes’ biggest dream. To be playing in the big leagues, sometimes alongside your childhood icons, can feel like an unattainable goal with the odds staked against you.

    But for Cappa, by putting one foot in front of the other, working hard and striving to beat those unimaginable odds, he did it. He accomplished what every young football player dreams of.

    “What a journey you know, to be passed over by everybody and [his] only place to go was Humboldt State,” Peterson said. “Pretty much every time they scan the camera on Tom Brady, you see Alex Cappa. All these highlights of Brady, I see Cappa. All these regular season highlights — there he is, number 65.”

    Looking back at his second season statistics as a starting guard, Cappa has been an integral player to Tampa Bay’s offensive, with over 1,000 snaps at the guard position and part of an offensive line group that held defenses to only 18% of Brady’s pass attempts pressured.

    Notably, he also took part in an offensive line that finished second in the NFL in sacks allowed per pass play and Cappa helped the Buccaneers’ offense rank at the third best offensive line in the NFL. It is an unfortunate moment for Cappa, Tampa, and HSU, that he didn’t get a chance to finish out the season with his team in the Super Bowl. But although he didn’t participate in Sunday’s big game, it’s important to recognize the magnitude of what he has accomplished since his recruiting weekend at HSU those years ago. He beat unimaginable odds, worked extremely hard and continues to be a tough, dedicated player with his eyes steadfast on success and accomplishment within the game of football. Brady attests to his strong-willed personality and grit through his first season playing with Cappa.

    “[He’s] one of the toughest guys we’ve had on our team,” Brady said in a press conference after Cappa was injured. “We’ve had a really great group up front, [including] guys who have filled in at different times. Cap has been there really the whole year, had a tremendous year. [He’s] a tough, hard-nosed football player.”

  • EDITORIAL: Football program cut will create ripple effect

    EDITORIAL: Football program cut will create ripple effect

    Loss of football program also means loss of diversity, opportunity

    Lumberjacks football has been a staple of Humboldt for over 90 years. But this season will be the last for the foreseeable future and this community is losing more than just a team.

    Football brings more to the table than just sports. Student-athletes chose this school to pursue their education and to chase their dream of playing college football.

    Terminating Jacks football will be the conclusion of a program that has been a part of Humboldt since 1924, not long after HSU’s founding. The program has seen some standout stars and big-time players along the way. Lumberjacks 2017 All-American offensive lineman Alex Cappa was selected 94th overall by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in this year’s NFL draft.

    HSU says they do their due diligence to remain somewhat ethnically balanced while bringing in students from all over California. This practice is misleading as the university’s surrounding areas have many racial undertones. The football team is one part of the school that was true to HSU’s message of inclusivity.

    Where there were once young men of all races working diligently towards the same goal, there will no longer be. The locker room that once brought men together will be empty.

    HSU will honor scholarships for eligible players through the 2018-19 academic year, and coaches and staff will also help players contact other programs. At the end of the season, players will get a full release, which means they could choose to play at another institution.

    President Lisa Rossbacher called it an unfortunate but necessary step in addressing the University’s structural deficit and protecting the school’s core academic mission. In her “mission” she has neglected a big part of what is supposed to make this university great.

    The closing statement of our mission states: “We help individuals prepare to be responsible members of diverse societies.”

    Less than four percent of HSU’s student population is African American and less than two percent of faculty are African American. Where is the diversity? Where is the care for the individual student?

    HSU has experienced lower enrollment over the last two years. Fall enrollment has dropped by more than 400 students. This dip has had a measurable impact on the budget and the loss of football will expectedly lead to an additional decline in enrollment, which in turn will bring less people of color.

    While getting rid of the football program could possibly be the right decision fiscally, the loss will be felt by many. People may not have ever met, had it not been for the football team. Familiar faces will change into strangers faces. What once brought a sense of camaraderie to this campus will now no longer exist.

    HSU hopes that contributors and boosters will continue to support HSU athletics but the $200,000 or more increase in contributions last year was for football. Loss of the football program will have a long-term ripple effect. Where and what gets hit the hardest remains to be seen.