Colin Kaepernick earns Hall of Fame honor

Barry Werner
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Colin Kaepernick is going into a Hall of Fame … and it isn’t Canton. Sorry.

The former San Francisco 49ers QB and current social activist will be honored by the University of Nevada Athletics Hall of Fame. it was announced Friday.

The school relayed his accomplishments, on and off the field:

Kaepernick finished his career as the only player in college football history to pass for 10,000 yards and rush for 4,000 yards after earning the starting job as a sophomore. He was also the only player to pass for rush for 1,000 yards and throw for 2,000 yards in the three consecutive years…

He finished his career with 10,098 passing yards, 82 passing touchdowns, 24 interceptions, 4,112 rushing yards and 59 rushing touchdowns and led the Wolf Pack to one of the greatest seasons in school history in 2010 with a 13-1 record, a WAC conference championship, a win in the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl and final rankings in the national top 15.

Kaepernick was selected in the second round of the 2011 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers. He played for six seasons for the 49ers, leading the team to the Super Bowl in 2012 after taking over for the injured Alex Smith and the NFC Championship game the following year.

He started sitting and then kneeling for the national anthem during the 2016 preseason as a protest against racial injustice, police brutality, and systematic oppression in the country. He became a free agent following the 2016 season and has not been signed since in what appears to many observers to be a reaction to his civil rights activism

He founded the “Know Your Rights Camp”, an organization which held free seminars to disadvantaged youths to teach them about self-empowerment, American history and legal rights and has been widely recognized for his social activism, winning prestigious awards including 2017 GQ Magazine Citizen of the Year, the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, the 2017 American Civil Liberties Union Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate Award and the 2018 Harvard University W. E. B. Du Bois Medal.