Longtime NFL assistant coach and Sacramento State quarterback Greg Knapp dies at 58

He went by “Knapper” to those who knew him best, who played for him, who loved him.

Greg Knapp, the one-time Sacramento State quarterback who served nine years as a Hornets assistant coach before embarking on a long NFL assistant coaching career died Thursday afternoon.

The former 49ers and Raiders assistant coach suffered major head and body injuries from a Saturday bicycle crash when he was hit by a motorist in an intersection near his Danville home. Knapp never regained consciousness in the John Muir Health Medical Center in Walnut Creek, where he was surrounded for days by family and close friends. Knapp was 58. He leaves behind his wife Charlotte and three kids.

Knapp was to start his first season as passing-game coordinator with the New York Jets next week under former 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. Knapp worked with the club’s quarterbacks in recent mini-camp sessions.

Clancy Barone played with Knapp in the early 1980s at Sac State, Barone a lineman from the countryside of Red Bluff and Knapp a record-setting passer from the beaches of Southern California. They were close friends for 40 years. They made sure their coaching lockers in stints in Atlanta and Denver were next to each other. They spoke regularly on the phone.

“We’ll miss him,” Barone said as he was boarding a plane to Chicago, where he works as an assistant coach with the Bears. “Knapper was so sincere in everything he did. I was this country kid from Red Bluff and he was this cool kid from the beach. Good lord, we couldn’t be more different. I know Knapper. He wouldn’t want any of us to feel sorry for him, to slow down. He’d demand that we continue, that we live life and that when you go out to dinner, order the most expensive steak and the best bottle of wine because that’s the Knapper charm and life is good.”

Barone said he spoke to Knapp some 12 hours before his Saturday accident. They compared football notes, talked about family and retiring someday from the coaching grind.

“He told me on the phone, ‘Clance, don’t jump out of an airplane or ride mountain roads on a bike! Keep it safe!’” Barone said. “He said he was going on a 90-minute bike ride in Danville the next day on these fantastic bike trails. I wished him luck. The next day, he took that ride and never made it home. Just so sad.”

A quarterback mentor

Knapp was a late bloomer, a champion for the underdog who worked with some of the best quarterbacks in NFL history, including Peyton Manning as passing-game coordinator and quarterback coach when the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara.

Knapp was a native of Huntington Beach whose high school team, the Oilers, leaked losses and went 1-9 his senior season in 1980. He would joke about his inability to lead a winning drive as a player. Knapp gave up football to study business at UC Santa Barbara, but he missed football. He wasn’t recruited in high school but found a program desperate for talent in Sacramento State.

Knapp studied sports sections in newspapers in library archives and found the Hornets had managed just five victories over a five-year period, ending in 1980. He reached out to the late Hornets coach Bob Mattos, who offered an invite. Mattos once said he’d offer a tryout to “anyone with two legs and a healthy heart.” He also said that Knapp was, “as fine a person and coach as any of us will ever meet.”

But the first impression was a head turner.

Knapp strolled into Mattos’ office, striking at 6-foot-4, but also wearing cut-off blue jeans with flowers, long hair and an image of cool. He tidied up the look, won the starting job and set myriad Hornets passing marks and led the charge to a breakthrough 8-3 season in 1985.

Then Knapp was hooked as a coach, spending nine years at Sac State and bouncing around the NFL. He and Barone were on the coaching staff of two Denver Super Bowl teams, including the winning one to cap the 2015 season at Levi Stadium. Knapp told The Bee before that Super Bowl, “It all started at Sac State for me. I learned to play there, learned to coach there, got my degree there, my master’s there, my teaching credential. I loved Sacramento.”

He added in admiration and appreciation, “My career’s gone fast. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve survived the ups and downs of this profession, and in each move, I’ve gained more. I still have lessons from Sac State and those great players and coaches, ‘Tree’ Plumbtree, Jerry Haflich, Mike Clemons. They gave me opportunities and experiences I never could have imagined would lead to all of this. Heck of a ride.”

Work with Manning, Young

Knapp challenged Manning in 2015 to adjust his mechanics, to use his legs more to compensate for a loss of arm strength. Manning said that week, “Greg’s been great for me.”

Knapp also worked with Steve Young in San Francisco. Said Knapp in a Bee interview in 2015, “What Steve Young taught me from Day One was, ‘You’re not paid to watch me and praise me. You’re paid to coach me. If you see something wrong, you tell me.’ I’ll never forget that. I was 31, first year in the league, and here’s a future Hall of Famer telling me how to do it, if I wanted to stay in this business. Peyton’s the same way. I’m going to coach him hard, just like a rookie, and he’s respected the heck out of that. Makes this fun.”

The news of Knapp’s loss resonated through the region. His agent was longtime friend and Sacramento product Jeff Sperbeck, brother of one-time Sac State head football coach Marshall Sperbeck.

Said Jeff Sperbeck, “Greg’s infectious personality is most people’s first and lasting memory of him. The phrase, ‘he never met a stranger,’ encapsulates Knapper’s zest for life. He had a unique gift to make everyone feel special, and to Knapper, they all were.”

Knapp connected with Sac State players as a student-assistant coach and then as an assistant. That includes Mark Young, the former Cordova High School and Sacramento City College star who dazzled as a receiver in the late 1980s at Sac State. He enjoyed working under Knapp and was pained by his loss Thursday.

“Devastating for all of us who knew Knapper,” Young said. “To all of us at Sac State, he was the brain trust, so far ahead of the game, even as a young guy. You could just tell he was special.”

Young added, “At Sac State, in 1987, that was a bad year for me. I was academically ineligible, and Knapper was our academic advisor. He was on me. He helped me. We loved him. He clicked with us young dudes, and we all followed his career. It was impossible not to love Knapper.”