The United States Congress is chock full of lawyers and other accomplished men and women. But no one read more avidly than the former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. I remember Irving Kristol marveling over his first meeting with Kemp in the 1970s. Kemp had asked Kristol to suggest a reading list. Kristol politely, if skeptically, complied. A few weeks later, Kristol ran into Kemp again and was stunned to discover that Jack had read every book on the list and was ready to discuss them!
Even the fact that Jack became a winning quarterback was a tribute to his grit and buoyant spirit. Though he had been a college star, his pro career did not get off to an easy start. Nothing was handed to him. The AP described it this way: "Kemp was a 17th round 1957 NFL draft pick by the Detroit Lions, but was cut before the season began. After being released by three more NFL teams and the Canadian Football League over the next three years, he joined the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers as a free agent in 1960. A waivers foul-up two years later would land him with the Buffalo Bills, who got him at the bargain basement price of $100." And yet, Jack Kemp led the Bills to the 1964 and 1965 American Football League's championships, and was voted the league's most valuable player in 1965. He co-founded and became the president of the AFL Players Association, and found time to serve in the Army reserves. He would later say that pro football was excellent preparation for politics: "When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy."
Kemp was more than a supply-side evangelist. He was also a serious student of foreign policy. While his hopes for mankind were expansive, his tolerance for dictators and tyrants was nonexistent. His love of capitalism was inseparable from his love of liberty.
Most of all when I think of Jack Kemp, I think of his tremendous devotion to his wife, Joanne, and to their four children and 17 grandchildren. Though he achieved great things in public life, he managed to do it without neglecting his family. That is a man in full. He will be greatly missed.