Kazmaier was born November 23, 1930, in Toledo, Ohio, the only child of Richard William Kazmaier Sr. (1903–1989) and Marian A. Kazmaier (née Greenlese; 1903–1957).[3] He graduated from Maumee High School in Ohio in 1948. He played football (four years), basketball (four years), track and field (four years), baseball (four years) and golf (one year) earning a letter each year in each sport. He was recruited by 23 colleges, most offering full scholarships.[4]
As a senior in 1951, Kazmaier was a consensusAll-American and won the Maxwell Award and the Heisman Trophy. He was named Ivy League Football Player of the Decade in 1960 and Time magazine ran his picture on its cover.[5] He was the last Heisman Trophy winner to play for an Ivy League institution.[6] Kazmaier graduated from Princeton in 1952 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Company and the Union: A Case Study".[7] The Chicago Bears selected him in the 1952 NFL draft, but he declined to play pro football, instead going to Harvard Business School. After spending three years in the U.S. Navy (1955–1957) and attaining the rank of lieutenant, he founded Kazmaier Associated Inc, an investment firm in Concord, Massachusetts.[8]
In 2007, during a Maumee football game against Perrysburg, Kazmaier was honored by having his jersey number (#42) retired.[10] He also donated his Heisman Trophy to Maumee High School, where it is displayed inside a glass case in the main hallway.[11] The stadium at Maumee High School is named in his honor. His daughter, the late Patty Kazmaier-Sandt, was an All-Ivy member of the Princeton women's ice hockey team who died in 1990 at the age of 28 from a rare blood disease. The Patty Kazmaier Award, which was established by Kazmaier to memorialize his daughter, is given to the top woman college ice hockey player in the United States at the annual Women's Frozen FourNCAA championship.[12]
Personal
Kazmaier died on August 1, 2013, in Boston from heart and lung disease at the age of 82.[13][14]
1998: Maumee High School renamed its football stadium in his honor.
2007: Jersey number (#21) officially retired at Maumee High School in Kazmaier's honor.
2008: Jersey number (#42) officially retired at Princeton University in Kazmaier's (and Bill Bradley's) honor. Bradley had grown up as a fan of Kazmaier and chose the number 42 in his honor.[15]
^Tomlinson, Brett. "A number like no other; Princeton retires No. 42 in honor of Kazmaier ’52 and Bradley ’65", Princeton Alumni Weekly, November 19, 2008. Accessed September 13, 2021. "As children playing football on a churchyard in Crystal City, Mo., Bill Bradley ’65 and his friends took turns emulating collegiate gridiron stars. Bradley, for a Midwestern boy, had a curious favorite. 'Other kids wanted to be "Hopalong" Cassady of Ohio State,' he recalled. 'I wanted to be Dick Kazmaier ['52] of Princeton.' ... The two stars shared a common uniform number — 42 — worn, in the words of Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67, 'with uncommon distinction.'"