Charlie Krueger, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame for his career at Texas A&M playing for immortal coach Bear Bryant, passed Feb. 5 eight days after his 84th birthday
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Charlie Krueger, Jan 28, 1937 – Feb. 5, 2021
Charlie Krueger was one of the longest serving members of the San Francisco 49ers, playing for the local National Football League team from 1959-73, but his wife of 48 years Kristin was the couple’s biggest football fan.
Krueger, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame for his career at Texas A&M playing for immortal coach Bear Bryant, passed Feb. 5 eight days after his 84th birthday at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek following a long illness.
Kris and Charlie Krueger moved to a new Regency Woods home in Clayton in 1975 after they opened Krueger Liquors on Clayton Rd. in Concord that year. They operated the business until 1989. The retired NFL star was a regular presence in the store unless “he was birding or on the backroads” when his wife ran things.
The couple met under less than romantic circumstances. They were each with friends at a Redwood City Hofbrau when Charlie, then a star defensive lineman for the 49ers, made a snide comment about Kurt Herbert Adler, the head of the San Francisco Opera. One of his friends informed the football player that Adler’s daughter Kris was sitting at the adjoining table.
He tried to apologize by saying he was in the process of removing his rather large foot from his mouth. They eventually married in 1972 with his 49er teammate Eddie Dove as best man at the Portola Valley ceremony.
Kris says, “I had four years of football and 44 years without.” After he retired Charlie Krueger rarely attended or even watched games on TV. Many times, fan Kris would relay game scores to her husband, who was a voracious reader.
R.I.P.
