Rolf Benirschke
| No. 6 | |||||||||||
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| Position: | Kicker | ||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||
| Date of birth: | February 7, 1955 | ||||||||||
| Place of birth: | Boston, Massachusetts | ||||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | ||||||||||
| Weight: | 171 lb (78 kg) | ||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||
| College: | UC Davis | ||||||||||
| NFL Draft: | 1977 / Round: 12 / Pick: 334 | ||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||
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| Player stats at PFR | |||||||||||
| Games played: | 121 |
|---|---|
| FG Att: | 208 |
| FGM: | 146 |
| Pct: | 70.2 |
| Player stats at NFL.com | |
Rolf Joachim Benirschke (born February 7, 1955) is a former American football player in the National Football League. Benirschke played for the San Diego Chargers as their placekicker from 1978 until 1986.
Following his retirement from football Benirschke tried to find a career in television and was hired by Merv Griffin to replace Pat Sajak as host of the daytime game show Wheel of Fortune in 1989.
Benirschke grew up in San Diego and attended La Jolla High School. His father Kurt Benirschke, a German immigrant, was a pathologist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the founder/director of the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species at the San Diego Zoo, where Rolf worked summers in high school and college.
Rolf Benirschke majored in zoology at the University of California at Davis, where he played football under coach Jim Sochor. He was selected by the Oakland Raiders in the 12th round of the 1977 NFL Draft, and was then traded to the San Diego Chargers for his rookie year in the National Football League.
In the off-season before the 1978 season, his second season, he developed chronic fever, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea. He learned that he had ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease.
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