sportsjabber.net

Mel Kiper is one of the most recognizable figures in football. He also has the most recognizable hair in football. One has to wonder how Mel can break down tapes of potential draft picks throughout the year, all the while keeping the Kiper hair brand going. Well, that’s where Kim Kiper comes in. She keeps the Kiper brand flowing smoothly. Whether it’s the NFL draft expertise or Mel’s stationary locks.

“She does virtually everything except scout players. So while her husband is in his study watching video, or in a soundproof home studio recording ESPN television spots, she answers the phones, sometimes volunteering that she is Kim Kiper to quiet an argumentative customer. And she often takes work in her car, so she can tend to it while watching their 14-year-old daughter, Lauren, at softball practice. But Kim is never far from within earshot of Mel, whose office is just feet away, when this man, a draft savant but a Luddite, screams: I pushed a button. I don’t know what I hit.

My uncle said to me on Easter Sunday, What would you do without Kim? Mel Kiper said recently. She runs everything. Everything. I’d be jumping off a bridge. She could take everything and go to Switzerland.

Kim, finishing his sentence, added: I could have a little account on the side. I already kind of do, because he doesn’t know where anything is.

One more item in her job description: she cuts the most famous hair in football this side of Troy Polamalu. I do, she said, sighing, because she would prefer to give up that task.

Mel: She tried to change it, and I said absolutely not.”

The football world thanks you, Kim. You are truly a saint. Without you, none of that hair could be possible.

*No Guts, No Glory is a Sports Jabber contributor