Chadron State College Athletics

Jeff Japp was a four-year starter for the Eagles at outside linebacker.

Japp had a particularly great senior year, when he was credited with 44 unassisted tackles and 67 overall. The total included 12 quarterback sacks for 101 yards and 10 more tackles for minus 28 yards. Those figures helped him become a unanimous first-team all-conference selection, All-Nebraska and All-West Region choice.
 
Japp’s teammates also voted him the team’s Player of the Year as a senior. He closed his career with 149 unassisted tackles, 62 that were assisted, 33 quarterback sacks for 266 yards, 28 more for lost yardage and 10 fumbles caused.

Both his number of sacks and forced fumbles rank No. 2 on the Eagles’ all-time lists. In 2014, he was among the 58 players placed on the Eagles’ All-Century Team.  

He began working for an uncle in the masonry business when he was 12 years old and returned after graduating from CSC with a degree in criminal justice. When his uncle died in 2005, Japp opened his own business, Japp Masonry, in Sterling, Colorado.

Jeff had two children, Brooklynn and Austin, and his wife Connie had three, Taylor, Carson and Harley, when they married four years ago.