Kentucky, 1979
• 1978 Academic All-America® First Team
Dr. James Kovach was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame in 2010.
Dr. James Kovach was a standout college linebacker at the University of Kentucky in the 1970s. Kovack went on to have successful career in the NFL and pulled off the incredible feat of completing medical school while balancing a professional football career.
Kovach played at Kentucky from 1974-78 and still ranked as the leading tackler in UK history with 521 stops at the time of his induction into the Academic All-America® Hall of Fame. He was a member of the Kentucky team that won a share of the 1976 Southeastern Conference championship and shut out North Carolina in the '76 Peach Bowl. A three-time All-SEC selection, he became the first player in modern NCAA history to attend medical school while playing major-college football. He also received the NCAA Top Five Award and an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship.
After being drafted by the New Orleans Saints in 1979, Kovach played seven seasons in the National Football League with the Saints (1979-85) and San Francisco 49ers (1985). He was the Saints' leading tackler from 1981 to 1984 and was named the team's most valuable player in 1983. He was selected to the Saints' 20th Anniversary Team.
Kovach continued to attend UK Medical School during the NFL off-seasons and completed his medical degree in 1984. He added a law degree from Stanford University in 1990. From 2005 to 2010, Kovach served as the President and Chief Operating Officer for the Buck Institute of Age Research, which at that time was the only independent institute dedicated to research on aging and age-associated disease.
Prior to joining the Buck Institute, Kovach was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Athersys, Inc., a Cleveland, Ohio biotechnology company which utilized proprietary stem cell, gene therapy and chemistry technologies to develop pharmaceuticals. He has also directed the Office of Technology Management at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.
Dr. Kovach has been active in local and regional community services throughout his business career, with a focus in the area of education, health and aging. He has been active with the Marin County School-to-Career Partners, the NFL Retired Players Association, the Consortium for Translational Research in Advancing Imaging and Nanomedicine while serving as an adjunct professor at Dominican University of California. Dr. Kovach has also served on the Board of Directors for the Alliance for Aging Research and the North Bay Leadership Council.