He played college football for the Michigan State Spartans, where he won the Maxwell Award in 1972.
Dean Howe covered high school sports for the Flint Journal and recalled an incident involving Van Pelt: He was like a man among boys.
[1][2][3] The Detroit Tigers and California Angels tried to sign Van Pelt directly out of high school, but he declined.
Van Pelt also played basketball and baseball at MSU, earning a total of seven varsity letters.
During his 11-year career with the franchise, the Giants posted a winning record only once, in 1981, when New York reached the playoffs for the only time in a 20-year stretch between 1964 and 1983.
They knew each other longer as buddies than as players and frequently talked on the phone, played golf and attended memorabilia signing events.
Van Pelt was quoted in 2004: I feel as comfortable with (Carson, Kelley and Taylor) as I do with my brothers.
[9] The Crunch Bunch went to Puebla, Mexico on October 26, 2004, to promote Habitat for Humanity and assist 3,000 volunteers who were building 150 houses.
[6] Van Pelt went back to school to complete coursework for his degree in 1998 and in 2000, he was elected to the Sports Hall of Fame at Michigan State University.
[4] In 2001, Van Pelt was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in the class with Steve Young.
The year before his death, he and his fiancée, Deanna, purchased a home[9] in Harrison, Michigan, where his two brothers and mother reside.
On February 17, 2009, Van Pelt was found by his longtime fiancée, slumped in a chair, dead from an apparent heart attack.