There is a hidden gem in Port Arthur and his name is Bobby Leopold.

Leopold played in Super Bowl XVI in January 1982 and won the Vince Lombardi Trophy as a member of the San Francisco 49ers who defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, 26-21, in Detroit.

Leopold graduated from Lincoln High School before all that took place. He played for Dan Devine at Notre Dame and was a member of the Fighting Irish’s 1977 national championship team.

Leopold has met Rudy Ruettiger, the man who inspired the 1993 film “Rudy.” He can call NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana on the man’s cell phone. He played for Bill Walsh, and when he played for the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, his owner was none other than Donald Trump.

Nowadays, Leopold teaches economics at Memorial High School and still watches a lot of football, especially this time of year when the Super Bowl is right around the corner.

“The excitement picks up because on ESPN they will play all the championship games and Super Bowls,” Leopold said. “We have one of the most memorable NFC Championship Games with Dwight Clark matching the catch in the back of the end zone. The thing about winning the Super Bowl, it really doesn’t hit you that you won the last and biggest game of the year. You just feel like you have to go to practice the next day.”

Leopold not only played in the Super Bowl, he had a game-high 10 tackles.

“I appreciate it now more than ever when I look back on it because I won the Super Bowl in only my second year,” Leopold said. “Now, you think about all the great guys like Jim Kelly, Dan Marino and all these Hall of Famers who never won a Super Bowl.”

Leopold remembers Diana Ross was the singer of the National Anthem that day, but besides that, the noise of the game was never a factor.

“You have heard people say this before, but when you are on the field, you really can’t hear everything going on,” he said. “Once it’s over, you realize you were the only game on in the country. Everyone is looking at that game. You just don’t think about that during the game. Once the game starts and you get that first hit, it is just football.

“We had beat Cincinnati earlier that year. Cris Collinsworth was a rookie that year. Anthony Munoz was on the team. They had a really good team too.”

It is for his Super Bowl experience that Leopold, along with seven other Port Arthur Independent School District alumni who participated in the Big Game, will each be honored with a golden football awarded to Memorial through the NFL’s Super Bowl High School Honor Roll this Friday morning during a school assembly at Memorial. Lincoln grad and former Seattle Seahawk Jordan Babineaux is expected to attend.

Leopold got to play with Montana at both Notre Dame and San Francisco. In an era of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, Leopold doesn’t want the younger generation to forget just how special Montana really was to football.

“What made Joe so special to us was, he was not like a Peyton Manning who is 6-6, 200 and something,” Leopold said. “You wouldn’t recognize Joe in a crowd if you didn’t know who he was. He was just a great athlete. He could do a 360-dunk and was a pitcher in high school.”

Leopold even once had an opportunity to ask Walsh who was better: Montana or Steve Young?

“He never picked,” Leopold said. “He said ‘Joe threw the best, catchable ball I have ever seen. He could just place it. He didn’t throw it hard like John Elway or Dan Marino. It was just the most catchable ball. Joe came around at the right time because of Bill Walsh’s system.”

One of the first memories of his time in the NFL that Leopold remembers the most is when it all came to an end the first time around. He left after a few seasons with the 49ers for the USFL because of contract disputes. The USFL then folded, and he finished his football career with the Green Bay Packers.

“I wish I had never left the Niners,” Leopold said. “I didn’t know it was going to hit me like that. This was the team that took the chance on me after college. We had won the Super Bowl. We all hung out outside of football. After we lost the 1983 NFC Championship game to the Redskins, I started crying and I am not a crier. I had already signed the contract with the Generals.”

Leopold didn’t give an exact prediction to this Super Bowl, but he made it very clear he is a Manning fan, having met him his rookie season.

“He is a great young man,” Leopold said.