Tallahassee, FL - Costa "Pop" Kittles, a star athlete,
longtime coach and assistant professor at Florida A&M University
passed away yesterday morning.
He was 75.
Costa
"Pop" Kittles
A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Kittles, who was affectionately
known as “Pop”, was a football and baseball star
at FAMU during the late 1940s and 1950s.
He garnered All-America honors in football as an end in 1950
under the legendary A.S. “Jake” Gaither, and was
an all-star catcher for the baseball team under the late Dr.
Oscar A. “Chief” Moore.
Kittles graduated from Florida A&M in 1951 and earned a
master’s degree from Ohio State University in 1953.
“Coach Kittles will certainly be missed by all of the
Florida A&M University family,” commented FAMU President
Fred Gainous. “He was an outstanding Rattler in every
sense of the word.”
A warm and personable mentor to numerous student-athletes,
Kittles joined the FAMU staff in 1952 as an assistant football
coach and physical education instructor.
Kittles eventually succeeded Dr. Moore as head baseball coach
in 1960, piloting the Rattlers to the first of eight Southern
Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles.
His clubs won over 400 games between 1960 and 1983, earning
six NAIA District playoff spots and one trip to the NAIA World
Series.
Among his baseball products were major league all-stars Hal
McRae, Andre Dawson and Vince Coleman, as well as the late William
“Bill” Lucas, the first African-American executive
in major league baseball history when he was with the Atlanta
Braves.
“This is a tremendous loss for the Florida A&M family,”
said Dr. J.R.E. Lee, III, Athletic Director at FAMU. “He
was highly committed not only to athletics but the University
as well.”
Kittles retired from coaching in 1982 and retired as an assistant
professor in Health, Physical Education and Recreation in 1985.
He was inducted into the FAMU Sports Hall of Fame in 1982.
In 1999, the Florida A&M baseball field was renamed Moore-Kittles
Field in honor of Kittles and his college coach, Dr. Oscar Moore.
They were considered by many as the “fathers of Rattler
baseball”.
An active supporter of Florida A&M until his death, Kittles
had made several sizable financial contributions to athletics
and the University, including a scholarship endowment last year
with his wife, Emma.
He is survived by his wife, Emma and their daughter, Costina.
