Jim Prestel


James Francis Prestel is a former professional football player, a defensive lineman in the National Football League in the 1960s.
Selected in the 1959 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns, he stayed in and joined the team in 1960. Prestel was with the expansion Minnesota Vikings for their first five seasons, and then one season each with the New York Giants and Washington Redskins. prior to the

High school and college

Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Prestel graduated from its Sacred Heart High School in 1955. He ventured west to play college football for head coach Skip Stahley at the University of Idaho in Moscow, where he started for the Vandals in the Pacific Coast Conference alongside future pros Jerry Kramer, Wayne Walker, and Jim Norton. Prestel was a two-sport athlete for the Vandals, where he also lettered in basketball as a center for head coach Harlan Hodges, and made honorable mention in the PCC for the 1958–59 season.
Selected by the Browns in the sixth round of the 1959 NFL Draft, Prestel chose to remain in college; he had missed most of the 1957 season to return to Indianapolis, where his mother was He was granted another year of eligibility and played the 1959 season at Idaho as a fifth-year senior, and was elected captain by his
Prestel broke his left foot in practice prior to the Battle of the Palouse game with Washington State in but played the first half of the game anyway. the remainder of the football season, the East-West Shrine Game, and the entire 1959–60 Vandal in the College All-Star Game at Soldier Field in August 1960, against the defending NFL champion