However, Kempthorn bypassed professional football and instead opted to return to Canton, Ohio to join his father's Dodge-Plymouth automobile dealership. One sports columnist wrote the following about Kempthorn's decision  Dick Kempthorn, Michigan's great linebacker who could name his own price in pro football, says he wants no part of pro ball. He'll work for his father, who is in the automotive business in Canton, Ohio, after graduation. Draft rights for Kempthorn, rated the deadliest tackler Michigan has produced in almost three decades, are held by the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles. When the Korean War broke out, Kempthorn joined the United States Air Force and spent three years as a pilot. He flew more than 100 missions as a jet fighter pilot and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery. In March 1953, Kempthorn was recognized for heroism after he rescued fellow pilot, Henry Rock, from a burning fighter plane in Japan. After Rock's plane crashed on the runway, Kempthorn sprinted 200 yards to the crash scene, jumped on the wing and ripped loose the bullet-proof glass canopy. With Rock trapped by the gunsight as flames burned Rock's face and hands, Kempthorn took the gunsight in his bare hands and broke off the mounting. Shortly after Rock was freed, the plane exploded. In June 1953, three months after Kempthorn was cited for bravery, the 1947 team held a five-year reunion. Kempthorn's former teammates and Coach Crisler all signed a football and sent it to him in Korea. Newspapers covered the long-distance gift, and one reporter wrote  Lt. Richard Kempthorn, jet fighter pilot with the army airforce in Korea, doesn't know it yet but he's about to receive a present that he'll undoubtedly cherish the rest of his life. Mighty Dick, one of the great linebackers in football history, was one of the line-wrecking crew of Michigan's championship 1947-48 teams, and now he's doing an even finer job as a fighter pilot with more than 60 missions behind him in Korea. In 1953, Kempthorn returned to Canton, Ohio where he returned to work in his father's car dealership. Cleveland Browns Coach Paul Brown tried to persuade Kempthorn to play professional football, but Kempthorn decided to work for his father. Kempthorn bought the business from his father in 1964 and expanded it from a Dodge-Plymouth dealership into a business called "Dick Kempthorn Car Sales" selling multiple brands of automobiles and trucks.