Foreword by Beano Cook

“FOOTBALL! NAVY! WAR!” This page intentionally left blank “FOOTBALL! NAVY! WAR!” How Military “Lend-Lease” Players Saved the College Game and Helped Win World War II Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. Foreword by Beano Cook McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Jones, Wilbur D. “Football! Navy! War!”: how military “lend-lease” players saved the college game and helped win World War II / Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. ; foreword by Beano Cook. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-4219-5 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Football—United States—History—20th century. 2. College sports—United States—History—20th century. 3. Football players—United States—Biography. 4. United States. Navy—Biography. 5. Navy-yards and naval stations— United States—History—20th century. 6. Football and war— United States. 7. World War, 1939–1945. I. Title. GV959.5.U6J66 2009 796.332'63097309044—dc22 2009014121 British Library cataloguing data are available ©2009 Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: College football players pose during their Marine Corps training at Parris Island, SC, in 1942 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library) Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com To those World War II servicemen who played military and college football to harden them for combat, then lost their lives fighting for our country on foreign battlefields, particularly those United States Marines who died on Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. These include former Camp Lejeune coach Lieutenant Jack Chevigny (Notre Dame, coach Chicago Cardinals), who was killed in action on Iwo Jima, and twelve Marines who played in the Mosquito Bowl on Guadalcanal in December 1944, who died on Okinawa: 4th Marines: end Jim Quinn (Amherst); end David Nathan Schreiner (All-America Wisconsin); tackle Bob Bauman (Wisconsin); and tackle Hubbard Hinde (Southern Methodist); 29th Marines: end Chuck Behan (DeKalb Teachers, Detroit Lions, Camp Lejeune 1943, Navy Cross); end George Edward Murphy (Notre Dame, Lejeune 1943); tackle Ed Van Order (Cornell); tackle John Hebrank (Lehigh); center Red DeGreve (Michigan); back Tony Butkovich (Illinois, All-America Purdue); back Wayne “Rusty” Johns- ton (Marquette); and back Johnny Perry (Wake Forest, Duke, Navy Cross). This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I am exceptionally grateful to several people for pointing my research in the right direction, and helping me turn a burning idea into a manuscript. My friend and World War II navy veteran Leo Bednarzyck introduced me to Marine Corps sports historian Col. John Gunn, USMC (Ret.), an enormous reservoir of material and expert on World War II football who believed in my project. John, a retired newspaper sports editor and author of two books on Marine Corps football, allowed me full access to his vast sports library in his Gulf Breeze, Fla., home and put me in touch with several World War II players for interviews. He loaned me game programs, annual periodicals, books, and personal files. John, even though (at this writing) your health condition has dimin- ished your capability to pursue your occupation, I want you to know how much I appreciate receiving your advice and facilitating my task. I also thank your children, Bruce, Vikki, Becky, and Laura, for giving me permission to use your material and for donating your library to the University of North Carolina–Wilmington (UNCW). Through John’s weekly online column, three football history enthusi- asts stepped forward. Jack Hilliard, a retired Greensboro, N.C., television producer and football collector, provided me with tons of material, particularly on Bainbridge Naval Training Center and Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice. His continuing interest in my success—our success—inspired me. With Gunn and Hilliard providing me a major portion of my research material and urg- ing me on, producing the manuscript was a cinch. Having ESPN’s Beano Cook, the country’s premier college football historian and commentator, write the foreword to this book is a rare professional honor and a personal coup. I had him in mind for several years as the right person to approach, but how would I do it? Through sheer coincidental good luck, his ESPN producer associate, John Lukacs, was a passenger on the Valor Tours World War II Battle of the Bulge tour I led in June 2008. Because vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS of John’s intervention, Beano’s ageless analytical charm and omnipotent memory give this book a special appeal. The fact that Beano found me some- one with whom he could rap about the football days of his youth probably was one reason for our resulting frequent phone conversations. Early in my research, Mike Miklas of Charlestown, Md., dedicated to preserving the Bainbridge memory through the Bainbridge Naval Training Center Historical Association, arranged and hosted my exploratory visit to the old site. I spent the day with Mike for a tour and interviews with locals who remembered the facility, and garnered significant research material. The Cecil County (Md.) Historical Society, home to old Bainbridge, publicized my effort through historian Mike Dixon and sent me material. Larry Clark, dean of the Cameron School of Business at UNCW, loaned me 1940s football guides of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, vitally rich sources to which I constantly referred. Jerry Parnell, a first-class reference librarian at UNCW’s Randall Library, conducted valuable litera- ture searches. The Naval Academy sports information office facilitated an interview with the fabulous Clyde “Smackover” Scott, of Little Rock, Ark., my World War II military football hero. We had a marvelous conversation. I also enjoyed informative discussions with a number of other World War II players, including Julian Pressley, George “Sonny” Franck, and Dave Rankin. John Thorpe, of DeBary, Fla., sent me substantial information about the Great Lakes navy team. John Witt, of Elkmont, Ala., loaned me his scrap- book of his father’s participation with the Keesler (Miss.) Air Field and Hawaii Air Force teams. I also thank two organizations in particular for granting me permission to use photographs: the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Street & Smith’s/The Sporting News Annuals. My wife, Carroll, my loyal and best constructive critic and soundboard, as always urged and helped me immensely. My sons Andrew, a sports jour- nalist with Buster Sports in the North Carolina Triangle, and David, a Los Angeles marketer, frequently advised me. Sportswriter Brian Hendrickson, whose beat is the Portland Trail Blazers, and historian and author Dr. Chris Fonvielle, a UNCW professor, also played devil’s advocate in reviewing and improving my work. Table of Contents Acknowledgments vii Foreword by Beano Cook 1 Preface: “Saved from the Junk Pile” 7 Introduction: “The Most Awesome Melange” 13 1. “A Roster Out of Football’s ‘Who’s Who’”: The Bainbridge Eleven 25 2. “Ideological Arsenal”: The Impact of Football on the War Effort, Morale, and Fighting Spirit 43 3. “Lend-Lease Football”: Navy and Marine Corps College Officer Training Programs 56 4. “A War Game in Miniature”: Reacting, Adjusting, and Playing the Game 73 5. “Shifty and Smart, Harder to Stop than Superman”: Charlie Justice, Glamor Prodigy 94 6. “All Hail to the Navy”: Great Lakes, Fleet City, Pre-Flights, and Midshipmen 107 7. “Every General Liked to Have His Own Base Football Team”: Ramblers, Fighting AA’s, Flyers, and Cadets 130 8. “Rollicking, Boisterous, Macho”: Flying Marines and Sea Lions 149 9. “Around the Globe the Message Winged”: The 1942–45 Seasons 161 ix xTABLE OF CONTENTS 10. “All America Will Cheer a Champion, Whether He Is Black, Brown, Yellow or White”: Black Players and Professional Football 189 11. “Not Satisfied to Listen to Short-Wave Broadcasts”: Overseas Football, Postseason Games, and the Postwar 199 12. Clyde “Smackover” Scott and Bob Steuber: Personalities, Vignettes, and Anecdotes 210 Glossary: Wartime Football Expressions, Abbreviations, and Jargon 225 Chapter Notes 231 Selected Bibliography 241 Index 247 Player collegiate loyalties “came down like the Wall of Jericho,” noted sportswriter Furman Bisher, who wrote postwar, “of sacrifice in return for loyalty to country by male athletes who found them- selves campus nomads in the military system.... Many a football career was born on service fields ... and heaven only knows how many were left there, not to mention those left under white crosses in military cemeteries.” Lieutenant Paul Brown, wartime Great Lakes (Ill.) Naval Training Center coach and future member of the professional Hall of Fame, stated: “Things like football tended to dim in importance to men who, two or three months later, might be lying dead on some beach in the South Pacific. It was something I never could reconcile myself to while coaching service football” (Bisher and Brown quoted in Bisher, “You’re in the Army, Mr. Trippi,” Southern Living, September 1984). This page intentionally left blank Foreword by Beano Cook Since the late nineteenth century, Americans have done two things bet- ter than anyone else: fight wars and play football. So it’s hardly a coincidence that the relationship between the two has been one of the most enduring in this nation’s history. If you don’t think our proud military tradition and our national passion are joined at the hip pads, how else do you explain the roar of Air Force jets flying over your stadium? The snappy color guard standing at attention during the playing of the national anthem? The precise brassy, Sousafied sounds of marching bands? The evidence abounds.

Load more