mc What a great story. I liked that he has the same equipment for watching games as I do, binocs and ears to hear Craig. They both seemed so upbeat and happy. GREAT story. RIP
Yes, great article... bet he had some stories. Would like to hear what playing football was like in the 30's very little pads and leather helmets with no face masks.
There's a school of thought that playing with rugby style helmets, instead of the super duper engineered and padded ones now, would reduce injuries, the idea being that players would not use their head as a weapon since it would, as John Bobbit said after his wife cut his package off "hurt real bad". But, you'd have a time frame where players were still launching themselves into players, and without a modern helmet, causing lots of injury to themselves. I wonder also in those old days if they just had lots of brain damage to players like they do now, and it just wasn't as recognized as it is now, and just considered normal dementia. Lots of busted teeth I'm sure.
They did not run into each other at the speeds they do now and because substitutions were limited the big guys would not hold up. My dad played in the 30s and got his nose broken twice but was otherwise uninjured his playing weight was 145 he was a qb
Years ago, I met a relative at a family reunion who played football at U. of Minnesota with Bronko Nagurski in 1928 and 29. He was a small guy, about 5ft 7in weighed 120-125lbs. He was a squad player and said he got steamrolled by Nagurski more than once during practices. Never even slowed him down. It was a funny story the way he told it.
