By Darin Hayes December 6, 1921 – Waukegan, Illinois – Otto Graham, the great signal caller for the 1941 to ’43 Northwestern Wildcats, came into this world.
According to the National Football Foundation, Graham was well-rounded, having been named All-America in football in 1943 and in basketball in 1944. Otto also won two letters in baseball and excelled as a musician. Was there anything this young man couldn’t do well? It may have been shorter to list those items, and technically, in college, Graham played the position of left halfback in the Wildcats’ single-wing offense. Just an editor’s note: there does not seem to be any correlation between Northwestern’s success and the single-wing offense.
Additionally, the single-wing in today’s football landscape is often referred to as the “Wildcat” offense. Perhaps this is a story for a future episode. Anyway, back to Otto Graham. He set numerous offensive records at his school, as noted in the NFF article.
In 1956, the College Football Hall of Fame inducted Otto Graham into its ranks of gridiron legends. After his college playing days ended, Graham became the first Cleveland Browns player when coach Paul Brown signed him as a T-formation quarterback. Otto and the Browns dominated the now-defunct AAFC professional league and then transitioned into the NFL, where they continued their previous success. Graham’s biography sketch on profootballhof.com states that he played 10 seasons of professional football and was the top passer in the respective leagues he played in for six of those years. He was also given All-League honors in 9 of the 10 years he played professionally.
The 1950 NFL title game saw Otto toss four touchdown passes, and in the 1954 NFL Championship contest, he ran for three touchdowns and threw for three more scores. The Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrined Otto Graham in 1965.
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