Joe Savoldi

Jumping Joe Savoldi had all of the potential in the world to be a great, long lasting football player, however his collegiate and pro football careers were each cut short for a couple of very interesting reasons.

It is rare when a player only has a handful of games in the NFL but has a pretty interesting story to hear about them. Joe Savoldi is one of those rare individuals that does and he short tale comes from the 1930 NFL season.

Before we get to that we need to talk about Joe before becoming a pro. He was born in Castano Primo, Italy on March 5, 1908 as Guiseppe Savoldi and his family immigrated to America around 1920. He was amazed with the culture of the US and soon gravitated to athletics including football. Giuseppe soon turned towards the English version of  his first name to "Joe" and became a star athlete in high school. After four years Three Oaks High School, he enrolled at the University of Notre Dame, where beginning in 1928 he would play football for the legendary Coach Knute Rockne and his highly touted Fighting Irish.

Joe is often remembered with the monikers of "Galloping Joe" or "Jumping Joe", as he earned the nickname for a play he made in a 1929 game against Carnegie Tech when he scored a touchdown with a leaping jump across the goal line, a novel move at the time. Other career highlights for Savoldi came on October 4, 1930 when he scored the first ever Notre Dame touchdown at the newly-opened Notre Dame Stadium, and one week later when he scored three touchdowns against Navy.

In November of 1930 his Fighting Irish career came to an abrupt end when his secret marriage, a big no-no at the school in that era, leaked out when he filed for divorce. George Halas of the Chicago Bears, wasted no time when he found out the talented fullback was available so he signed him to a contract right away. Heck Halas found Savoldi so valuable he even paid the $1000 fine that NFL President Joe Carr imposed on the Bears for signing a college player before his class had graduated.

It didn’t work out to the Bears favor though as Savoldi played only 3 games in Chicago. Savoldi had quit the team when his offensive teammates had stopped blocking for him. The reason is that his contract gave him a cut of the gate revenue which averaged between $500 to $4000 per game when those blocking for him averaged a meager salary of $50 to $125 per game.

Jumping Joe changed sports and entered the lucrative arena of Professional Wrestling where he became a star. He tangled in many big matches across the world and was even at the heart of some big grappling dramatic storylines when he helped to double cross the heavy weight champ. His famous move was the flying drop kick, and it became almost synonymous with Savoldi as he wone many matches with this signature move.

It is a shame that we nver got to witness the full potential of Joe Savoldi on the gridiron as both his por and college careers were shortened for interesting reasons.

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the October 25, 1930 Pitt versus Notre Dame game action, taken by an unknown.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites of the AmericanFootballDatabase.com, Newspapers.com and the book The National Forgotten League.