Memorial Day: Football's Fallen Heroes

In this edition we pay tribute to the football players that left the game and paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country and freedom. Ray Durbin, a Veteran himself of Row One Brand, joins us in this very special Memorial Day tribute to Football's Fallen Heroes.  

Ray Durbin of Row One Brand has joined us for a Memorial Day Salute to Football’s Fallen Heroes.

We know that we cannot cover all of the gridiron layers that had their careers interrupted to serve in the US military and eventually lost their lives in duty to their country but we hope that you will out listeners will share any that we may have missed to be included in this list by emailing us at pigskindispatch@gmail.com. Also we recognize that there were countless players from many wars that had their football journeys interrupted by service and many returned to complete their careers at the competitive levels they reached and we thank them too. But this is Memorial Day so we honor the fallen and in particular the fallen of football. 

The Pro Football Hall of Fame shares with us many players who had fallen in service.

World War II 

Chuck Braidwood an end of the Portsmouth Spartans, Cleveland Bulldogs, Chicago Cardinals and the early Cincinnati franchise of 1933 was a member of Red Cross and was killed in South Pacific during the winter of 1944-1945

Mike Basca a halfback of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1941 died in France in 1944
 
Charlie Behan the end of the Detroit Lions in 1942 passed away on the island of Okinawa in 1945

Keith Birlem the end of the Chicago Cardinals and Washington Redskins in 1939 died trying to land combat damaged bomber in England in 1943

Al Blozis was a former Georgetown Hoya tackle. The footballfoundation.org bio on Al says that he was a large powerful man who stood 6’-6” tall and weighed 245 pounds which was extremely large for a man in that era. In 1986 the NFF voters sent Al Blozis and his stats to the College Football Hall of Fame. After college he joined the New York Giants and was an all- pro tackle because he was too tall to join the US military. In 1944 military standards were changed, and Blozis went into service. He became an Army captain and was sent to France with General Patton's Third Army. Two weeks after arriving there, he was killed by machine gun fire. The date was January 31, 1945. The Army citation following his death paid tribute to his leadership and courage by stating: "Captain Blozis went into the forest to help rescue a soldier who had been wounded. He was killed at this time." The Army named an athletic center in Frankfurt, Germany, for Blozis.

Young Bussey the brash and talented quarterback of the Chicago Bears from 1940-1941 was killed in Philippines landing assault in 1944

Jack Chevigny a player and a coach of the Chicago Cardinals in 1932 and one of the Notre Dame players that  famously scored in the Army game after Rockne gave his halftime speech to Win one for the Gipper.  He died during the invasion of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Ed Doyle the end of the Frankford Yellow Jackets in 1924 and the Pottsville Maroons in 1925 was killed during North Africa invasion in 1942

Grassy Hinton a Staten Island Stapletons player in 1932 who died in plane crash in East Indies in 1944

Smiley Johnson the guard of the Green Bay Packers from 1940-1941 was killed on Iwo Jima in 1945

Eddie Kahn a guard that played for the Redskins teams in both Boston and Washington during the 1930s, died from wounds suffered during Leyte invasion in 1945
Alex Ketzko the tackle of the Detroit Lions in 1943 died in France in 1944

Lee Kizzire a fullback that played for Detroit in 1937 was shot down near New Guinea in 1943

Jack Lummus an end for the New York Football Giants during the 1941 season. He was a great athlete that excelled not only in football but in multiple sports.  Killed on Iwo Jima in 1945

Bob Mackert, the big tackle for the Rochester Jeffersons in 1925 lost his life in WWII.

Frank Maher, who played for both the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Rams in 1941 died while in service.

Jim Mooney a player that played the positions of End, guard and fullback, for the franchises in Newark, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and the Chicago Cardinals  was the victim of a sniper in France in 1944

John O’Keefe who worked in the Front office for the Eagles was killed flying a patrol mission in Panama Canal Zone.

Gus Sonnenberg an back for the early franchises of the Buffalo All-Americans, ColumbusPanhandles, Detroit Lions and the Providence Steam Roller Died of an illness at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1944

Len Supulski an End for the Philadelphia Eagles during the 1942 season lost his young life in plane crash in Nebraska in 1944

Don Wemple an end from the Brooklyn franchise in 1941 died in plane crash in India in 1944

Chet Wetterlund a halfback of the Cardinals & the Detroit Lions in 1942 was Killed in plane crash off New Jersey coast in 1944

Waddy Young was a former end from the University of Oklahoma that played in the late 1930's. He went professional and played in the NFL for the Brooklyn Dodgers football franchise and played in the National Football League's very first televised game on October 22, 1939. This brave man left pro football on his own accord to become a pilot for the United States and flew one of America's B-24 Liberator bomber planes in the skies over Europe. He logged over 9000 hours inthe air fighting the Nazi's. He later volunteered to go into the Pacific theatre to fly against Japanese pilots flying the B-29 Super Fortress. We lost this hero on January 9, 1945 as his plane crashed over the skies of Tokyo while he was assisting a fellow US pilot whose plane was in distress. The two planes ended up colliding, killing all on board. The National Football Foundation recognized Waddy Young as they placed him into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986.

College players

Joe Roult round 3 Cleveland Rams draft pick. He was a Cadet at Texas A & M and played on the Army West team against some pro teams. We unfortunately lost Joe in 1944 in the Netherlands.

Niles Kinnick The 1939 Heisman Winner from Iowa. During World War II, Nile was a pilot attached to an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean. In June 1943, he crash-landed his fighter in the sea and was killed in action.
Vietnam Veterans of the Gridiron
Bob Kalsu, A guard of the Buffalo Bills guard & the team’s 1968 Rookie of the Year and former Oklahoma standout. 

Don Steinbrunner, who was an end from Washington State, played offensive tackle in 1953 for the Cleveland Browns. Don died while serving his country in Vietnam.

Afghanistan loss

Patrick Tillman : Patrick Daniel Tillman was born in November 1976 to his parents Mary and Patrick Kevin Tillman in Fremont, California. Pat did not always dream of playing football. In 9th grade he was a catcher for his Leland High School baseball team but failed to make the varsity squad. Crushed by this, Tillman decided to take a stab at football in his sophomore year. He eventually led his team to the Central Coast Division I championship in later years on the gridiron. Pat then attended and played for Arizona State on a football scholarship as a linebacker.
Tillman was chosen by the Arizona Cardinals in the 1998 draft as a safety and even started ten games in his rookie season at the position. He was honored and very loyal to the Cardinal organization and showed this by turning down a very lucrative offer by the then St. Louis Rams in 2002 to stay with the red birds.  The stalwart stayed very close to his family and friends and treasured his relationships with them as expressed in personal writings recovered after his untimely death.
The events that occurred on 9/11/2001 inspired him to leave his lucrative football career and join the US Army Rangers. As a member of the elite fighters he served several tours of duty in Afghanistan. On May 28, 2004 the national hero passed reportedly from friendly fire while in the line of duty.
 

Ray Durbin's Row One Brand offers historic sports art prints, unique sports gifts, and authentic retro apparel designs created from non-copyrighted printed materials dating back to 1876. 

I tell you check out his Row One Brand website as he recommends as this stuff is really cool for the sports fans in all of us. The Nostalgia and pageantry these items display will grace your walls, table tops and upper torso with some awesome sports histrory.

The picture in the banner above is from the Row One Brand Collection and is the ticket stub from the 1926 Army vs. Navy Game buy it today at RowOneBrand.com