Danny Spewak - From the Gridiron to the Battlefield: Minnesotas March to a College Football Title and Into World War II

From the Gridiron to the Battlefield

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Spewak, Danny, 1991 author.

Title: From the gridiron to the battlefield : Minnesotas march to a college football title and into World War II / Danny Spewak.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: This book tells the story of the University of Minnesotas remarkable 1941 football season as they chased a second consecutive national championship even as a divided country veered closer to total war, and chronicles the young players contributions to the war effort in the months and years that followedProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021013177 (print) | LCCN 2021013178 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538157626 (cloth) | ISBN 9781538157633 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: University of MinnesotaFootballHistory20th century. | Minnesota Golden Gophers (Football team)History20th century. | World War, 19391945. | Football and warUnited States.

Classification: LCC GV958.U529 S64 2021 (print) | LCC GV958.U529 (ebook) | DDC 796.332/6309776579dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013177

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013178

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For my grandparents, Jack and Virginia Spewak

First, I would like to say that I am indebted to many of the players families for sharing their stories with me. June Smith, for example, graciously invited me into her home in August 2019 and recalled delightful memories of her older brother Bruce. In all, I interviewed nearly two dozen of the players relatives and friends for this book, either in person or over the phone depending on the distance. In a few cases, my communication was limited to emailed information. I would like to thank the following for all of their contributions: June Smith, Bruce Smith, Bonnie Smith Henderson, Scott Smith, Peter Levy, Rand Levy, Michael Sweiger, Cindy Sweiger, Bob Garnaas, Bruce Odson, Dave Wildung, Hal Wildung, Jane Wildung Lanphere, Charles Ringer, Deb Welch, Kristy Bierhaus, Charlie Vail, Ann Lauterbach Waits, Joe Lauterbach, Sara Lauterbach Glenn, Gary Glenn, Dave Nolander, Bruce Pukema, Dianne Plunkett Latham, and Christine Vant Hull Park.

During more than two years of research and writing, I relied on hundreds of primary documents to help me understand the 1941 Minnesota Golden Gophers and their impact on the community. Newspapers played an integral role in this process, particularly the local publications in the Twin Cities that thoroughly covered the Gophers every single day during the fall months. The Minneapolis Tribune, Minneapolis Star Journal, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and the St. Paul Dispatch provided the most comprehensive coverage and helped me tremendously in crafting game narratives. Not much film exists from the 1941 season, but clips included in the DVD Smith of Minnesota helped supplement these descriptions, allowing me to view part of The Talking Play against Northwestern and Bill Daleys touchdown run on the first offensive play against Illinois, among others. The University of Minnesotas Brickhouse website, devoted to preserving Memorial Stadiums history, also offered a chance to view the entire MinnesotaWisconsin game from 1941.

Media outlets on campus, including the Minnesota Daily and the Minnesota Alumni Weekly, helped me understand what daily life would have felt like at the University of Minnesota in the months before, during, and after the war. For coverage of Minnesotas eight opponents in 1941, I reviewed newspapers from each region in the days leading up to the games. Those publications include but are not limited to the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington), Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, Detroit Free Press, the State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska), Des Moines Register, Des Moines Tribune, the Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), and the Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin). I found student newspapers quite helpful as well, such as the Daily Illini, the Pitt News, the Michigan Daily, the Daily Nebraskan, and the Daily Iowan. I appreciate each university making those publications searchable and available online for the general public. The culmination of my newspaper research helped me vividly describe the games, practices, and weekly preparations.

To access all newspapers, I utilized a combination of ProQuest, Chronicling America, and the Library of Congress, the Newspapers.com subscription service, microfilm at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, and microfilm at the University of Minnesotas libraries. I wish to thank the staff at each of those physical locations for helping me identify the newspaper titles that could assist me in this research. I also wish to thank the University of Minnesotas Elmer Andersen Library and specifically Erik Moore for helping me locate important documents in the university archives, including game programs, yearbooks, and personnel files. They were all valuable sources and I benefited greatly from the librarys willingness to help.

Other universities and institutions responded to my requests for documents as well. I would like to thank the generous staff at the University of Illinois Archives, the University of Montana Mansfield Library Archives, and the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library for sending digital versions of documents I requested for this project. The Minnesota Historical Society was another outstanding resource, providing me access to newspapers on microfilm, rare book copies (like the one written by Bernie Bierman in 1937), and other old papers that likely have not been read by humans in decades. The Saint Paul Public Library and Hennepin County Library also carried relevant book titles, and the Hennepin County Librarys digital high school yearbook collection from the late 1930s helped me immensely. On a local level, I am extremely grateful to Susan Garwood of the Rice County Historical Society for helping me search through the Smith family archives in Faribault, as well as Roger Paschke of the Melrose Area Historical Society for providing resources and expertise related to Bill Daley. Also, Kate Dietrick of the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, housed in the Elmer Andersen Library at the University of Minnesota, kindly helped me access Butch Levys fascinating papers.