Bill Shakespeare

• In 1961, TCU went 3-5-2. However, one of the victories was over #3 Texas, 6-0, and one of the ties was to #2 Ohio State, 7-7. The stumbles against the Horned Frogs cost the Buckeyes and Longhorns the #1 ranking in the final AP poll. Instead, 10-0 Alabama captured the crown.
• If I told you a college player was nicknamed "The Bard," what would you guess was his last name? If you said "Shakespeare," you win a purple popsicle. Furthermore, his first name was William. From Staten Island NY, William Shakespeare played HB for Notre Dame from 1933-5 and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983. He won four battle stars and the Bronze Star during World War II.
• Alvin Wistert followed his two older brothers, Francis and Albert, to Michigan to play for the Wolverines. However, Al had a circuitous route to Ann Arbor. After dropping out of high school in Chicago, he took a test to get a general diploma from the state. He served in the Marines in World War II. After discharge, he used the GI Bill to attend Boston University where he lettered in football as a 6'3" 220 lb. 30-year old freshman T. He then transferred to Michigan where he was issued jersey #11 like his brothers. He helped Fritz Crisler's Wolverines win three straight Big Ten titles. His senior year, at age 33, he became the oldest player ever named an All-American. He later joined his two brothers in the College Football Hall of Fame. Michigan retired number 11 in honor of the Wisterts.

Al Wistert

• Manske started his pro career with the Philadelphia Eagles. After two years, he went to the Chicago Bears and there was involved in one of the most lopsided trades in NFL history. During the 1938 season, George "Papa Bear" Halas traded Manske to the Pittsburgh Steelers for their first round draft pick in 1939. When the Steelers finished the season with the worst record in the league, the Bears got to pick first and chose QB Sid Luckman from Columbia. To make matters worse, the Bears resigned Eggs for the following season. So Pittsburgh was left with nothing for its first round pick.
• Eggs' last NFL game was the Bears' 73-0 shellacking of the Washington Redskins in the 1940 Championship Game. He then served in the military in World War II.
• He married Jane Frauntz, a swimmer on the 1928 U.S. Olympic team and a medal winner in diving in 1932. After the war, he got into college coaching before finally becoming a high school educator.

Quick! What two teams have played each other the most often in college football history? You'll never get it because they aren't Division IA schools. It's Lehigh and Lafayette, two schools only 13 miles apart in Eastern PA.

• When the teams met in the 100th game of the rivalry in 1964, a Lehigh alumnus named Howard Foering attended his 91st game in the series. One of the sportswriters asked: "I wonder where he was the other nine games." Seven years later, Sports Illustrated wrote this.

Howard Foering, 104, of Bethlehem PA, who may be the oldest active football fan around, didn't make it to the big game this year, the one in which his alma mater, Lehigh, beat Lafayette 48-19. Still, his attendance record isn't bad. He has managed to attend 94 of the 107 games the two schools have played since 1884, and when he can't make one in person he manages to catch it on radio. Foering, class of 1890, spends his time between games playing bridge, watching games on TV, reading three newspapers and waiting impatiently for next year's big game.

Howard died in 1975 at age 106.

• The schools first met on the gridiron in 1884. There were a number of years early on when they met twice or even three times in the same season. That's why they have played 19 more times than Harvard and Yale, who began competing in 1875.
• The 2008 contest between the Leopards of Lafayette and the Mountain Hawks (or Engineers) of Lehigh will be #144.

Reference: Football Feuds: The Greatest College Football Rivalries,
Ken Rappoport & Barry Wilner

Louisville went 6-2 in the 1946 season but lost money on football. In September 1947, school President John W. Taylor made a startling proposal. He invited the presidents of 14 other urban colleges to join Louisville in an "out-and-out professional league." Taylor explained:

The players ... would be hired, just like professors ... [but] under rules as to age, salary, etc., to be agreed upon by the college presidents. It would work like this: suppose we find a great HB ... just graduating from high school. He wants a college education but he can't afford it. Maybe he prefers Xavier University to the University of Louisville. We sign him as a player on our professional team at, say, $4,000 a year and tell him he may go to school anywhere he likes, provided he is on time for all practices and all games.

In fact, under Taylor's plan, players would not have to go to college at all if they didn't feel like it. Some could even be graduates. Regular students could compete for places on the team with the professionals and would draw salaries too if they succeeded.

Taylor gave these advantages of the plan: "We simply would be providing better football entertainment, reaping more revenue from it ..." The president planned to commission a poll of Louisville fans to see what they thought of the idea. In the meantime, the Louisville Courier-Journal weighed in. While admiring Taylor's "blunt honesty," the writer found that:

Dr. Taylor overlooks some of the reasons for the sham of amateurism. Football players are less expensive when paid with scholarships. Besides the cash value, ... the prestige, popularity and coeducational opportunities of the successful campus athlete are premiums an honest system would find it hard to replace. And even if a team could be operated as cheaply with time-clock players, box-office figures prove that the old school try still outdraws the frankly professional game.

Taylor also got negative responses from his fellow presidents. Houston: "Not in favor." Cincinnati: "Neither feasible nor desirable." Chicago: "We got out of college football in 1939 and have no intention of returning."

Post script: Under Harry Stiteler, A&M dropped to 0-9-1 in 1948. Interestingly, the tie was against Texas 14-14. 1949 brought a 1-8-1 mark including a 42-14 shellacking by the Longhorns. A&M rallied to 7-4 and a post-season "Presidential Cup" victory over Georgia 40-20 at the University of Maryland in 1950. However, they again lost to Texas 17-0, and Stiteler was replaced by Raymond George.

Reference: "Exit Homer," Time, December 29, 1947

The 1918 and 1919 Rose Bowls pitted military teams against each other for the service championship of the United States.