I like the cartoons! They make me laugh!

A long time ago, long before memes or YouTube videos with thumbnails featuring shocked faces, emojis and arrows, athletes and sporting events were regularly portrayed in newspaper cartoons. (For those reading in 2053, this is what a newspaper was.) Papers big and small supplemented their articles, box scores and photos with illustrations of everyone from Joe DiMaggio to high school swimmers. They added a welcome dimension to the sports pages, and unfortunately the concept seemed to die with the '60s.

New England college football was no stranger to the cartoonists' pen and ink, so let's look at some vintage 'toons, shall we?

Perhaps New England's most famous sports cartoonist is Phil Bissell, who designed the New England (nee Boston) Patriots logo in 1960 and was recently revived for a couple of throwback games. Bissell drew for a number of newspapers from 1949-87, including the Boston Globe from 1953-65. His work also illustrated classic American Football League programs and media guides for Boston University and the University of New Hampshire.

The three cartoons above served the preview the weekend's college action. The first and third illustrations are from 1954; the second is from '55. About 4-5 games were typically highlighted, with the secondary games (Bridgeport-Brandeis?!?) written at the bottom on something resembling a royal scroll. The mascots and their natural habitats often made for easy subject matter. (Some, like Dartmouth and UMass's long-discarded Native American mascots, wouldn't fly today.) Boston University's terrier lives in a dog house, Princeton's tiger resides in the jungle, Boston College's eagle hangs out in a nest ... you get the idea.

After the game, a cartoon naturally wrapped up the weekend's action, often focusing on one game. Case in point, this Boston College win over Miami from 1958. (BTW, 6-2 wasn't BC's record, it was the final score. Old-time football, baby!) A cartoon would try to give a summary of the game for those who couldn't bothered to read the game story or watch the highlights on the nightly news, not that game highlights were a common thing in '58. Anyway, Bissell manages to squeeze in six key points in just a few columns of space, no small feat.

During the week, cartoons might focus on one or two players. This example from 1954 focuses on BC's Tom Magnarelli, who won the O'Melia Trophy for the MVP of the annual Boston College-Holy Cross game (once one of the highlights of the New England sporting year).

Let's take a gander at some other cartoonists. Frank Lanning was a longtime illustrator for the Providence Journal whose artwork for Brown and Rhode Island football (and their opponents) graced the paper's pages for decades.

This one highlights a Rhody win over Boston University in 1945. Eight key moments are shoehorned into one cartoon, anchored by Sal Vento, the "scatback from Saugatcuk."

Lanning goes off the board for this cartoon, which previews the 1965 Maine-East Carolina Tangerine Bowl. Linebacker John Huard, a two-time Little All-America, is generally considered the G.O.A.T. of Black Bear football players. 

Hubert Bushey's illustrations of University of Vermont sports appeared in the Burlington Free Press for years, and he even designed the old Charlie Catamount mascot (since replaced by Rally Cat). His most famous work might be from 1974, when the school pulled the plug on football after 77 seasons. The "30" was old-time newspaper jargon marking the end of a story, and, well, the Catamounts got hit with the "30" on the gridiron. (Baseball, which got the ax in 1971, was revived in 1978 and canceled again in 2009.)

From somewhat happier times, this cartoon previews UVM's '69 season. Bob Clifford, the head coach, resigned after a 3-6 season and threats of a player revolt.

And now, some miscellaneous cartoons:

This one is actually from Dartmouth's 1942 media guide. Dartmouth's "hometown" paper, the Valley News (where I worked for many years), wasn't born until 1952 and I don't think they ever did any Big Green cartoons.

Not sure where this one came from, but it illustrates Dartmouth's legendary "Fifth Down" game against Cornell in 1940. (Long story short: Cornell trailed 3-0 late in the game and threatened near the Dartmouth goal line, got an inadvertent fifth down from the refs and scored a walk-off TD to win 6-3. The Big Red "forfeited" the game a couple days later after reviewing the film, expecting Dartmouth to decline the forfeit. Of course the Big Green accepted and was declared a 3-0 winner.)

Not sure who drew this, but it highlights 1960s UMass stars Milt Morin and Bob Meers; Morin later was a star tight end for the Cleveland Browns. 

From The New Hampshire student paper, 1947 Glass Bowl coach Biff Glassford is profiled. I presume Vern Hall is the author.

I think this is from Daily Princetonian, but it illustrates Princeton's 14-0 win over Brown in 1964, when the Tigers went 9-0 and outscored their foes 216-53.

And last but not least, this piece of irreverence from the Yale Daily News in 1985, when Yale and Dartmouth played to a 17-17 tie. Alas, the Big Green's iconic Keggy was a long ways away. 

Cornell Big Red (1945)

OK, it's been a while since the last post. Let's rectify that, shall we?

One of my favorite "unheralded" football books is the Quarterback Abstract (2009), which attempts to grade more than 360 quarterbacks from the throughout the long history of pro football. While the usual legends are covered in depth, the real gems are the more obscure passers. While thumbing through the book recently, I came upon an entry for one Al Dekdebrun of Cornell University, who was a journeyman's journeyman in the NFL and AAFC before finding a home in Canadian football, where he won a Grey Cup for the Toronto Argonauts. 

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But check out these nuggets from the QB Abstract: 

* Dekdebrun led the nation in passing yards as a junior in 1945 (1,227 yards!), "but was declared ineligible for his senior season because he had played four minutes in a game for Columbia in 1942 although (he) never enrolled there a student." And you thought the tramp athlete went the way of the flying wedge and mass interference plays.

* In four pro seasons between the NFL and AAFC, Dekdebrun threw for 1,224 yards, or three fewer than in his final year with the Big Red.

* In Canada, Dekdebrun led Toronto to the 1950 Grey Cup title in what became known as the "Mud Bowl." From the Abstract: "Using his Ivy League education, he taped thumbtacks to his fingers to improve his grip on the slippery ball and scored the only touchdown of the game." Sounds more like a tactic from a graduate of the School of Hard Knocks.

After football, Dekdebrun was either mayor or town supervisor of Amherst, New York (depending on your source) and was inducted into the Cornell Hall of Fame in 1982.

I've touched upon Cornell's unis from this era before, but the big thing to take away is the inconsistency in regard to the helmets; at least four patterns were used, including a Princeton/Michigan-esque winged design and a Dartmouth-looking lid with multiple stripes around the crown. With the dust still settling from World War II, teams may not have wanted to spring money on new helmets for everyone; if they were close enough, that was A-OK. (If the internet or social media were around in 1945, can you imagine the outrage?)