UConn Huskies (1942)

Yikes ... and away.

Not too long ago, I posted the above 1942 photo on the Facebook page of an unnamed University of Connecticut player in suspended animation, possibly leaping for a football — or a catnip mouse. (The original came from this site, which I’d highly recommend to anyone with an interest in UConn or college football in general; it’s quite the rabbit hole.) Now let’s take a closer look at the ’42 Huskies …

The Team: UConn went 6-2, with the losses coming to Maryland and Wesleyan (?!?). The wins included future Yankee Conference rivals Maine, UMass and Rhode Island, with the rest coming against Middlebury, Springfield and Coast Guard.

The 1942  UConn team, gathering in practice uniforms
for a rather informal team photo.

The Players: There are two I want to single out: Six-five, 220-pound end Walt Dropo is easily one of this bigger legends (literally and figuratively) in Connecticut sports history. The Moose from Moosup, Connecticut was a star in football, basketball and baseball; according to his Wikipedia page, he was the the school’s all-time leading scorer in hoops and was a first-round draft pick of the 1947 BAA (NBA) Draft by the Providence Steamrollers. The Chicago Bears picked him in the ninth round of the ’46 NFL Draft. His brother, Milton, was a center for the Huskies’ football team.

The versatile Walt Dropo appears to be
pulling down a rebound in this 1942 Connecticut Campus pic.

But it was in baseball where Dropo made his mark, signing with the Boston Red Sox, where he took baseball by storm in 1950, leading the AL in RBIs and winning Rookie of the Year honors. In ’51, Dropo broke his wrist and was never the same player again. You can read more about his feats here.

The other player I want to note is guard Al Pinsky, who also doubled as sports editor of the Connecticut Campus, the school paper. Can you imagine him doing a post-game interview?

Al: “Hey quarterback, why’d you throw that interception in the fourth quarter?”

QB: “Because you missed your blocking assignment and I had to hurry my throw, you jabroni.”

Al Pinksy was pretty versatile in his own right.

The Coach: Joseph Orlean “J.O.” Christian guided the Huskies from 1934-49, going 66-51-4; he is second behind only Randy Edsall on UConn’s all-time win list. He also coached the baseball team from 1936-61, going 254-170-7 with a pair of College World Series appearances (the baseball field is named in his honor). After his coaching days, Christian was commissioner of the Yankee Conference from 1966-71.

The Uniforms: UConn wore just one jersey that season, but mixed it up with multiple helmets and pants. The white shirts are very distinctive, with navy shoulder panels and three stripes at the very end of the sleeves. The Huskies wore white and navy helmets, while the pants alternated between navy and what appears to be a sandy color. The socks feature a striped pattern similar to the jersey sleeves.

The Fallout: Thanks to World War II, UConn did not field a team in ’43, but came back in ‘44 to go 7-1 in each of the next two seasons; the ’44 bunch outscored its foes 152-13.