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?)