Remembering Charley Trippi - When Football Was Football

When Football Is Football is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear.

EPISODE SUMMARY

Perhaps the best recollection, in my humble opinion, was a run that Trippi of the Chicago Cardinals made in the 1947 NFL championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Working on a frozen field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, the Cardinals switched to gym shoes before the game in an effort to secure better traction on the unforgiving turf.

Trippi scored twice that day to lead the Cardinals to a 28-21 victory over the Eagles, but it was his dazzling performance on a punt return that left the Philadelphia defenders in a shambles. How bad was the field you may ask? Reporter Art Daley of the Green Bay Gazette wrote: “They [the players] staggered around like 22 drunken men in a dark alley!”

Read the entire episode blog post and check out some other cool info regarding this episode here.

WHEN FOOTBALL WAS FOOTBALL BACKGROUND

Each episode takes the listener back to the very early days of the National Football League. Author Joe Ziemba will share a forgotten or lost story from one of the NFL’s two oldest teams: The Bears and the Cardinals. Team championships, individual exploits, or long-buried items of interest from the earliest years of the NFL will be dusted off and resurrected for the listener. Not for the football faint-of-heart since these programs will document when the struggling Bears nearly went out of business or when Cardinals’ players earned $15 a game and were proud of it! It’s NFL history—with a twist!. See Joe's books below.

Cadets, Canons, and Legends: The Football History of Morgan Park Military Academy

When Football Was Football: The Chicago Cardinals and the Birth of the NFL

Music for the episode - https://www.purple-planet.com/

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