September 23 Crowd Reacts

American football during the second Great War was one of the few escapes the Nation had from thinking about their loved ones far across the World fighting for freedom. Soldiers themselves played on the gridiron as part of their physical training, and they had produced some extremely good football teams. Let's peer in on one of these WWII miliatary elevens that made the crowds cheer.

Let's flip the calender pages back a bit to the World War II era. It's football season 1944 and the Purdue Boilermakers traveled to Great Lakes, Illinois to play ball against the Great Lakes Naval Academy team. Great Lakes is the Navy's largest training installation and it is the home of their only Boot Camp. It was really a busy place during the war to train young sailors so that they were ready to fight the Axis powers. Like their bretheren at the Naval Academy and at West Point these sailors at Great Lakes had some tremendous gridiron talent on their roster. The players on the 1944 Great Lakes team included backs Jim Youel (quarterback, Iowa), Eddie Saenz (left halfback, USC), Chuck Avery (right halfback, Minnesota), Jim Mello (fullback, Notre Dame), Don Lesher (halfback), Don Manglold (Indiana), Bob Hanlon, and Ara Parseghian (Miami (OH)), ends Cecil Souders and George Young (Georgia), and linemen Pete Krivonak (guard), Jesse Hahn (guard), and Carmen Izzo (center)

Purdue was not too shabby either for being in war time. The Naval team had the lead at halftime by the score of 14-12, but probably only because of a couple of offsides penalties on Purdue which prevented them from making the line to gain in the waning seconds before the half. What they did do was leave Great Lakes with time for one more play before the intermission. That last play was a pass from Quarterback Jim Youel to a streaking Don Mangold in triple coverage by Purdue defenders. The pass couldn't have flown any truer to its mark.

The Boilermakers came out in the second hald and marched methodically on a 45 yard drive to take an 18-14 lead after missing the extra point attempt. Great Lakes regained the lead again 20-18 on a long Youel pass to Jim Keane, their point failed and the were on top again by two. It was only seconds later the the Bluejackets scored again this time on a punt return by Jim Youel who muffed the kick at first but then regained his composure to weave thorugh the kicking team with needle-like precision until he traveled 93 yards to paydirt. This was the final score of the game, but it was a doozy and the sailors won the day and heard the Roar of the Crowd.

The post script to this story is the the Great Lakes Nay Bluejackets team of 1944 lost only two games all season. The first was a 6-26 loss at number 4 in the nation Ohio State and the second 'L" was a season finale loss at Notre Dame. The Bluejackets were ranked as high a number 5 in the country  prior to the game with the Buckeyes and were 17th in the Nation in the last poll.

Information obtained for this story came from Newspapers.com with the Wisconsin State journal article on September 24, 1944 as well as Wikipedia.com