One of football’s first legends, Jay Berwanger had a life full of firsts.
At the University of Chicago, Berwanger became the first Heisman Trophy winner in 1935, a year before the name Heisman was attached to the award. He became the first choice of the first NFL player draft in 1936. When he told Bears owner George Halas that he didn’t want to play pro football, Berwanger became one of the first big names to expose the business side of the sport.
It was a fitting end to his football days because it marked the beginning of a business career that earned him far more than any athlete made then or most do today.
Berwanger died Wednesday night of lung cancer. He was 88.
Born John Jay Berwanger on March 19, 1914, the son of a blacksmith from Dubuque, Iowa, jilted pro football to become a foam rubber salesman. After serving in World War II as an officer in the Navy’s flight-training program, he started Jay Berwanger Inc. in Downers Grove, a manufacturer of plastic and sponge-rubber strips for car doors, trunks and farm machinery.
When he sold the 20-employee company in the early 1990s, it was grossing $30 million in annual sales.
Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954, Berwanger remained active as a Heisman voter throughout his life. He attended many presentation ceremonies at New York’s Downtown Athletic Club and said he made friends with many other trophy winners, citing Steve Spurrier, Paul Hornung, Johnny Lattner, Larry Kelley, Jim Plunkett, Doug Flutie, Billy Sims, Doak Walker and Archie Griffin.
He dined with Presidents Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and once was tackled by a future president, Gerald Ford of Michigan.
Berwanger’s son, Cuyler, said his father was equally comfortable with celebrities and ordinary people. Ford has joked that he would never forget Berwanger after Ford’s Michigan team played Berwanger’s Maroons in 1934.
“Jerry Ford has a scar on his face from trying to tackle my dad,” said Cuyler, a guidance counselor at Hauser Junior High School in Riverside. “He told my dad one time, `I think of you every morning when I shave.'”
Cuyler said U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in a recent address at U. of C., listed Berwanger as his No. 1 hero.
“On the one hand, you had famous people like Jerry Ford who knew him,” Cuyler said. “On the other hand, when he would go to the bank, all the tellers wanted him to come to their window. When I went in to take care of some business for dad they would all say, `Tell Mr. Berwanger we miss him.’
“From presidents to bank tellers, he just reached out to people.”
Berwanger never regretted skipping a pro football career.
“It worked out OK,” Berwanger said in a 1999 interview.
“In 1995 someone asked my dad what was the difference between the Heisman Trophy in 1995 and 1935,” Cuyler said. “He said, `Oh eight to 10 million dollars.'”
Berwanger was such an outstanding athlete that he considered trying out for the decathlon on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team that featured Jesse Owens.
“I couldn’t try out for the Olympics and concentrate on my studies too,” Berwanger said in a 1997 interview. “If I had gone to the Olympics, I might not have ever earned my degree. Besides, I was the president of my senior class and I felt I owed it to my classmates to stick around.”
Berwanger also was captain of the football team, captain of the track team and head of his fraternity, Psi Upsilon.
Recruited by Iowa, Northwestern, Michigan, Minnesota and Purdue, Berwanger chose Chicago–also a Big Ten school at the time. To meet expenses during the Great Depression, Berwanger waited tables, cleaned the gymnasium, ran elevators and fixed leaky toilets.
“Times were tough then,” he said in an interview with Loyola University professor Sheldon S. Cohen that appeared in “Chicago History” magazine’s winter 1986-87 issue (the attribution for the quotes in this parahraph has been added to this text). “I wanted to attend a school that would give me a first-rate education in business, without special treatment, so that I would be prepared when opportunities were certain to return.”
Berwanger’s first year at Chicago was the last year for legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. As a running back, defensive back, kicker, punter and return man, the 6-foot, 200-pound Berwanger rushed for 1,839 yards, caught 50 passes, scored 22 touchdowns and was All-American in 1934 and 1935.
His coach, the famous Clark Shaughnessy, later an invaluable Halas assistant, called Berwanger “every football coach’s dream player. You can say anything superlative about him, and I’ll double it.”
Berwanger won the Tribune Silver Football as Most Valuable Player in the Big Ten and was named by the Downtown Athletic Club as “most valuable football player east of the Mississippi River.” The trophy wasn’t named for club athletic director John W. Heisman until the following year when Heisman died, so Berwanger was the only winner to meet Heisman himself.
“It wasn’t really a big deal when I got it,” Berwanger recalled in 1985. “I was more excited about the trip than the trophy because it was my first flight.”
For years one of Berwanger’s aunts used the trophy as a doorstop. According to son John, an attorney living in Winnetka, his father donated the original trophy to his high school in Dubuque. The Heisman people made a duplicate, which he donated to the University of Chicago.
The University of Chicago abolished varsity football in 1939. The sport returned to the university on the Division III level in 1969.
When the NFL established its draft in 1936, the Philadelphia Eagles made Berwanger their first pick, but owner Bert Bell, who had proposed the draft, immediately traded him to Halas’ Bears for veteran tackle Art Buss amid ominous reports that Berwanger would be seeking an unheard-of $1,000 a game. Many players were making $50 a game.
Of the 81 players selected in that first draft, only 31 played pro football, so Berwanger’s decision to seek a more profitable career was not unusual.
“There was no money in pro football back then and very little future,” Berwanger said.
The only thing certain about negotiations between Halas and Berwanger is they were short. Halas was quoted as saying Berwanger wanted $14,000 a year, “and I was willing to give him $12,000 and a share of the profits from the previous year.”
Berwanger said their only discussion came at a chance meeting when Berwanger was on a date.
“I told George Halas the one time I saw him–it wasn’t a formal meeting or anything–that I wanted $12,500 [a year] for two years with a no-cut contract,” Berwanger said. “He just wished my date and me a bon farewell.”
Berwanger stayed close to football by coaching for his alma mater until 1939, writing a sports column for the Chicago Daily News and by refereeing college games for two decades.
Berwanger married Philomela Baker, also a University of Chicago graduate, in 1940. They had two sons–John Jay and Cuyler; and a daughter–Helen Tierney. After Philomela’s death in 1975, Berwanger married Jane Temple. She died in 1998. Berwanger also is survived by three stepchildren–Barbara Fewkes, Joseph Temple and Mari Anne Gerwing–as well as 20 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. at Grace Episcopal Church, 120 E. First St., Hinsdale.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the University of Chicago Hall of Fame.
Berwanger by the numbers
A look at Jay Berwanger’s key numbers while a member of the University of Chicago Maroons from 1933-35:
4.19
Average yards per carry (1,839 yards gained in 439 attempts).
50
Passes he completed in 146 attempts for 921 yards (18.4 yards per completion).
152
Total points he accounted for–22 touchdowns and 20 extra points.
267
Kicks he made in his career, 34 kickoffs for a 46.3-yard average and 233 punts for a 38-yard average.
1,341
Total yards gained his senior year–577 yards rushing, 405 yards passing, 359 yards in kickoff returns. He also scored six touchdowns and added five PATs for 41 points.
84
Points he received in Heisman voting–then called the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy–55 more than runner-up Monk Meyer of Army.
