1933, as we know, was the very.

First NFL title game where division winners played.

Before that, it was the best record.

Before we get into the 35 game, I want to go back a little ways.

This was their second season in Detroit and after four seasons as the Portsmouth Spartans.

They played in Portsmouth from 1930 to 1933.

And they played in the 1932 championship game against the Chicago Bears where they lost nine to nothing.

In 1934, the New York Giants ambushed the high flying Chicago Bears with the help of some gym shoes on an icy field in the big apple.

Detroit, 1935.

The city, a heavyweight staggered by the depression, was starting to rise off the canvas.

Many long feared that the Motor City would not regain its auto manufacturing supremacy at once.

Had Henry Ford wrote, when everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

Ford's forecast came true.

Factories hummed again.

A tentative optimism sparked in the weary eyes of its citizens.

And then a roar, not from the assembly lines, but but also from the gridiron.

A team born from the ashes of a small town Ohio franchise had clawed its way to the top, embodying the city's fight for survival.

This wasn't just a game, it was a symbol, a chance to prove that Detroit could punch back even in the toughest of times.

This is a story of how a city and a team found redemption in a 1935 NFL championship.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another evening of championship.

It's the Pre Super Bowl NFL Championships is what we're covering, 1933-1965.

And we have a lot of help coming in and we have that again tonight as we talk about the 1935 NFL season and the champions of that season, the Detroit Lions.

We have Randy Snow from the World of Football podcast joining us tonight.

A big Detroit fan and a great historian, Randy.

Welcome to the Pig Pen.

Thanks for having me on, Darren.

I'm looking forward to talking to you about this game.

Yeah, Randy, we're talking a little bit beforehand and we see each other once, at least once a year at some of the PFRA meetings that we both attend.

And you know I love yours.

And Adam, your son Adam, on your show the World of Football, maybe you could tell this audience a little bit about the world of football and where people can subscribe to it and watch it.

Okay.

Yeah, Adam is, he's the impetus between behind all of this stuff.

In 2017, he came to me and said, you know, we should do a podcast about football.

You know a lot about football and I know how to do a podcast, so let's do this.

And I put him off for as long as I could and I kept saying, no, no, I don't know about that.

And finally we did.

And once we did our first episode, we did it every week, I think we did non stop every week for about four or five years before we actually took a break.

And the last few years we've taken a break after the Super Bowl.

So we're actually on a break right now for a couple weeks.

But we're coming back with the arena season coming up.

But yeah, it's been seven and a half years that we've been doing this and we're going to get it right one of these days.

But yeah, we just, we banter back and forth and we have a good time.

So it's been a lot of fun.

Yeah, you guys definitely do it right.

And you do cover such a wide array of football.

You know, not just the NFL, not just college football, but you're in the cfl, you're in the arena leagues, like you said, and everything in between.

And we really appreciate you doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

If people want to check us out, we're on Facebook and Twitter and X@2F Kalamazoo.

And we're on YouTube at the World of Football Kalamazoo.

Or you can use the handle at the World of Football to find us.

Our website is the Worldofootball.com and if you want to email us, it's Infoheworldofootball.com so lots of ways to listen or to contact us.

And folks, if you're driving or don't have a pen and pencil, write that down.

We'll put links in the show notes Both on the YouTube channel and a podcast so you can get to Adam and Randy's show and enjoy their great stuff on a game of football.

And as you can see, if you're on the YouTube, there's quite a bit of Honolulu Blue in the picture when, when Randy's talking.

So we know we have the right guy for this 1935 championship because Detroit is, is all over that.

Randy, what can you tell us about the 1935 season in the Detroit Lions.

Well, you know, everybody is aware of the Lions four championship games in the 50s.

You know, the one title in 52, and in 53 they lost in 54, and then they won another one in 57.

So everyone's famil with that whole decade.

But this game in 1935 seems to be forgotten by a lot of people.

They don't know a whole lot about it.

It's.

It was their first and it occurred very early in their years in Detroit.

So before we, we get into the 35 game, I want to go back a little ways.

This was their second season in Detroit, and after four seasons as the Portsmouth Spartans, they played in Portsmouth from 1930 to 1933, and they played in the 1932 championship game against the Chicago Bears where they lost nine to nothing.

Now, some people say that wasn't a true championship game, but the Bears and the Spartans were tied at the end of the season.

Statistically, they had a different record, but by winning percentage they were dead even.

And so it was George Hallis's idea to play a championship game or one game to settle who was going to be the championship champion that year.

And it was going to be played at Wrigley Field, but there was a huge snowstorm there.

So they moved it inside to Chicago Stadium, which is where the NHL Blackhawks played.

So it was a small arena type place, 80 yard field goal posts only on one end.

There'd been a circus there the week before, so there was dirt already on the ground mixed in with some elephant droppings and I guess the smell was pretty bad there.

Dutch Clark, the big star for the Portsmouth Spartans and the Detroit Lions, actually did not play in this game because when the season ended, he went off to his, his other job, which was the head basketball coach at Colorado College.

And the school would not let him leave to go back to Detroit to play in this game because when he left, they, they didn't know there was going to be a championship game.

But he was already out there.

The school said, no, you're here, we want you to stay here.

So he did not play in that championship game.

It really seems like George Hallis really would do the timing of that because what, you know, what he did when they were Chicago Stales in 1921 season, he sort of did the same thing.

Hey, let's play this extra game.

And just to position his team into having a chance of getting into first place.

So very clever, but very competitive and it's sort of.

He did almost the, the Staley swindle here, especially with Clark not being able to play that.

That's their quarterback, that's their lead guy on offense.

You know, that's pretty, pretty big thing that he didn't play well.

Yeah, George Hallis was quite the innovator and he was always looking for an angle or a way to make an extra buck, you know, get an extra gate receipts, you know, for his team and whatever.

But when you think about it, this game at Chicago Stadium, to me it's equivalent to one of today's arena football games.

You know, play down a hockey rink, boards really close in, the fans are right there, and you see some of the pictures of that game and you think, oh my God, that's like an arena football game without the nets on the, on the, hanging from the roof.

But anyway, moving on to the 1934 season, you know, they, they had a good team in 32 to make it that far and, and to play for a championship that year.

But then in 1934, the team was bought by George Richards and moved to Detroit and they, they changed the name to the Lions.

And that first year in Detroit, very first year in Detroit, they went 10 and three and their first 10 games were all victories with seven games that were shutouts.

So I mean, they were just running over everybody in the NFL that first year.

They lost their last three games by three points in each game.

Each game was a three point loss, the last the rest of the way, including their Thanksgiving Day game, which was the very first Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit.

They lost that to, to the Bears and, but, but they finished second in the western division that year to the Bears who went on to the, the championship game that year.

And I think they lost to the.

To the Giants, but yeah, the Giants won that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, so they had a, you know, that was the.

Detroit's first glimpse of the Detroit lions was a 10 and O team with seven shutouts beating up on everybody.

So yeah, they, they thought, well, we really got something special here.

And a lot of the players were the same ones that were in Portsmouth.

So the good team in Portsmouth came to Detroit and became a good Lions team right from the start.

So when you go to the 1935 season, they had a 7, 3 and 2 record with three shutouts that season also, you know, they started out with a 35 to nothing shut out of the Philadelphia Eagles in the first week of the season.

And they just seemed to beat up on everybody that year.

They beat the Boston Redskins.

They beat, beat them Twice they beat the Chicago Cardinals, the Green Bay packers, and the Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Dodgers.

And they actually got little revenge on the Bears on Thanksgiving Day in 1935.

They actually beat them 14 to 2 on Thanksgiving Day.

So that was their first win on Thanksgiving in Detroit.

The Lions, for some reason, they played everybody in the league that year except the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Now, I don't know why they didn't play the Pittsburgh Pirates that year, because they played the Green Bay packers three times, where the other teams in the division, they played them twice.

So I have not been able to find out why they didn't play.

Maybe they didn't want to hurt their strength of schedule.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I really don't know.

Okay, so the.

The championship game in Detroit was played at the University of Detroit Stadium.

And there's.

There's some kind of controversy about how many people were actually in attendance.

I've seen 12,000 and I've seen 15,000.

I've seen more 15,000 than I seen 12,000.

So I don't know between 12 and 15,000 in attendance.

The game was played on Sunday, December 15th.

Lions versus Giants.

And the Lions won the game, 20, 26 to 7.

Detroit only completed 2 of 5 passes for 51 yards in that game because of the weather conditions.

It was.

It was rainy and sleet, so the ground game was everything.

And Detroit scored four rushing touchdowns on the day.

Now, the Giants came into the game with a 9 and 3 record, but Green Bay actually had a better record in the west than the Lions did.

But Detroit had a better winning percentage because ties weren't counted.

So that gave them a better winning percentage and sent them to the championship game.

But all four teams in the West Division all had winning records.

The Bears and the Cardinals both had 6, 4 and 2 records.

Detroit was 7, 3 and 1, and Green Bay was 8 and 4.

So everybody in the west had a winning record that year as far as.

Tough division, that's for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it still is to this day, I think.

I mean, at least when they're playing each other.

That's the.

That.

What is it now, the Central?

No, it's not the Central.

It's the North Division.

North.

See, I'm still saying NFC Central like I still think Tampa Bay is in our division.

But.

But it's not.

It's the NFC north, and it's still a very competitive division.

And that was evident this year to see in the way those teams played against each other.

Yeah.

Went right down to the end this year.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So the scoring in the championship game kind of went like this.

In the first quarter, Lions fullback Ace Gutowski scored on a two yard run and Glenn Presnell kicked the extra point for seven to nothing lead for, for the Lions.

And also in the first quarter, quarterback Dutch Clark ran for 40 yards for a touchdown.

The extra point was missed.

And so Detroit had a 13 to nothing lead at that point.

In the second quarter, Giants fullback Ken Strong had a 42 yard pass reception from quarterback Ed Danowski.

Spell his name.

Yep, yep.

And the extra point made it 13 to 7.

And then in the fourth quarter, it was all.

Detroit wide receiver Ernie Cadell had a four yard rushing touchdown.

And Dutch Clark kicks the extra point there for a 20 to 7 lead.

And then finally the Lions fullback Buddy Parker had a four yard run for a touchdown with an extra point that was missed.

It's probably pretty windy that day, so they missed a lot of extra points.

But that led to the final score being 26 to 7 in favor of Detroit.

Right there in Detroit.

In their second season in the city, they walk away with an NFL championship over a really good New York Giants team.

So, and like I said this, this game really has gotten lost to a lot of people that, even to a lot of Lions fans, they don't, they don't remember that, oh, Detroit won a championship in 1935.

All they know are those, those winning teams in the 1950s.

They had some interesting things, you know, as I was researching the Lions, you know, because I wanted to learn a little bit more about them as we came into this week.

And they had an interesting guy named Bill shepherd and I don't know if you got any detail on him, but I mean this, this dude came from a small college and I have to look it up because it's such an odd name of it.

McDaniel College.

I'm sorry, that's McDaniel College now.

It was Western Maryland College.

And he, he ended up being the feature back in the, the Chicago All Star game that year, 1934, he was drafted by the Redskins and he only played like two months.

He, the Redskins traded him to Detroit in early November and the first game he plays for the Lions, he scores two touchdowns against the Packers.

You know, so pretty, pretty unbelievable story for the rookie and got kind of a great story.

A guy I've never wasn't familiar with.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of names back then.

I don't really recognize a few.

I do, but yeah, there's a lot of guys that have also gotten lost to history.

But you mentioned the College All Star Game.

The Lions being the NFL champion, got to play in that all star game on September 2, 1936.

The following season, you know, as a preseason game, they played against a bunch of College all stars in Chicago.

And it was only the third time they had ever played a college All Star game like that for charity.

The charity game was a brainchild of Arch Ward, who was the Chicago Tribune's sports editor.

And that thing ran until like 1976.

I, I really became a fan in the mid-70s.

So I remember, you know, hearing about the College All Stars playing against the, the NFL champion back in the 70s before they, they shut that whole thing down.

But it was, it's a pretty interesting concept.

The Lions trailed in that All Star Game 7 to nothing at halftime.

But Ernie Cadell scored the lone Lions touchdown in the fourth quarter on a 10 yard run.

And Dutch Clark drop kicked the extra point.

Not just a kick, a drop kick, the extra point.

And the game ended in a 7, 7 tie.

So that was kind of like the, the dessert to the NFL Championship game for the, for the Lions that year.

The 35 title helped Detroit become known as the City of Champions.

Because not only did Detroit win the NFL championship that year, in 1935, the Tigers won the World Series by beating the Chicago Cubs.

Boxer Joe Lewis from Detroit won the heavyweight title by beating Max Baer.

That was in September of 1935.

And the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley cup in 1936 by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs.

So that's how Detroit became known as the City of Champions, because they had all those championships within, I think it actually was within six months of one another.

All these championships were one.

And that's all the major sports then.

You know, that's, that's everything.

You know, there's no NBA really going on at that time.

No, no, the, the Pistons didn't come to Detroit till many years later.

Yeah.

Wow.

That is.

I don't know if I've ever seen a city win that many championships.

And one.

I don't think anybody has one calendar year.

Yeah, that's.

I think a few teams have come close, but.

But nobody has actually had that many, you know, major championships at one time.

Yeah.

But here's, yeah, here's some other fun facts that I dug up while I was researching this.

Gus Doray was the head coach at the University of Detroit at the time that the championship game was played.

And he was in attendance at the game because they were playing it in his home stadium.

Of course, Dore would Go on to become the Lions head coach for five seasons from 1943 to 1947, and he posted a 20, 31 and 2 record.

I've been to his grave, by the way, just in case you wanted to know that he was roommates with.

We're going to talk about that subject here a little bit.

He was a roommate of Newt Rockne at Notre Dame in the early 1900s, and he was the best man at Knute Rockne's wedding when Newt Rockne married Bonnie Skiles in Sandusky, Ohio, in 1914.

So those two guys were.

Were really, really close.

And Doray went on to be quite a good college coach.

He bounced around a couple different colleges, but he was right there in Detroit when Detroit won the.

The NFL title.

And a few years later, they asked him to be the Lions head coach, and he said yes.

And so he was there for, for five years.

Another thing you might not know is that halfback Glenn Presnell, who was on the team with the Spartans and with the Lions, he and his wife Liz, were actually the ones that picked out the Honolulu blue and silver uniforms for the team.

The new owner, who was George A.

Richards, invited them to his office in Detroit after they moved the team up there, and personnel came up and signed his contract and, and to stay with the team.

And they took him into another room, took the couple into the other room, and there were all these different samples of pants and jerseys.

And they said, well, you know, what, what colors do you like?

What do you think?

And they looked at all the different options, you know, red jerseys and blue jerseys and green, whatever.

And they, they really liked the blue and silver uniforms.

They said that was really sharp, and that's what they went with.

So Glenn Presnell and his wife are the ones responsible for the Honolulu blue and silver that you see around here today.

It's probably one of the best color schemes in NFL.

It's a great.

You're not going to get an argument.

Not going to get an argument from me.

I, I love the blue and silver.

The Spartans old colors were kind of a purple and gold color.

And, and I think they just wanted something new when they got to Detroit to change the name, change the colors, whatever.

But the team colors were changed.

The Lions team colors were changed for two seasons in 1948 and 49 when they went to red and white as the team colors.

That was done by head coach Bo McMillan, and that was to match the colors at Indiana University, which is where he had been for many years at the college level.

And he had a lot of success there, too.

So he decided, well, I'm going to change the team colors to red and white.

And there's some pictures of the Lions wearing red and white.

They did that in the 48 season and in the 49 season.

The team kind of said, well, let's.

Let's just do it for away games or something like that.

And by 1950, they'd gone back to the all Honolulu blue and silver uniforms.

I'm very grateful for that.

Yeah, I think that was a good choice.

Yeah.

Now, and the Honolulu blue, I mean, the shade of the blue has changed over the years.

Sometimes it's a little darker, sometimes it's a little lighter, but it's still.

The blue and silver combination is really, really good.

Another interesting fact is that fullback Buddy Parker, who was on this 35 team, would go on to be the Lions head coach from 1951 to 1956.

And he led the team to titles in 52 and 53 and lost to the Browns in 1954.

And then he abruptly quit as head coach of the team right after training camp in 1957, when they were having a team dinner with the press and all that.

And he just, he got up before everybody and said, you know what?

I quit.

I can't take this anymore.

He was upset with the prima donna athletes of the time, the Buddy Bobby Lanes, and those kind of guys on the team.

They wouldn't listen to him.

They did whatever they wanted.

And so he just finally said, I've had enough.

I can't take it.

So he quit just before the 57 season.

Now, the team went on to win another title that year, and that was their last title to this day.

But Buddy Parker went on to be the head coach at the.

Of the Pittsburgh Steelers after that.

And it's interesting.

It's interesting he didn't get along with Lane, but he traded for Lane and the Steelers, like a year later.

That's.

You're exactly right on that.

And Buddy Parker was a finalist to go into the Pro Football hall of fame in 2023.

Obviously didn't make it, and I don't think he was a finalist this last year.

So I don't know if that was going to be his one shot to.

To get into the Pro Football hall of Fame or not, but we'll see.

It might have had something to do with the fact that he quit on a team, and maybe, maybe they didn't want to quitter in the hall of Fame, who knows?

And he did throw away maybe one of the greatest quarterback rooms of all time the Steelers had with Len Dawson, Jack Kemp and Ted Marchobrodos, who he kept.

There was one.

I don't think he got rid.

He's not responsible for United.

I think that was the coach before him.

The United says a year before he got there.

But yeah, it's drawn a blank on who that third quarterback was.

There's another great quarterback.

He got rid of them all and then traded for Lane.

Yeah, when.

When Adam and I were at the PFRA convention in Pittsburgh, we saw he was.

He was in their, like, team hall of Fame, the same as Detroit.

So he's in both teams.

Hall of Fame.

Bobby Lane is.

That was.

That was a little weird to think that he's in two different teams.

Team hall of Fame, right?

Yep.

But then their head coach in 1935 was Potsy Clark, and he was the Portsmouth Spartans head coach from 1931-33.

He came along with the Lions to Detroit and he was there from 34 to 36.

He went on to be the head coach of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the football team, not the baseball team, from 37 to 39.

And then the Lions, George Richards sold the team to a guy by the name of fred Mandel in 1940.

And Mandel brought Buddy Parker, or not Buddy Parker, Potsy Clark back to Detroit in.

For one season in 1940.

So he.

He came back to Detroit for one season.

But yeah, there were.

There were some great players on that 35 team.

You talk about.

Dutch Clark, the quarterback.

He.

These guys in the.

In those days, they played both ways.

So he was not only a quarterback, but he was also a defensive back.

And he kicked.

He kicked extra points and field goals and drop kicks and all that.

He was with the Spartans from 31 to 32.

He was with the Lions from 34 to 38.

Then he became the.

Actually a player coach of the Lions.

He was the head coach from 37 to 38.

And then he went on to be the head coach of the Cleveland Rams from 39 to 42.

And.

And he was inducted into the Pro Football hall of fame in 1963, which was their inaugural class.

That's how good Dutch Clark was.

And his number has been retired in Detroit.

Number seven that he wore.

Nobody's ever worn number seven since then.

Yeah.

Impressive player, that's for sure.

Yeah.

Yep.

And like I said, you know, we mentioned Glenn Prosnell.

He was with the Spartans for.

For three years and then came to the Lions 34 to 36.

You had Ace Gatowski Another guy, he was a fullback.

He was with the Spartans, played with the Lions, then finished his career in 1939 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Buddy Parker, like I said he was, he was with The Lions from 35 to 36.

He played for the Chicago Cardinals from 37 to 43.

Then he became the head coach of the Cardinals from.

In 1949.

Yeah, and he was Lions head coach from 51 to 56, winning two titles in 52 and 53.

And he finished his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1957-1964.

So two coaches from Detroit both wound up in the Steelers when they were done with Detroit.

Didn't help them much, but better record than they would have had, but didn't help him at that point.

Yep.

And you were mentioning Bill Shepard, the fullback.

He was with the Boston Redskins in 1935, and he was with the Lions from, I think, 36 to 1940.

So all these guys, you know, they didn't play 10, 15 years back then.

They.

They'd play for a few years and then they'd say, you know what?

I'm tired of getting beat up for no money, so I'm gonna go do something else.

And they did make more money working in a grocery store or something than you did the NFL back then, you know, that's for sure.

Yeah, but, you know, back in those days, you actually could make more money going to Canada to play up there.

And a lot of players did go up to Canada and made, you know, if not more money, the same amount of money they would have gotten in the.

In the United States.

And that was true right up until the 70s or 80s, that the money was kind of the same.

And then free agency and the NFL came along and the paycheck skyrocketed.

So it just wasn't the same after that.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Wow.

Interesting time in football.

You know, that whole era, you know, between, like you said, the CFL and the NFL were dead even, you know, in a lot of things.

That's why they had exhibition games playing against each other.

I think there was a handful of those, especially in the 60s and maybe into the early 70s, and some interesting games, but, yeah, really, really neat football history.

Yeah.

I think Bobby Lane actually played with the Steelers against a Canadian team.

I forget which one, but he there.

I've seen highlights of him throwing the ball against a Canadian team.

I think it was the Argos.

Could be.

Could be.

Yeah.

I was thinking Hamilton, but, yeah, I could be wrong.

Yeah, it'd been too much black and gold.

In that if it was Hamilton.

Yeah, it's hard to say.

It's hard to tell when most of the footage back then is all black and white.

You can't, you can't tell the players without a number in those days.

That's why I'm still, I'm still floored with Detroit being red and white for, you know, some period of time.

That's, that's, yeah, interesting.

Just a couple years, but yeah, that was all Their, their head coach, he'd had a lot of success at Indiana and he wanted to, to let everybody know that he was from Indiana and this, he did real well with those colors on the field, so didn't quite work out for him in Detroit, but it did happen for two seasons.

Well, that is a fantastic history you shared with us, Randy.

Really enjoyed that, you know, Talking about the 35 season, all these great players and the seasons surrounding that 35 season.

But you have an interesting hobby that you love and you mentioned a little bit and we're going to get into it here.

But you love to post on social media.

And I, I've been at some of the events where you've gone to some of these graveyards and taking pictures with the tombstones of famous football folks, like, where did that start?

And you know, tell us a little bit about that.

Well, when, when I was growing up, my dad worked in a factory and he, he, he and my mom had five kids.

I was number four out of five.

And so he, yeah, he worked in a factory, but he always had a side job.

He was a locksmith.

For 20 years he was, he owned an archery shop in town.

And, and the other, the third job that he had for several years was he sold cemetery monuments.

And we lived right next to the cemetery in town when I, where I grew up.

And he had a bunch of displays in our backyard next to the cemetery.

And, and a lot of people thought that our backyard was part of the cemetery, but it was just, you know, a display of the kind of, you know, graves that you could get.

And, and I used to go with him on Saturday mornings.

He, he'd go to some town quite a ways away to check on the, the marker that he sold somebody, make sure that the dates were correct, that it got delivered, everything was spelled right and the days were right.

So I'd go around with him on a Saturday morning to, to these cemeteries.

And I just, I've always found it fascinating.

But then it all started around, right around 2006, I think.

I had just finished reading a book about knute Rockne.

And it talked about how he was buried in South Bend.

Well, I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

That's about a little over an hour away from South Bend.

So I went out of my way to go down there and find his grave and got a picture of myself with it, and that was the start of this whole thing.

Since then, I've been to see George Gipp's grave.

He's.

He's up in Calumet, Michigan, which was up in the Upper Peninsula, in the Keweenal Peninsula, as high up in.

In the state of Michigan as you can go before you hit Lake Superior.

So he's buried up there.

There's.

There's several right around here in Michigan.

The.

Gosh, I'm forgetting his name now, but he was the.

The owner of the New York Titans.

Starts with a W.

Whisner.

Is it Wisner, I think.

Yeah, I think you're right.

But he's.

He's buried over in.

Oh, gosh, it's over by that bridge in Port Huron.

That's where it is.

Port Huron.

So, I mean, there's some around Michigan, but I've been to Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania to see his grave.

And it's really fascinating because it makes these players and coaches.

I hate to say this, but it makes them come alive because it's not just a name in a book or a picture that you see.

You're actually standing there with that person in this cemetery, and it's.

It's kind of cool.

And so for every time I go to a grave, I get my picture taken with the grave.

And I also write a small article about that person.

Why did I go to see this guy?

What's he important for?

What's.

You know, why did I want to go out of my way to go find his grave three states over?

And so I'll explain what he did in life and just let people know about these guys, because I don't want them to be forgotten.

They're.

They're great for football history and.

And they need to be remembered.

Yeah, you know, it's.

It's hard to get within six feet of any NFL celebrity now, like Andy Reid.

You can't get within six feet of them.

But you're six feet away from Newt Rockne and even closer to Jim Thorpe, because I don't.

I think he's interred in a.

Yeah.

You'Re probably, you know, a foot away from him, possibly.

You know, so that's.

That's pretty cool.

But I have a question.

How popular was Your house as a kid, Halloween, if you have the cemetery there, you have the whole display going in the backyard, you know that you had to be all the kids that either were staying away from your house or there's a big long line.

Yeah, I was, I was pretty young at the time, so I don't remember anything about Halloween, but I, I just remember going out and playing on these stones.

You know, the bigger ones, I'd ride them like a horse and, and the other ones, I just practiced jumping over them and, and whatnot.

So they were just, they were just part of our backyard and, and it was just, it was just a part of growing up.

I didn't know any better.

Oh, very, very interesting.

It's a, interesting hobby and it's great to follow when you post these things.

I know, you know, I know when we were down in Pittsburgh last summer or two summers ago, I guess now, and you had some there.

I know Pop Warner, when you've been up in Springville, New York, which are our pilgrimage, is coming up here soon to go there for a third year in a row.

And you know, some of the other places, I know you've done that.

So really appreciate you doing that because it really captures the history and like you say it, it brings preservation to these folks, legacy by.

You're honoring them at their grave site.

So kudos to you.

Yeah, if, if people want to see these pictures, they can go to the world of football.com and there's a link across the top that says about us.

And I have all the pictures of all the graves and a lot of other places that I've been to over the years.

And if you want to read the article, there's a link on the left hand side in the blue column on the side that says my articles.

And you'll find all the articles for all these graves that I went to.

And yeah, it's been a labor of love.

I've really enjoyed doing it.

And last year I only went to one grave and it was Knute Rockne again because his family had him moved from one cemetery to another in South Bend last year.

They didn't really make a big deal out of it.

People didn't know it happened until it was all done.

But when, when he was killed in 1931 in that plane crash, he, his wife decided to bury him in a cemetery on the east side of town because they had, from what I understand, they had a good maintenance crew there that kept the cemetery looking very nice and was always well kept and everything.

But a lot Of.

But I wondered at the time, why wouldn't they bury him on the campus of Notre Dame?

Because there is a cemetery there and there's.

There's several players that I.

I went to see Aero Parsegian's grave in that cemetery, and I wondered, why isn't Newt Rockne here?

And.

And I found out that that's why.

Because his wife wanted him in a place that was going to be well kept.

And at the time, that cemetery wasn't very well going to move him to the cemetery on the campus.

And so I went to go visit it.

Yeah, it's amazing with Rockne.

You know, you look at him and he looks like he's like in his 60s when he's alive and coaching.

He died at 43 years old in 1931.

That's amazing to me that he was that young.

Must have lived hard, you know, all that coaching and playing.

Yeah, it was different times back then.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Randy, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing this.

This great season for the Detroit lions and the NFL 35 season was great with all these players.

And, you know, the competition level just went through the roof with Portsmouth turning into Detroit and winning a championship and sharing with us on your podcast and your YouTube channel with Adam World of Football Kalamazoo.

And we really appreciate you coming on here today and sharing your time.

So thank you once again where they can find you and Adam at.

And appreciate you being on.

Yep, we're@theworldofootball.com we're on X Facebook and Twitter @TW O F Kalamazoo.

We're on YouTube at the World of Football Football Kalamazoo.

And yeah, that's.

That's where we're at.

We're not hard to find.

All right, well, we appreciate you and we'll be checking you out.

And we got some more Alliance Championships coming up here later on, so we'd love to have you on again.

Maybe.

Maybe Adam can come on with you, too.

We'd love to have a lot of Honolulu Blue coming in.

Well, if we did new and I wouldn't get a word in edgewise, so just be prepared.

Okay?

That's all right.

All right.

Thanks, Randy.

Thank you.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well as our own Football comics strip cleat marks comics pigskindispatch.com it's also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and don't forget the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe, as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear division.

Favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.