HISTORY:
Ivy League NFL Draft
Picks
(1st - 4th Rounds)
First Round
Chuck Bednarik
Penn (1949)
Sid Luckman
Columbia
(1939 Chicago Bears)
THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE
Skip Minisi
Penn
(1948 New York
Giants)
ELITE OF AMERICAN ACADEMIC
INSTITUTIONS. HOWEVER, THERE WAS Fritz Barzilauskas
Yale
(1947 Boston)
A TIME WHEN THE SCHOOLS THAT Paul Governali
Columbia
(1943 Brooklyn)
MAKE UP THE IVY LEAGUE WERE ALSO
THE ELITE OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Bob MacCleod
Dartmouth
(1939 Brooklyn)
IN 1945, ALL OF THAT CHANGED. Charlie Gogolak
Princeton
(1966 Washington)
Marty Domres
Columbia
(1969 San Diego)
I
The Early Years
t started in 1869 when Princeton and Rutgers
met in early November to play what historians
refer to as the first college football game. With
teams of 25 players, the game looked nothing
like it does today. Rutgers won 6-4, and college
football was born.
Schools like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia began
fielding teams and soon the institutions known as
the Ivy Group were all participating in the country’s
newest and fastest growing sport. Football grew in
popularity as the nation entered the 20th century. The
game also became incredibly violent. In the 15-year
span between 1890 and 1905, 330 college football
players died as a result of playing the game.
The president of the United States at the time,
Theodore Roosevelt, was a huge football fan. In 1906,
Roosevelt met with officials from 13 different schools
to discuss how to make the game safer. Later that same
year, 62 schools gathered in New York City to draft
changes to the rules of college football. The result of
Calvin Hill
Yale
(1969 Dallas, 24)
Second Round
Franny Murray
Penn
(1937 Philadelphia)
Bob Odell
Penn
(1944 Pittsburgh)
Ed Marinaro
Cornell
(1972 Minnesota)
Joe Valerio
Penn
(1991 Kansas City)
Marcellus Wiley
Columbia
(1997 Buffalo)
Jeff Rohrer
Yale
(1982 Dallas)
Third Round
Lou Kusserow
Columbia
(1949 Detroit)
Coach & Player Magazine • Spring 2017
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