RE: Iron Indians Video
Bowman, who went back to school and became a lawyer after his NFL career (as well as a nationally ranked Bridge player), played on two NFL Champions with the Detroit Lions. Lou Creekmur, a great W&M lineman
who played for the top Tribe teams of the late 1940s, also played on those Lion teams and was eventually elected to the NFL Hall of Fame.
Charlie Sumner, who punted, kicked off, quarterbacked, returned kicks and played safety on defense for the Iron Indians (and, I suppose, also carried the water during timeouts), won a couple of Super Bowl rings under John Madden for the Oakland Raiders as their longtime Defensive Coordinator.
Sat at a table with Charlie at one of Jimmye's Football Reunion Spring Dinners and he told three wonderful stories about that season I've never forgotten:
*They had one player on the Iron Indians squad, an end named John Risjord, a student from Kansas who had never played tackle football before. Jackie Freeman had recruited him from the fraternity touch football league the week before the opening game because they needed another player who had some size and they only had two ends. He lasted the whole season.
*For the final game of the season, against Boston University, they were down to fourteen players, including one who played with a broken arm and started a fellow named Bill Nagy at guard who weighed 145 pounds. BU won, 41-14.
*In a much publicized (Life magazine spread the following week) 6-6 tie at Navy, W&M had a player, Bill Marfizo, who played seven different positions that day! I've seen Marfizo at numerous W&M Reunions
and found out that he went on to dental school and became a dentist.
Pappy Gooch, by the way, was not a coach but the Business Manager for the Athletic Department and was at W&M for decades.
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