The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-11

Friedmon Overcome Discourogement To Be Greatest Player of His Period
By HARRY CRIMSON (NEA Sports EditOF)

oeIlIly ETleutLldu IWlCC ONGASdAAiC Encouragement to scale the heights in football.
 Two weeks after solemn-faced lit- tie Benny Friedman entered Cleve- lands Each Tech high, Sam Villa man, the cocah dashed his fondest hopes by telling him he'd never make a football player. So Benny packed himself off to Glenville high
 A short while later Willaman met up with the Glenville coach and remarked: T see you've a boy named Friedman on your team. l had him a couple of weeks and he was flivver. If. you make player of him and he's on your first team at the end of the season I'll buy dinners for every high school coach in Cleveland"
 At the end of the season all the high school coaches in Cleveland sat down to 8 dinner and the head waiter handed Sam Wil1aman the check.
 Eight years later at Michigan, Fielding H. Yost characterized a scintillating Benny Friedman as "the only quarterback I ever saw who went through an entire season without making mistake-the greatest quarterback I ever had" DUMMIES MADE GOOD
 There was no pronounced hull 1abaloo over the chunky quarter back in his freshman year at Ann Arbor Almays of retiring dis position, Benny had made few friends. Disappointed and lonely, he packed his trunk and announced he was off for Dartmouth, where some of his Glenville teammates had gone. George Little, Hurry Up Yost's chief deputy, disSuaded the youngster.
 One October afternoon while Friedman and a lanky end named Ferenz were begging a football to each other, Tad Weinan, line coach, asked Little for couple of scrubs to run the ball into the tackles-an interferer and & car rier.
 Take those two dummies over there," said Little. not meaning I for the players to hear him.
 For four afternoons the guinea pig team of Friedman and Ferenz took it on the chin. But on the fifth day they put three varsity tackles out for the season
 Friedman was a swarthy, evenly featured kid with raven hair and glittering black eyes. He stood feet 9, weighed 172 pounds in col lege, 180 as professional.
 PASSER CARRIED TEAMS
 The highly intelligent and quick and clear thinking Friedman played in the day of the seven- man line and not too much passing.
 He was the first passer to carry team. Michigan and the New York Giants won with his marks manship. He threw with the lack Of effort of Red Ruff1ng.
 He ran more with the Polo Grounders than he did in school and at his peak was considered by some the top player of the game. He was fast enough and sure tackler and excellent safety man. He didn't punt but was fair place. kicker. He was the acme of non- chalance. made it look simple.
 From childhood a football was as inseparable a toy of Benny Friedman as rag doll is to lit tie girl. His hands grew large and horny fondling football. He could wrap his muscular paw half way around the equator of a foot ball.
 LICK PICKING GRAPEFRUIT
 Friedman developed a pass far ahead of anything seen up until then--a knack that gave the ball peculiar drop so calculated that | when the ball reached the receiver or the receiver reached the ball hall he would take it with the ease of picking a grapefruit off tree. The ambition of Friedman, now Naval officer was to be lawyer, but when he left college, his father, neighborhood tailor who slaved to put him through school, had become incapacitated. In or der ot support the family, including his parents, two younger brothers and an orphaned niece, Benny turned to the money game instead of Blackstone.
 Michigan was beaten four times with Friedman running the works twice in his sophomore year, once by Red Grange and illinois. Bennys place-kick was the margin between Michigan and tn Wheaton Iceman and the Illini the following fall.
 The Wolverines won the Big Ten championship in 1925-26 though shaded by Northwestern by the baseball score of 3-2, in '25. Only whale of Navy team repelled the Maize and Blue, 10-O, in Cap- tain Friedman's senior year. Fried man-directed teams thrice beat Ohio State, where Sam Willaman went as assistant to pr. John Wilce before becoming head coach
 But the name Benny Friedman is synonymous with passing and Benny Ooosterbaan, the tall end and the other half of the combina- ton whose own remarkable ability made the pitcher even more bril- liant.