Sports' Forgotten Heroes

When the United States entered World War I, it signaled the end, for a while, to the landscape of college football. So many of the young men playing the game, put their college careers on hold, withdrew from school and joined the military to fight for their country. They left school and found themselves in “training camps” across the U.S., learning how to fight and preparing for deployment to help defeat Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, the Ottoman Empire. Thankfully, a majority of these men, young and older, never left the U.S. as the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. But, while they were training, the college stars of the day, and college stars who had preceded them still had a thirst to play the game. So they formed teams, challenged other camps and, ultimately, schedules were created, games were played, playoffs staged and championships won. War Football was a “thing”. Games between military bases were highly contested and replaced America’s thirst, for the time-being, to watch college football. In fa