Metro
Football Pioneer
Pro football ends Benny Friedman's drought; adds U-M QB to Hall of Fame.
Benny Friedman
ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
Ann Arbor
envy Friedman didn't invent
the forward pass, but the
University of Michigan quar-
terback took the seldom-used play to a
new level in the 1920s and carried the
college and professional game of foot-
ball to undreamed of heights.
The only mystery might be: Why
did the recognition come so late, 22
years after the embittered U-M legend
ended his own life?
Friedman was born in 1905 into an
Orthodox Jewish family. When he first
went out for football in high school,
he was cut from the squad after two
weeks. After the family moved, he
made the varsity in 1921 at his new
school, Cleveland's Glenville High. A
year later, as a senior, he led Glenville
to the mythical high school national
championship by defeating Chicago's
Oak Park High.
At 5'8" and 170 pounds, most col-
leges weren't interested in Friedman.
But Michigan gave him a chance and
he led the Wolverines through two
near-perfect seasons and was twice
named to the All-American team.
Defying the rules of the day, he
lobbed high, arcing passes that floated
down into his receivers' hands.
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The ball was heavy and melon-shaped.
Passers had to be five yards behind the
scrimmage line and two consecutive
incomplete throws resulted in a penal-
ty. As a result of Friedman's success,
both the ball and the rules were
changed.
In his junior year, 1925, Friedman
was U-M's starting quarterback. The
team went 7-1, outscoring opponents
227-3. Friedman threw 11 touch-
down passes that year and did all the
placekicking. Against Indiana,
Friedman threw for five TDs, ran 55
yards for another and kicked eight
extra points. He also played defense,
going both ways as most players did
in those days.
Friedman became a professional in
1927 and played seven seasons. In
1927, he threw for a pro record 11
touchdowns. His hometown team, the
Cleveland Bulldogs, became the
Detroit Wolverines in 1928. In 1929,
the Detroit franchise was bought by
the New York Giants so that the
Giants could obtain the rights to
Friedman. What had been a losing
proposition in New York started to
turn a profit after Friedman's arrival.
He threw for a pro record 20 TDs
that season and became the highest
paid player with a $10,000 salary. He
led the league in TD passes for four
consecutive seasons, 1927-30, and
held the league record of 66 career TD
passes until 1944. He left the Giants
in 1932, following a leg injury the
previous year and a failed attempt to
gain partial ownership, and finished
his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers
football team in 1934.
Friedman was football coach at City
College of New York from 1934 until
1941. He joined the U.S. Navy that
year and served as an aircraft carrier
officer during World War II.
From 1949 to 1963, he served as
head football coach and athletic direc-
tor at Brandeis University in Waltham,
Mass. He retired in 1963 from
Brandeis, citing the growing responsi-
bilities of the job. Another factor may
have been the school's decision to drop
football.
He also ran a summer camp for boys
in Maine and, at the end of each sum-
mer, a camp for quarterbacks.
Many who knew him described
Friedman as a bitter man. A Detroit
area cousin who met him only once,
Southfield businessman Michael
Norman, remembers family stories
about Friedman.
"He was always very bitter,"
Norman said after Friedman was
elected to the Pro Football Hall of
Fame last weekend. "He always had
problems, always thought he
deserved more."
Norman said neither Friedman nor
the family believed anti-Semitism
played a role in the Hall of Fame
slight. "After all," Norman said, "Sid
Luckman and Sid Gilman are in the
Hall of Fame. It just seemed that he
[Friedman] always had a chip on his
shoulder."
Another factor, historians believe,
is that detailed records as we know
them today were unheard of during
Friedman's pioneering years in pro
football.
But his contemporaries appreciated
him. According to legendary Chicago
Bears owner and coach George Haas,
Friedman was the first pro quarterback
to "exploit the strategic possibilities of
the forward pass." Running back Red
Grange called Friedman the best quar-
terback he had ever seen.
One of the first players inducted
into the College Football Hall of Fame
and a member of the National
Football Foundation and Jewish Sports
halls of fame, Friedman was galled by
the slight from the Pro Football Hall
of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
The hall opened in 1963 and
Friedman wrote a letter of complaint
to the New York Times in 1976. He
died in his New York apartment in
1982 of what police described as a
self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Brandeis University alumni planned
a posthumous tribute to Friedman at
the school's 50th anniversary dinner in
1998. From that event came an effort,
headed by former Brandeis football
team manager Bob Weintraub, to
lobby for Friedman's election to the
hall of fame.
The group sent a package to the 39
members of the media who vote for
induction. Brandeis President Jehuda
Reinharz wrote a separate letter sup-
porting the move. The nomination
was forwarded to the hall's Seniors
Committee.
Friedman and black coaching legend
Fritz Pollard needed 80 percent of the
votes to be elected to the hall. ❑
Much of the information for this article
appeared in wire service reports, "Great
Jews in Sports" (Jonathan David
Publishers), and William Manus'
"Passing Recognition" (U-M's 'Michigan
Today," Fall 2004).