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. B TN 2/10 2005 22 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).