Dufek Wahl Spark Wolverines to Big Ten Crown *. 1* 4 By JIM PARKER After all the honorary titles, All-American team berths and mile- long adjectives describing superlative play have been handed out by the sportswriters and sportscasters, Michigan's Al Wahl and Don Dufek each point to one title with particular satisfaction - those which were bestowed upon them by their teammates. For Wahl it was the election by his teammates at the end of the 1949 season to the captaincy of the Wolverines 1950 football squad and for Dufek it was the team's selection of 'him as Michigan's most valuable player. BUT EVEN MORE GRATIFYING to the two Maize and Blue greats is the fact that the honor came to them after each had started out on the Michigan eleven playing in 'the shadow of another player. When Wahl returned to the Michigan campus for his first year of varsity competition after having served with the Army of Occupation in Germany, the six foot three inch 220 pound tackle found himself playing opposite another Al by the ijame of Wistert, third in the line of the immortal Wistert family of Michigan, and All-Amei'ican like his two brothers. The headlines in 1948 went to Wistert, but the fine, aggressive play of Wahl at right tackle earned for him the nackname of "Brick" in his first year of varsity competition. THE NEXT YEAR WAHL more than came into his own. His rugged line play earned All-American honors for himself as he led the Wolverines of 1949 to their third straight Western Conference Championship (shared with Ohio State that year). Then as captain of the 1950 Wolverine eleven, "Big Al" led Michigan to the story book finish that netted the Maize and Blue the Big Ten crown and its third opportunity to field a team in the annual Rose Bowl classic. WITH DUFEK THE CLIMB to fame was even more difficult. Originally headed for South Bend, Ind., and the Notre Dame football team, Dufek soon left that campus and came to Ann Arbor. . On the Michigan freshman team, Dufek's gridiron future looked anything but good. As a result of an unimpressive fresh- man year, the Evanston, Ill., youngster was not even invited out for varsity practice the next year, 1948. Dufek was not to be denied, however. He went out for practice anyway, working his own way without the benefit of being on the training table. Hard work finally earned "the Duffer" a berth on the varsity, but it was in a spot overshadowed by Tom Peterson, regular fullback on the 1948 National Championship team and the squad's leading scorer. BUT NOT EVEN PETERSON was enough to stop the rapidly improving Dufek the next year. The 1948 regular was forced down to the second team and Dufek moved into the starting role. The 1949 season proved the wisdom of the change as Dufek took over the team scoring leadership, bulling his way to five touchdowns for the Big Ten Co-Champs of that year. And in 1950 Dufek more than earned the title Most Valuable Player (chosen second most valuable in the Big Ten by The Chicago Tribune), again pacing the Michigan scoring (42 points) and leading the team on the ground with 589 net yards rushing. * i DON DUFEK-MICHIGAN'S MOST VALUABLE PLAYER AL WAHI-MICHIGAN'S ALL-AMERICAN CAPTAIN ROSE BOWL EXTRA Y L SAitr igan A& :43 a 4ir 149 'ROSE BOWL EXTRA Latest Deadline in the State VOL. LXI, No. 76 ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1951 , EIGHT PAGES S * f " S S * * s * " * f 'M' Seeks Third Bowl Win Today LEO KOCESKI BILL PUTICH OZZIE CLARK TONY MOMSEN CARL KREAGER ROGER ZATKOFF '01 Michigan Team In First Bowl Game The Big Ten Champs OFFENSE Fans Recall Great 'M' '47 Bowl Team By CY CARLTON , It should be a sunny Monday this New Year's Day in Pasadena when Michigan's Wolverines face their third Rose Bowl game since the start of football's "Run for the Rosas Carolinas." There will undoubtedly be few fans in the stands of the giant bowl who were witnesses to the first Rose classic. But in the hearts of many old time fans in Palo Alto and all over the Paci- fic coast, bitter memories 'still echo about that fateful day in 1902 when Michigan first went to the big Bowl. * * *'- FOR ON THAT afternoon, the first day of 1902, one of the great- est aggregations ever to wear the _ Maize and Blue togs of a Michi- gan grid machine took the field against Stanford's soon to be scalped Indians. The score writ- ten that day by the Ann Arbor warriors is now legend. It was of course, 49-0. That was an era that made football opponents throughout the length and breadth of the midwest shudder whenever the pair of names of Yost and Mich- igan was mentioned. For it was the day when the fabulous point-a-minute teams roamed the stadia for Michigan, when the then not-so-old master tutored his Wolverines to count-, were no weaklings in those by- gone days either. As Yost himself put it that year, "a fact showing the great defense of the line is that there has been only one back- field tackle this season." IN THEIR last three games against Chicago, Beloit and Iowa, the defense only allowed seven first downs. Four teams never had possession of the ball within Mich- igan's territory and only two squads ever moved the ball be- yond the Maize and Blue's 30 yard line. The Rose Bowl game itself turn- ed into a veritable track meet. Be- fore the amazed eyes of Pacific Coast fandom, Michigan ran up its astounding score before the game itself properly ended, the contest being called with ten min- utes to play. PLAYER WT. Lowell Perry (85) 178 Al Wahi (72) 217 Al Jackson (64) 195 Carl Kreager (56) 220 Tom Kelsey (65) 190 John Hess (79) 195 Fred Pickard (89) 1180 Bill Putich (24) 165 Leo Koceski (18) 165 Charles Ortmann (49) 190 Don Dufek (30) 185 HT. Pos. PLAYER 6-0 6-3 6-0 6-4 6-2 6-2 5-11 5-9 5-10 6-1 5-11 RE Leslie Popp (83) RT Robert Timm (67) RG Ralph Stribe (75) C John Padjen (58) LG Jim Wolter (66) LT Bill Ohlenroth (77) LE Russ Osterman (80) QB Pete Palmer (28) RH Wes Bradford (19) in Don Peterson (46) FB Russ Rescorla (35) WT. 180 185 198 180 190 205 170 190 155 175 180 HT. 6-1 5-11 6-0 5-9 6-0 6-1 5-11 5-11 5-6 5-10 6-0 DEFENSE PLAYER Harrly Allis (88) Tom Johnson (76) Pete Kinyon (68) Tony Momsen (59) Dick McWilliams (69) Dick Strozewski (62) .Ozzie Clark (86) Ted Topor (27) Don Oldham (14) Tom Witherspoon (16) Bob Zatkoff (70) WT. HT. 190 6-0 205 6-2 195 6-0 200 6-2 248 6-3 200. 6-0 200 6-1 215 6-0 166 5-8 178 5-11 208 6-2 Pos. RE RT RG C LG LT LE QB RH LH FB PLAYER Bud Reeme (82) B. Bartholomew (73) Don Dugger (61) Dick Farrer (55) John Powers (60) Ben Pederson (78) Merritt Green (84) Jerry Burns (25) Ralph Straffon (32) Dave Tinkham (37) Laurence LeClaire (39) WT. HT. 195 6-2 198 6-3 174 5-10 195 6-0 175 5-11 215 6-2 175 6-0 155 5-8 188 5-8 170 5-10 190 6-0 By TED PAPES The football eyes of a nation look toward Pasadena today where Michigan is participating in its third Rose Bowl. Most American grid fans can easily recall the last Wolverine ap- pearance three years ago. They can still see the . black banner headlines which proclaimed that team as one of history's greatest. WITHOUT detracting a thing from this year's Big Ten kings it can be said that they have a tre- mendous reputation to live up to. T h e i r predecessors astounded Southern California in the 1948 classic by a score of 49-0. That was the culmination of a Hollywood-style regular season which produced nine consecutive triumphs, including six against their rugged foes in the Western Conference. They amassed a to- tal of 345 points compared with 53 by their opponents. Their closest calls came in bat- tles with traditional Big Ten ri- vals, Minnesota and Illinois. They retained the Little Brown Jug by turning back the Gophers, 13-6, and overcame the Illini, 14-7. * * * THE MOST one-sided victory for the Wolverines was their 69-0 ava- lanche over Pittsburgh's Panthers. They romped over Michigan State, 55-0, in the season opener. Their crushing single-wing of- fense was statistically the best in the nation. Backfield intricacy reached its peak under Coach Fritz Crisler who developed four magicians, Howard Yerges, Bob Chappius, 'Bump' Elliott and Jack Weisenberger. They worked behind a line com- posed of lightning-fast blockers. Chappuis commented that anyone could star with such a forward wall paving the way to enemy goal lines. DEFENSIVELY the Wolverines fielded another sterling combina- tion, one which doled out a mini- mum of yardage and points. Sel- dom has a team been endowed with such a balance of talent be- tween star attackers and protect- ers. Seven team members were By BILL CONNOLLY Daily Sports Editor PASADENA - This afternoon, California's Golden Bears will be trying for the third successive year to blot out the Big Ten's tor- rent of triumphs in the Rose Bowl, but they're up against an aggres- sive, tradition-minded Michigan team which is atfull strength for the first time in the extended 1950 season. True to the tradition that is Michigan, the history books that tell the tale of the California coast classic were last opened by players in Maize and Blue uni- forms on January 1st, 1948. On that day, the 1947 chapter of the Wolverine football club renewed the charter that was written by the great 1901 team that inaugu- rated this New Year's Day tussle. Identical coats of whitewash were painted on the Rose Bowl scoreboards by those two great Michigan teams which blazed the Westward trail for the current crop of Wolverines, as Stanford (in 1902) and USC (in 1948) were defeated, 49-0. The 1950 Wolverines who in- vade the Pasadena den of ,the Golden' Bears today saved their big push for the season's stretch run, and it landed them on the top of the Western Conference pile-up of football teams for the fourth successive year. . Much of their early season dif- ficulty was broupht on by the al- most chronic injuries heaped up- on their ace left-half, Chuck Ort- mann. The ,Milwaukee marauder showed up for the important sea- son finale, Ohio State, in pretty fair shape and literally kicked the Buckeyes, with whom the Wolverines shared last year's crown, off the Conference throne. .* * * ines suffered under the one-two punch of a surprising tie with Minnesota and a 0-7 defeat by Illinois, all of which saw the ex- perts and home-folk alike writ- ing off all chances of the Bowl bid which accompanied a Big Ten title. But the Wolverines made them all look bad by bouncing back off the ropes to kayo In- diana, Northwestern and Ohio State in rapid order. The Wolverines found their jer- seys and cleats-but not their de- termined will to win-dampened by the Arctic weather conditions as they dug into the snowbanks in the Buckeyes' horse shoe stadium for the showdown battle. In the greatest punting duel on the books of Big Ten football, Ortmann outdid Ohio's All-Ameri- can Vic Janowicz, as a blocked punt. by line-backer Tony Mom- sen resulted in the six points which gave Michigan a 9-3 win and the Western Conference crown. * *. * CALIFORNIA, Pacific Coast Conference representative for the third straight year, was pre-season rated at best an outside chance to repeat its performance of the prior two years. As the season wore on, how- ever, the development of a crushing running attack and a top-flight defense proved to be enough to get the Bears through a PCC campaign that most con- cede to have been the toughest of the post-war years.. The Bears main stock in trade has been the running of John Ol- szewski, Jim Monachino and Pete ~cnaarum *inse.unre proiue CHUCK ORTMANN LOWELL PERRY TOM JOHNSON DON PETERSON Schabarum. These. three provided BENNIE OOSTERBAAN'S boys not only the running, but also a had it rough from the very begin- lot of the blocking. ning. Michigan State hung one on the Wolverines, 14-7, in the sea- And the line, which was par- son openere ticularly riddled by the graduation of 25 seniors, developed into a Sandwiching in a 27-7 win hard charging, tough unit by the over Dartmouth in between that end of the season. one and the Army gave the That key that many thought Michigan outfit a chance to re- might be missing, a quarterback, .nnl jn,. three nurtArs of n lav 1._-.P _ m