1941 Team

1941 Army 5-3-1
1941/11/29 Army 6 – Navy 14 L

Coach: Earl Henry “Red” Blaik (February 15, 1897 – May 6, 1989)
Dartmouth 1934-1940 – 45-15-4
Army: 1941-1958 – 121-33-10
Overall: 166-48-14
Awards:
All-American, 1919
AFCA Coach of the Year (1946)
College Football Hall of Fame, Inducted in 1964

Howitzer 1942
http://digital-library.usma.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/howitzers/id/18345/

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ArmyFB_1941_ Earl Blaik _byJackSords_PrescottEveningCourier_Oct71941

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ArmyFB_1941_EarlBlaik_byPhilBerube_SundayMorningStar_Oct121941

“In 1941, Blaik was tapped to be head football coach for the United States Military Academy. Army had suffered two consecutive losing seasons in 1939 and 1940, a first since 1906, and dropped its requirements for its coach to be a serving graduate and that all players meet restrictive height-to-weight limitations. The latter was a condition Blaik made as a requirement for him to accept the position, believing Army to be severely handicapped in the size of its linemen. The United States Naval Academy did not have the same restrictions and the Army surgeon general was persuaded to drop the requirement for football players.

At West Point, Blaik coached for 18 seasons compiling a 121-33-10 record. Blaik’s Army teams had a 32-game unbeaten streak from 1944 to 1947, won consecutive national titles in 1944 and 1945, and finished second in the nation in 1946 with their record blemished only by a scoreless tie with rival Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium. In 1946, Blaik was selected as the AFCA Coach of the Year. In 1948, he became one of the first college coaches to implement a two-platoon system, using players strictly for offense or defense. Blaik was also one of the first coaches to analyze the game play-by-play, charting a team’s tendencies on every down with the use of game film.

During his tenure at West Point, Blaik coached three Heisman trophy winners, Doc Blanchard in 1945, Glenn Davis in 1946 and Pete Dawkins in 1958, as well as a total of 11 Hall of Fame players. Twenty of his former assistant coaches became head coaches in their own right: Paul Amen, George Blackburn, Clarence Boston, Eddie Crowder, Paul Dietzel, Bobby Dobbs, Sid Gillman, Jack Green, Andy Gustafson, Dale Hall, Tom Harp, Herman Hickman, Stu Holcomb, Frank Lauterbur, Vince Lombardi, John Sauer, Richard Voris, Murray Warmath, Bob Woodruff, and Bill Yeoman. Legendary fighter pilot Colonel Robin Olds also served as an assistant coach to Blaik. Dietzel, while at LSU, and Murray Warmath, while at Minnesota, won national championships as head coaches. Gillman, while head coach of the San Diego Chargers won an AFL championship. Lombardi, as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, won five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls.

During Blaik’s tenure, the Army team adopted the nicknames “Black Knights” and “Black Knights of the Hudson”, which has now come to refer to all intercollegiate athletic teams at West Point.
sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Blaik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Black_Knights_football

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News Articles
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ArmyFB_1941_forecast_MeridenRecord_Sep231941
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ArmyFB_1941_ “Jerry Maupin” _byJackSords_PrescottEveningCourier_Oct291941
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armyfb_1941_vsnotredame_newsdispatch_oct311941

ArmyFB_1941_vsNotreDame_NewsDispatch_Oct311941

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ArmyFB_1941_HankMazur_StPetersburgTimes_Nov251941
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ArmyFB_1941_ “Ralph Hill” _byPap_CSM_Nov281941r-h

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armyfb_1941_vsnavy_prescotteveningcourier_nov291941

ArmyFB_1941_vsNavy_PrescottEveningCourier_Nov291941

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Carl Hinkle – Cadet First Captain – the Football All-American Cadet who never played a down for Army

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carlhinkle_usma_1942
carl-hinkle_USMA_1942
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This entry was written by forwhattheygave, posted on May 11, 2013 at 4:46 pm, filed under Teams and tagged Football. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.