Sid Luckman

        Hall of Famer 

 

One of the top football stars during the past four decades has been a trigger-brained quarterback with an unerring passing arm and a hatful of heroic deeds on a gridiron equaled by few players. His name is Sid Luckman, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn who learned the pigskin game at Erasmus High School in 1933 and ran wild for nearly twenty years on both college and pro football fields.

Leonard Cohen, ex-sports editor of the New York Post, once wrote: "Far into the night will go any debate as to whether El Sid or Sammy Baugh is the greatest passer pro football has ever produced. We've always taken the stand that Sid has it on Sammy on the long aerials, while Baugh has no equal as a short-pass tosser."

Today it is granted that Sid Luckman, long the brain of the Chicago Bear powerhouse football team, was the man who made that dreaded outfit click. It is remembered that in college Sid was the star of a weak Columbia University team. Lou Little of Columbia had many stars in his time, but none as spectacular, as dependable and as much of a football genius as the keen-eyed passing wizard from Brooklyn.

Oddly enough, Luckman, who was one of the greatest passers in football history, never won real All-American acclaim while he starred in college ball. While playing