Charley Trippi, 1921-2022

We lost a legend yesterday, and most of us are too young to have ever seen him play.

Charles Louis Trippi was born on December 14, 1921 in Pittston, in Northeastern Pennsylvania. You've heard of a "five-tool player" in baseball? Charley Trippi was a five-tool player in football: He could run, he could throw, he could catch, he could punt, and he could play defense.

Northeastern Pennsylvania is coal-mining country. Charley didn't want to be a coal miner. Fortunately, he had the talent to star in football at Pittston High School. He got a scholarship to the University of Georgia, and in 1942, as a sophomore, he played alongside Frank Sinkwich, who won the Heisman Trophy and led them to the National Championship. This included a 75-0 win over arch-rival Florida, in which Trippi contributed to 4 touchdowns: He ran for 2, threw for 1, and returned an interception for 1.

After missing the 1944 season and half of 1945 serving in the U.S. Army Air Force, he returned to Georgia, and helped them to an undefeated season in 1946. But they didn't win the National Championship, because that was the year that Army and Notre Dame played "The Game of the Century." And he didn't follow Sinkwich as a Heisman winner, because it was given to Glenn Davis of Army.

Trippi also played baseball, starring as a shortstop and outfielder at Georgia. In 1947, he played for the Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association. But while there were a few men in the 1st half of the 20th Century to play in both Major League Baseball and the National Football League, he would not be one of them. In 1948 and 1949, he served as Georgia's head baseball coach.

Both the NFL and the All-America Football Conference wanted him. The Chicago Cardinals signed him on January 16, 1947, and team owner Charles Bidwill offered him a 4-year contract -- and then died on April 19, of pneumonia, only 51 years old.

Bidwill's timing was terrible, but Trippi's was perfect: Bidwill had assembled what became known as "The Dream Backfield": Quarterback Paul Christman of Missouri, halfbacks Trippi and Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg of the University of Pittsburgh, and fullback Pat Harder of Wisconsin. All 4 ended up in the College Football Hall of Fame.

There was no NFL Rookie of the Year award in 1947, but Trippi surely would have won it: 401 yards rushing, 23 receptions for 240 yards, a 43.4-yard punting average, 181 punt return yards, 321 kickoff return yards, and a 59-yard interception return for a touchdown.

On December 28, 1947, the Cardinals, Champions of the NFL's Western Division, met the Eastern Division Champions, the Philadelphia Eagles. The field at Comiskey Park in Chicago was frozen, so Trippi, remembering the 1934 title game, the "Sneaker Game" won the by New York Giants, wore sneakers (which would still be legal for a few years), and scored 2 touchdowns in a 28-21 Cardinal victory.

The Cardinals returned to the NFL Championship Game in 1948, but 15 inches of snow fell on Philadelphia, and no shoes were going to help the Cardinals that day. The Eagles got their revenge, 7-0. The Cardinals, who had also won the NFL Championship in a single-division league in 1925, have only been to an NFL Championship Game once since, losing Super Bowl XLIII in 2009.

Trippi led the NFL in all-purpose yards in 1948 and 1949, and made the Pro Bowl in 1952 and 1953. But his career came to an end in the 1955 preseason, when a tackle by John Henry Johnson of the San Francisco 49ers gave him a concussion, a broken nose, and a broken eye socket. It was a clean play, but it could have killed him.

He finished his career with 3,506 rushing yards, 2,547 passing yards, and 1,321 receiving yards, for a total of 6,053 offensive yards, the most of any player in NFL history to that point. Throw in his 895 yards returning punts and kickoffs, and his 7,148 all-purpose yards then ranked 4th all-time. He remains the only player to have at least 1,000 career yards rushing, passing and receiving.

He later served as an assistant coach with the Cardinals from 1957 to 1965, including their 1960 move to St. Louis, although not also their 1988 move to Arizona. He then became a successful real estate agent. He and his 1st wife, Virginia, had 3 children. 

Georgia retired his Number 62. He kept that number with the Cardinals until switching to 2 in 1952. The team has never retired either number. However, they did induct him into their Ring of Honor. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, and the NFL 1940s All-Decade Team, even though he only played 3 seasons in that decade. Pittston Area High School, the successor to the high school he attended, named its football stadium after him.

On December 14, 2021, at his home in Athens, Georgia, with his family, including his 2nd wife, Peggy, and current Georgia football coach Kirby Smart as guests, Charley Trippi celebrated his 100th Birthday. He followedClarence "Ace" Parker (1912-2013), quarterback for the 1930s and '40s football team named the Brooklyn Dodgers, as the 2nd member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame to reach the age of 100.

He died yesterday, October 19, 2022, 56 days short of his 101st birthday, and 70 days short of the 75th Anniversary of the Cardinals' title. He was the last surviving member of that team, and the last from the 1940s All-Decade Team.

With his death, he has been succeeded as the oldest living former NFL player, and the earliest surviving member of an NFL Championship team, by William "Dub" Jones, a halfback with the Cleveland Browns' titlists of 1950, '54 and '55. At 97, Jones is also the last surviving player from the All-America Football Conference (1946-49). He is also the father of former Baltimore Colts All-Pro quarterback Bert Jones.

Arnie Ferrin, already the earliest surviving NCAA basketball champion (1944 University of Utah) and the earliest surviving NBA Champion (1949 Minneapolis Lakers), now becomes the earliest surviving player from a World Championship team in the "Big Four" North American sports. The earliest living Number 1 NFL Draft pick is Terry Baker, now 81, the 1962 Heisman Trophy winner from Oregon State, chosen 1st overall in 1963, albeit with a pro career that didn't work out. And Bud Grant, the 95-year-old former Minnesota Vikings head coach, is now the oldest living member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.