By Maryann Gunderson, BSCHE '85 and MFA '03
When Ohio University football Coach Carroll Widdoes arrived in Athens in the fall of 1949, he mistook the starting defensive back and place-kicker, Edward Sudnick, for the team manager. It was a justifiable observation: Sudnick's graying hair and mature face were hardly those of a college freshman. Sudnick was, in fact, one of a handful of Bobcats who had played for Ohio before World War II, and he had departed Athens after his freshman year to serve on a naval destroyer. By the time he had returned to college and met his new coach less than a decade later, he had experienced a lifetime's worth of war, and it showed.
One third of the '49 Ohio roster - 17 players in all - had veteran status: Their college experience was interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. Their story is one of persistence and duty, on and off the field, at a time when uncertainty transformed their lives, and even more so, their alma mater.
Uncertain footing
The early 1940s were a heralded time for Ohio football. A member of the Buckeye Conference, the Bobcats earned three consecutive championships under Coach Don Peden, for whom the current-day football stadium is named. The post-Depression era, however, provided little funding for scholarships and travel expenses. Ohio's starting lineup - known to the media as the "Bobcat Eleven" - included John Kerns (right tackle) of Geneva, Ohio; Chris Stefan (back) of Dayton; and Sudnick (half back) of Cleveland. To complete the lineup with as few men as possible, they were expected to play both offense and defense.
A standout player for Cleveland South high school, Sudnick visited Athens in 1941 for a tryout as a place kicker. He kicked two 30-yarders and "got the job," he says. Sudnick, who would later go on to work for Ohio University for more than 41 years, was acutely aware of his change in surroundings; at the time, Athens seemed positively provincial. "U.S. Route 33 wound its way into town, right to the end of Court Street, which was two-way back then and filled with food and sundries all the way to the campus gate," he says.
But the U.S. entry into World War II in December 1941 altered many commitments, including those of the Bobcats. Men began enlisting immediately at ROTC tables staffed at fraternity houses around campus. A three-semester calendar was enacted to facilitate graduation. Patriotic parties took the place of formals, and women knitted and counted rations to support war efforts. Calling the time frame a "compendium of confusion," "Athena" yearbook writers commented, "Born in the throes of one war, we wondered if we were to die in another." The number of men enrolled at the university dropped by 85 percent. There was no football played during the 1943 or 1944 seasons.
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Peacetime possibilities
By 1946 Ohio University was flooded with veterans of World War II, many beginning or returning to their studies thanks to the G.I. Bill. Signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, the bill provided a college or vocational education to returning veterans; more than 7 million veterans took advantage of the benefits before they ended in 1956.
As enrollment nearly doubled from pre-war levels, Ohio adjusted by hiring a new president, John Calhoun Baker, and a veteran's coordinator, as well as reopening campuses at Chillicothe, Portsmouth (later moved to Ironton) and Zanesville.
So small was the Athens campus that students had a choice of only five dormitories in which to reside, and most of that housing was dedicated to women. Many veterans lived on the new lower campus (now East Green) in 23 barracks known as "Hog Island." Quickly constructed due to the lack of other appropriate housing, the "Island" was so named for its muddy paths.
"The place had boardwalks to keep you out of the mud, but it was just like being back in the Army - a real mess," says John Marco, a WWII pilot from Warren, Ohio. "I lived down there in 1946 with a guy who sold Kirby sweepers to make ends meet."
Even with their fee waivers and $50-per-week stipends, the men worked in dining halls, performed custodial duty, and completed various odd jobs to cover room and board. Marco washed dishes at Lindley Hall, then a women's dorm. He later boarded at a rooming house that still stands on the southeast corner of Congress and Washington streets.
His roommate, Robert Hamm, a Navy veteran, describes life in Athens as hectic. "There were a lot of people, of all ages, and a lot of competition," he says. "We still thought of war time, although we were concentrating on college."
Welcoming the veterans was an effort that united university and town alike. As housing filled, students were placed in rooms in local homes, gyms, the Armory and even nearby towns. Without dorms of their own, the veterans became regulars at restaurants and coffee shops, where owners quickly became good friends.
Marco worked at Blackmore's Restaurant in exchange for meals and received a scholarship sponsored by the restaurant during his senior year. "They paid for all my expenses," he says. "They just seemed to care."
Ruth Richey, wife of freshman coach Frank Richey, recalls that some veteran players were married, with families as well, and the coaches' wives appreciated the unexpected, additional female infusion. "One player's wife was even a nurse, who helped us when we had a sick child," she says. "It was nice to have the veterans and their families at OU. It was such a close group of people living and working together."
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Sudnick, who had spent nearly three years in the South Pacific, was just as eager as his teammates to return. He wrote to Coach Peden shortly after the surrender of Japanese forces to ask what he might do to condition himself for play. "The coach wrote back, 'Of course, I remember you, and you are sorely missed. Just get back safely with (Dick) Ludwinski, and I'll get you in shape!'"
Peden himself had enlisted at age 43, serving in Italy in 1943 and 1944 as director of recreational activities for the enlisted men. "I knew he would write back," Sudnick says. "But to receive such a letter from Peden and Ohio University was still very exciting for me on ship and such a relief."
Commitments fulfilled
Sudnick recalls just how out of shape he was when he returned to Peden's preseason conditioning program that fall: "I was so sore that I fell out of bed each morning; I could hardly stand." He was injured and played only on defense while still kicking left-footed, tackling some of the newly formed Mid-American Conference's best running backs, including Miami University's Ara Parseghian, a fellow Navy veteran who later coached football for Notre Dame.
Louis Andrews, who had returned in 1945 for his senior year at Ohio, earned All-MAC honors that year. "I was shot in Normandy, recovered in England, got a Purple Heart and came back to play football," he says.
Ralph Sayre was 17 and waiting for Ohio to revive its football program when the war ended. By his senior year, he had lettered in three sports. Robert Ralls, who played quarterback in 1945 on a team of mostly freshmen, returned to his original position as fullback.
"I enjoyed being around the older guys," says Milt Taylor, of Columbus, who came back from a landing ship tanker in the South Pacific to play. "My teammates were truly great."
With a new conference and the reinforced roster of young and old players, the Bobcats took to the field in September of 1946 and won six straight games, outscoring their opponents 185-41. The football season was highlighted by victories over rivals Western Michigan, and Xavier, as the veteran leaders of the team came to grips with their wartime experiences and regained their lives in the classroom and on the field.
As the unsettled decade wound down, Ohio conquered nationally ranked West Virginia, Kent State and tied a tough Western Reserve team in front of 12,000 Cleveland fans in 1949. Under the leadership of first-year Coach Widdoes, Sudnick scored a touchdown that day - his first ever. The entire team reveled in that game after years of personal and national sacrifice.
In the 1950 "Athena" yearbook, Widdoes described his first Ohio University football team of young and old as "a group of boys with the spirit and determination of fighting to the last whistle, no matter what the odds." Older, but so much wiser, were the men of Ohio football whose collegiate dreams could not be usurped by tour of duty.