On what will likely be the last 70-degree day of the year, with the sun streaming brilliantly through the window, I'm left to dig through my "rainy day" stash for another photo I took last winter of a display in the Crouthamel Lounge at Dartmouth's Floren Varsity House. The description accompanying this item:
Hand-written notebook of halfback Andrew (Sweed) Oberlander '26 with signals and plays used by Dartmouth during the 1925 undefeated season. An All-America selection, Oberlander declined a $25,000 offer to play pro football in order to pursue a career in medicine.
Donor: The Oberlander Family
Regarding the decision by Oberlander not to pursue professional football, his Wikipedia entry includes this (LINK):
Oberlander was an assistant coach at Ohio State University from 1926 to 1929 and head coach at Wesleyan University from 1930 to 1933. While at Wesleyan, he commuted to New Haven and received his MD from Yale School of Medicine.
In World War II, as a Lt. Commander in the United States Navy Reserve, he was chief medical officer aboard the USS Samaritan (AH-10), in the Pacific Fleet. When the war ended, many U.S. troops remained in the Far East awaiting transportation back to the States. Oberlander was head coach of the Navy All-Stars team that beat the Army team 12–0 in the China Bowl on November 30, 1945, in Shanghai.
Later, Oberlander served as Medical Director for National Life Insurance Company of Vermont and Prudential Insurance Company in Chicago and Newark.
A contemporaneous report in the Ohio State Lantern upon Oberlander's first visit to Ohio State prior to coaching with the Buckeyes included this (LINK):
When asked his opinion regarding students leaving college to participate in professional football Oberlander said, "Anyone has the right to do it, but the primary purpose in college is undoubtedly to receive an education. It is simply an over-emphasis on football, but the primary purpose is placed in a secondary position."
The more things change . . .
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EXTRA POINT
The headlines these days remind me of a story from my days at the newspaper.
Even before cell phones, most coaches back then were pretty good about finding a pay phone and calling the sports desk to give us the score and highlights from their games or contests for the next day's paper. If we didn't hear from them, and our deadline was fast approaching, we'd start calling their homes. It was not an enjoyable thing, waking a coach's spouse at 10:30 or 11 at night.
Generally speaking, the coach not calling meant one of three things: They couldn't find a pay phone, they forgot, or quite frequently, they lost.
I made hundreds if not thousands of phone calls to high school coaches when I was at the newspaper but there's just one that I remember like it was yesterday. It was during Christmas week and this particular team was playing in a holiday tournament.
When I finally tracked down the coach, here's the first thing he said, and I'm quoting him verbatim:
"We lost, but we're still undefeated."
His rationale? It was a tournament, so it didn't count. I still remember my editor asking if they kept score, and saying if they kept score there was a winner, and there was a loser.
