Harry Newman, the Jewish youngster from Detroit who has made a name for himself in the pro football world as the greatest quarterback to directagrid machine, may never play football again.
Harry was calling signals last Sunday afternoon up at the Polo Grounds in the game where the Bears beat out the Giants in the very last minute of play. He was playing a bang-up, heads-up brand of football and as a result his team was leading nine to nothing. Harry called for an end run late in the third quarter and when the referee untangled the pile Newman was on the bottom of the heap—hurt. He was taken out of the game at that time. However, the Bears clawed up the turf of the Polo Grounds and pushed a touchdown across. Harry returned to the game for a few minutes in the fourth period but his injury hampered him so much that he could not play his best.
An examination after the battle revealed that this game little chap had fractured two vertebrae. He was rushed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital where your scribe interviewed him yesterday.
SECOND YEAR IN PRO FOOTBALL
Harry has been playing pro football for two years. He says he’ll be back in there again next season. Nevertheless, Harry once made a remark that he would never play football if he ever suffered a serious injury. We’d like to see this cock, confident and carefree young chap come through in fine style but we don’t think it a wise idea for him to play ball any more. The pro racket is too tough for a man who has had an injury to the spine.
Newman was graduated from the University of Michigan in February, 1933, with a B. S. At the same time he was known as an A. A.—All-American back who had been selected by every grid expert in the country. But this is getting ahead of the story.
PRODUCT OF DETROIT HIGH SCHOOL
Harry was graduated from a Detroit high school in 1929 with a splendid athletic career behind him. He had played football, basketball and baseball and had earned his major letter in each sport. He enrolled at Michigan and immediately tried out for the frosh eleven.
Michigan at the time was still singing the praises of the great Benny Friedman. Friedman was the campus hero and the idol of every university man at the school. Today the name of Friedman is hailed as one of Michigan’s immortals.
Prior to the time Harry was graduated from a Detroit high he had gone up for a month’s visit to Camp Stinson in Maine where Benny Friedman was head councillor. There it was that Benny taught Harry how to pass and, what is more, how to perfect his own passing ability. A deep friendship developed between the master and the tyro.
MADE GRADE IN SOPH YEAR
After a very successful season with the frosh outfit Newman made the varsity in his sophomore year as quarterback of the Michigan steamroller. A thing that had been accomplished only by one man previously in the history of the institution. That man was Benny Friedman.
The record books reveal the rest. Harry is too modest a young man to tell you of his achievements on the Ann Arbor Stadium. It suffices to say that the Wolverines did not lose a game in 1931 and swept on to the championship of the Big Ten Conference. Harry made his name in the Harvard game that year which was played at Soldiers’ Field, Cambridge. Newman literally passed the Crimson warriors to death with his accurate passing.
His junior year at Michigan almost proved disastrous for this young man. It was a vear of injuries, of charges and slip-ups, but Harry weathered them all. His injuries cramped his playing style. He didn’t come through in the same way that he had done in his soph season. For that he was called yellow.
We have said before that Newman was a cocky, confident lad. His coach, the great Kipke, depended on him absolutely. Because Harry called his own plays to excess he was set down as a conceited, grandstand player. And, because he did not accept a fraternity in a university where most students were Greek-letter men, he was called a swell-head.
Yellow, conceited, swell-headed, Harry came back in his senior year to belie all these statements and make a name for himself as great as that of his illustrious predecessor, Benny Friedman. Newman directed the 1932 Michigan team to another Big Ten title. As a result he was selected by experts as their unanimous choice for All-American quarterback.
GREAT RECORD IN PRO BALL
Tim Mara, owner of the New York Giants, signed Newman in 1933. Harry didn’t get any break in his contract that year but he proved his ability time and again.
His first year in pro football coincided with Friedman’s last season in the same sport. Newman, on the Giants, was the cause that sent Friedman’s team, the Dodgers, down to defeat twice during the season last year. And, at the end of the 1933 season Newman was selected as the All-Professional quarterback in his first year. Something that no other players, even Red Grange, had been able to do in his first year of pro ball.
This season Harry received quite a substantial raise from Tim Mara, who is now his colleague in the liquor business in Detroit. His kid brother, Gerbie, a halfback on the same high school team that Harry played for, is in his senior year and also hopes to go to Micchigan.
Incidentally, Harry Newman is chairman of the football division of the Maccabi sports advisory committee.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
