Today's Tidbit... Allen Parr, Man From Mars

1942 Kentucky yearbook

Louisville-native Allen Parr played for Kentucky from 1939 to 1942, starting at end as a sophomore, junior, and senior. Like other athletes who wore glasses at the time, Parr had two options if he wanted to see the field. One was to wear one of the relatively new bird-cage face masks that covered the top half of the face and protected the player’s glasses.

Bird-cage mask from the 1940 Wilson Football Catalog

The second option was to wear rubber-framed prescription goggles, the route chosen by Parr. Doing so led an Atlanta newspaper to call him the Man From Mars, but such was the price Parr paid to see the balls thrown his way. Of course, the googles protected only his eyes and did not prevent him from losing two front teeth during the Wildcat's 1940 game with George Washington U.

Parr was called the Man from Mars by the Atlanta Constitution, but he was not alone. A fellow Martian, Gonzaga’s Al Deschenes wore goggles the year before Parr. (‘Man From Mars,’ Atlanta Constitution, November 6, 1941 and ‘Gonzaga Player Wears Football Goggles,’ Spokesman-Review (Spokane), September 16, 1940.)

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