Today's Tidbit... Eddie Dooley's 1936 All-America Team Contest

Eddie Dooley played quarterback for Dartmouth in the mid-1920s before becoming a sportswriter for the New York Sun. In 1936, he joined the Columbia Radio Network airing a show on college football. That season, he ran a promotion with a sponsor, Royal Typewriter. Listeners across the country picked up the season's college football schedule at their local Royal dealer and listened for his predictions on Thursday nights and his game reviews on Saturday nights. (Click image to expand.)

Eddie predicted the lateral pass would be widely used in 1936, and it was.

At season's end, listeners could mail in their choices or predictions for the Royal All-American team in a contest to see whose choice came closest to Eddie Dooley's Royal Typewriter selections. Three cash prizes of $500, $100, and $75 were at stake. The $500 and $100 prizes went to two guys in New York City, while Mrs. Eva Lou Edwards of Hammond, Louisiana, earned the $75 prize. In addition, each of the eleven players received a Royal typewriter.

The original owner of the Royal Typewriter brochure listened to Eddie’s announcement and dutifully recorded the eleven players and their schools.

Eddie's team had a decidedly Eastern slant with four Ivy Leaguers and a Fordham fella. Yale's Larry Kelley won the second Heisman Award, but only five of Eddie’s choices achieved consensus All-America status.

Eddie’s right halfback, Marquette's Ray Buivid, came in third in the Heisman voting, leading his team to the first Cotton Bowl, where they lost to Ray Meyer's TCU Horned Frogs. The game proved to be Marquette’s first and last bowl game, and they dropped football in 1960.

Eddie Dooley continued his show until 1948 and became a three-term Congressman from 1957 to 1963.

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