Today's Tidbit... Everybody's Football, Authors and Illustrator
This the third in a series concerning Everybody’s Football, a Massachusetts Mutual Life advertising premium from 1955. The book explains various elements of the game as it existed then. Previous stories from the series include:
As I prepared another article related to Everybody's Football today, I remembered that the Massachusetts Mutual Life giveaway was an updated version of an earlier book. One of the opening pages indicates that Maurice "Mush" Dubofsky copyrighted the book in 1947, so I thought it was worth investigating the difference. Let's just say I got lucky, though not in the way some of you are thinking.
Newspaper articles from 1947 indicate that Everybody's Football was a joint venture between Mush Dubofsky and Francis E. Stann, a sportswriter for the Washington Evening Star. The two were shipmates in the Navy during WWII and decided to pool their talents by explaining football in a way that was accessible to everyone.
Dubofsky captained Georgetown's football team in 1931, then played one year for the New York Giants, before becoming the line coach at Georgetown and playing a few years of minor league football. He returned to Georgetown following his time in the Navy, coaching until the Hoyas dropped football for a few decades.
Dubofsky was the brains behind the book's football content, while Spann likely did most of the writing. They published the book in the trade press in 1947 and updated it in 1955, which explains why the formations and plays seem more appropriate for the 1940s than the 1950s. The T offenses (Modern T, Split T, and Wing T) dominated football by 1955, yet they received limited coverage in the book.
Upcoming articles will cover the offensive plays and defenses Dubofsky and Spann included in the volume, but the book's illustrations, which add a light touch to the book, are among its highlights. A few personal favorites are below.
Theodore "Ted" Drake, a commercial artist, created the illustrations. Whether you know it or not, you've seen Drake's work many times before, though you may not see it much longer. Drake often did freelance work for Wilson Sporting Goods and became known for painting portraits of sports stars for their catalog covers.
Drake also developed illustrations for Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, a 1940s-1950s TV show featuring puppets, but his most famous illustration arrived in 1964, when he created the Notre Dame leprechaun for $50. It gained fame after being on Time Magazine’s cover that year.
Unfortunately, Notre Dame announced in the last several days that they are adopting sport-specific logos, so ye olde leprechaun may have reached the end of his rainbow. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and they’ll keep the 61-year old leprechaun around for a few more decades.
Ted Drake sometimes gets credit for designing the Chicago Bulls logo, but that appears to have been the work of Dean Wessel, not Drake.
Anyway, following this detour regarding the creation of Everybody's Football, we'll return to covering more of its contents tomorrow.
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