Today's Tidbit... Marquette and Hairbrained Football

Harebrained thinking is considered foolish, crazy, or unlikely to succeed. While the term has been around for about 500 years, Marquette University showed harebrained and hairbrained thinking in the early 1940s when Harold "Hal" Eigner played quarterback and fullback for the Hilltoppers.

Before football players wore helmets or other protective headgear, it was common practice to grow their hair long to protect themselves from the blowing wind and blows to the head.

Puck magazine cover, November 13, 1912 (National Archives)

The arrival of early headgear, more solid leather helmets, and then plastic helmets ended the need for long hair on the field, but some players chose to let their hair grow to be fashionable. That seems to have been the case with Hal Eigner, a hometown Milwaukeean who played varsity football for Marquette from 1941 through 1943.

Eigner was a quarterback in 1941 before shifting to fullback later in the season. He held that position over the next two years and was among the team's leading scorers. What makes Eigner unique is the press coverage of two hair-related incidents and a third in which his helmet likely saved his life.

Like today, the media in the 1940s loved short little stories that filled open space in a column, so those tales got picked up nationwide. The first story hit the news in October 1941, Eigner's sophomore year. He played quarterback early in the season, and as he called signals during practice, his hair sometimes fell into his eyes, causing him to brush it away. (The team likely did not wear helmets when running their signal drills against air.) Backfield coach Robert "Doc" Erskine wanted Eigner to keep his hands in the game and threatened to cut Eigner's hair if the practice continued.