Jews In Sports: Exhibit Page @ Virtual Museum

Harold U. Ribalow and Meir Z. Ribalow
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Jews In American Sports

collegiate ball the same years in which Marshall Goldberg smashed to All-America glory, Luckman passed and led his teams to glorious - but often losing - efforts against teams stronger than the Columbia Lions. The result was that Luckman was known as a good player with a bad team. No one knew how good he really was until he joined the professional ranks. In college, he was just another good passer.

As it happens, Sid was never offered a scholarship by Columbia. The university did offer him an opportunity to obtain jobs to pay his way through college, and he accepted that even though he had done so well in high school that plenty of other colleges and universities wanted him to join their school, and, of course, football team. At Columbia, Sid washed dishes, baby-sat and worked as a messenger around the campus. His father's trucking business had been wiped out in the Depression and Sid did not wish to be a burden to his parents; neither, it seems, did he want to go to any college but Columbia - a break for the football fortunes of that Ivy League university.

Sid was born in Brooklyn on November 21, 1916 and it was when his folks moved to a decent house near Prospect Park, that the young lad began to throw the ball around. Depending on the season, he threw a baseball or tossed a football. When he entered Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, Sid immediately went out for football and soon made the junior varsity, although he was only a freshman. The following season, he became a regular player on the high school team and became the quarterback. Success came rapidly, for, under Sid's guidance, Erasmus won the borough championship. In his last year at Erasmus, Sid earned the McGlue Trophy, given to the outstanding student