Steelworker's Boy

Millions of people will listen in this Saturday to the 44th playing of the most famed game in football, Army v. Navy.* It will be short-waved to U.S. military posts throughout the world. Thanks to a Nelson Rockefeller suggestion, Latin Americans will hear (if by any chance they are interested) a play-by-play description in Spanish. But no listener will be more excited than a Polish immigrant who will be getting ready for the night shift at a Steubenville, Ohio open-hearth steel furnace. His son is captain of the Army team.

No Money. Casimir John Myslinski is a remarkable footballer, a vicious tackier, shrewd defense strategist and certain to be the center on more than one All-America. He is even more remarkable as a man. Like another poor boy who made a good record at West Point, John Joseph Pershing, he overcame tremendous handicaps to get there.

His schooling was interrupted after the eighth grade. To help support the family Cas had to go to work. He caddied, sold papers and worked in a pottery and a steel foundry. One year he spent in a Utah CCC camp. Only after three years could Cas start high school.

Though his father objected to his wasting time on football, a game he could not understand, Cas starred for three years at Steubenville High School. Scholarships were waiting for Columbia and Ohio State. But to please his father, who had heard and dreamed about West Point in grammar school in Stawiski, Poland, Cas wrote to Army Coach Earl Blaik about his ambition to go to West Point. He mentioned his football. Army's trainer went out to Steubenville to have a look.

In a room in the Fort Steuben Hotel, Cas stripped off his scarred leather jacket and overalls. (He wore no underwear.) The trainer studied his body. The verdict: "A hell of a man with a beautiful pair of legs." Blaik interested Ohio Congressman George H. Bender, who appointed Myslinski to the Academy.

No Leisure. At West Point, football is the least important of Cas's activities. He takes ten subjects, required of every first classman (senior). He has the high honor and responsibilities of a cadet lieutenant. Like a third of his class (including four others from Army's starting line-up), he has crammed pilot training into an already crushing 16-hr. daily schedule.

On alternate afternoons, he is at ground school or in the air above West Point's Stewart Field. In good flying weather, this routine leaves less than three hours a week for football. Quiet, modest Cas Myslinski says he plays it for relaxation. Tall (5 ft. 11 3/4 in.), rugged (195 Ib.) and well-knit, he is older than most cadets. His roommate is the son of Joseph M. Patterson, New York Daily News publisher.

No Father. This Saturday is Myslinski's last game. Like every one before it, at Army and at Steubenville, his father will miss it. Feliks Myslinski's explanation is simple: "Every good day it seems I had to work. Bad days only foolish people out in weather unless necessary."

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