Monday, Feb. 10, 1947
Bad Timing
Hollywood wanted them for a movie short. Pro football, recognizing them as the greatest two-star combination in college football history, put in high bids. The offers piled up. Last week, West Point's touchdown twins, Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard (along with End Barney Poole), asked the War Department for fall furloughs to take advantage of their $100,000-a-season offers.
They couldn't have timed it worse. The sport pages were dripping with the evils of commercialism. Last week, Middleweight Rocky Graziano, whose conversation usually ranges from "Yeah" to "Nunhh," was quoted at length "in his own words" about being offered a $100,000 bribe. The New York State Athletic Commission debated whether to cancel his championship fight with Tony Zale. Three more big-league football-betting bookies were indicted.
The wish of Blanchard & Davis to earn side money without giving up their Army careers was just too much for several sport columnists. Hearstling Bill Corum threatened to boycott them if they put on a pro uniform. In Washington, Illinois' Representative Leslie C. Arends fumed: "I thought we sent these boys to West Point* to be future officers and not pro football players."
Without waiting for the request to pick up a little red tape on the way, the War Department turned it down. Said War Secretary Patterson: ". . . any other decision would be inimical to the best interests of the service . . . officers are now being sent on foreign service where there is a shortage of second lieutenants." Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard would have to go on just being soldiers, like everyone else at West Point.
* Cost of Blanchard & Davis' West Point education to the U.S. taxpayers: $20,000 apiece.
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