~ A different era of Sports, WWII, football, TV and America, ND star QB ..... Johnny Lujack, 98, dies.

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~   In a different era of  Sports,  WWII,  football and America ..... Johnny Jujack,  98,  dies.

Johnny Lujack won the 1947 Heisman Trophy after the Irish finished the season undefeated. Notre Dame finished each of Lujack's three seasons atop the AP Top 25. (AP Photo/Jacob Harris, File)

Former Notre Dame quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack died Tuesday. He was 98.

★  Lujack is one of the most legendary players in Notre Dame history and his college career was sandwiched around World War II. He won the 1947 Heisman Trophy as a senior ahead of Michigan running back Bob Chappuis and Notre Dame finished atop the AP Top 25 in each of his three seasons as the team's starting QB.

“He was not only a legend in Notre Dame football and the sports world,” Lujack's granddaughter Amy Schiller told the Associated Press, "he was a legend as a father and grandfather and great grandfather.”

Lujack came to Notre Dame in 1942 and first saw the field for the Irish in 1943 when he rushed for 191 yards and threw for 525 yards in 10 games. ★  He was a naval officer in 1944 and 1945 during the war and was assigned to patrols in the English Channel.

He returned for his final two seasons of eligibility in 1946 and 1947. Lujack finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1946 when he threw for 778 yards and rushed for 108. He then won the award the following season with 777 passing yards and 139 rushing yards.

Notre Dame lost just one game in Lujack’s three seasons at quarterback and didn’t lose at all in his final two seasons. The Irish went 9-1 in 1943 with a 19-14 loss to Great Lakes Navy to end the season. The Irish were 8-0-1 in 1946 and won five straight games to start the season before a scoreless tie with Army. The Irish allowed just 24 points all season long and no opponent scored more than six in a single game.

Notre Dame won every game in 1947 and had just one victory by single digits. That came in a 26-19 win over Northwestern on Nov. 15. Every other win was by at least 15 as Northwestern was the only team to score more than seven.

Lujack was the No. 4 pick in the 1946 NFL Draft and spent four seasons with the Chicago Bears. His best season came in 1949 when he completed 52% of his passes and threw for 2,658 yards and 23 TDs to go along with 22 interceptions. ★ Just three quarterbacks threw for more than 2,000 yards that season and Lujack threw for 490 more yards than Bob Waterfield.

★  A Pennsylvania native, Lujack was a multi-sport star in high scho ol and chose Notre Dame after falling in love with the school as a child while listening to the team’s football games on the radio.

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Personal life

His wife was the former Patricia Ann "Pat" Schierbrock, daughter of Josephine (née Wilson) and Frank H. Schierbrock.^[36] Lujack and Schierbrock were married in Davenport, Iowa at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on June 26, 1949.^[12][37] They had three children:^[30] Mary, Jeff, and Carol (1954–2002).^[38]

Lujack was distantly related to NFL player Ben Skowronek and Olympic gymnast Courtney Kupets, and NFL quarterback Trent Green married into the family.^[39]

◆   Lujack died on July 25, 2023, after a brief illness at the age of 98.

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~   I've always been interested in some people's bios,  the stories behind the stories.   You find out some  "interesting "  stories  about people that you thought you knew.

Professional career

Lujack was paid USD$17,000 for his 1948 rookie season with the Bears and $20,000 for his fourth and final season.^[8] In his rookie season he played defensive back, during which he had eight interceptions for 131 yards and kicked 44 out of 46 extra points.^[8][14]

In the summer of 1949, Lujack starred in a radio program on ABC, The Adventures of Johnny Lujack, which was a summertime replacement for the Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy show. It was a 30-minute program and broadcast on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.^[15] The show was broadcast from the studios of WGN in Chicago over the Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS) and ran for 13 weeks.^[16]

Lujack on a 1948 Bowman football card

In the final game of the 1949 season, the 9–3 Bears defeated their hometown rivals, the Chicago Cardinals (6–5–1), by a score of 52–21 on December 11. In that game, Lujack threw six touchdown passes and set an NFL record with 468 passing yards.^[17][18] The record was broken later by Norm Van Brocklin. He was the last Bears quarterback to throw at least five touchdown passes in a game ●-->   until Mitchell Trubisky threw six against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2018.^[19]

Sid Luckman and George Blanda played behind Lujack in the rotation at quarterback for the 1949 and 1950 seasons.^[20][21]

During the 1950 season, Lujack set an NFL record with 11 rushing touchdowns by a quarterback. This record was tied by Tobin Rote with the Green Bay Packers in 1956, and broken by the New England Patriots' Steve Grogan in 1976.^[22][23] Lujack, named to the 1950 All-Pro First-team, also set a Bears record for 109 total points in a season with 11 touchdowns, three (out of five) field-goals, and 34 (out of 35) extra points.^[24] That record was surpassed by Gale Sayers in 1965 with 123 total points.^[25]

Post-playing career

After four years with the Bears, Lujack returned to Notre Dame as an assistant coach for 1952 and 1953 to repay Frank Leahy as a debt of gratitude for having given him a scholarship to Notre Dame.^[6][8] Leahy wanted Lujack to succeed him as the head coach of the Fighting Irish, but Terry Brennan was chosen instead by Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, the university president.^[26]

In 1954, he then went into the car dealership business with his father-in-law, at Lujack Schierbrock Chevrolet Company of Davenport, Iowa.^[6][27] He sold his dealership interest to his son-in-law in 1988.^[28] Sometime in late 2006, Lujack's was sold by his ex son in law to Smart Automotive.^[29]

●-->    Lujack served as a television color commentator for several years, teaming with Chris Schenkel to call New York Giants games on CBS from 1958 to 1961.^[30][31][32] However, in 1962 when Ford signed on as a major sponsor and learned that Lujack was a Chevrolet dealer, he was replaced by Pat Summerall.^[32][33] He also worked with Jim McKay on CBS doing college football and on ABC college football telecasts in the late 1960s.^[34]

On June 8, 1978, Lujack was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.^[35]

In 2005, Lujack donated $50,000 to Connellsville High School toward a new field house for the football stadium.^[6] It was later named Johnny Lujack Field House.^[6] The Johnny Lujack Training Facility was formally dedicated in 2009 and he was also inducted into the inaugural class of the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame.^[10]