Remembering Johnny Lujack
Submitted photo
Connellsville graduate and Notre Dame Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack (left) poses with George Von Benko for a photo in Florida. Lujack died on July 25 at the age of 98.
Submitted photo
Connellsville graduate Johnny Lujack is shown during his playing days at Notre Dame, where he won the Heisman Trophy. Lujack died on July 25 at the age of 98.
Submitted photo
Connellsville graduate Johnny Lujack addresses the crowd at the first Fayette County Sports Hall of Banquet on July 18, 2009. He was a member of the inaugural class. Lujack died on July 25 at the age of 98.
The legend of Johnny Lujack started in Connellsville when he was born on Jan. 4, 1925. He never forgot where he came from. We lost the legend on July 25 when he passed away at the age of 98 in Naples, Fla.
His granddaughter, Amy Schiller, said he had recently entered hospice care after having been in good health until a couple of weeks ago.
“He was not only a legend in Notre Dame football and the sports world,” Schiller said, “he was a legend as a father and grandfather and great grandfather.”
On a visit to Florida in April 2022, I had the immense pleasure of sitting down to lunch at the Quail Creek Country Club in Naples with the then 97-year old Lujack and his grandson Grant Pohlmann.
Here is an excerpt from that Memory Lane I wrote in 2022:
Lujack joked, “You mean in Fayette County they still remember John Lujack?”
I informed him that he is still revered back home.
The story of John Lujack is the stuff of legend even though there was a time when he doubted his ability coming out of Connellsville High School. He told me that in a 2007 Memory Lane.
“In my senior year of high school (1941), they named four teams all-state in Pennsylvania — and I didn’t make any of the four teams,”Lujack recalled.
“I did make all-county, but then my good friend and Notre Dame teammate Creighton Miller liked to say, ‘I understand that your high school was the only one in the county.’ That wasn’t true, but it did make people laugh.
“Honestly, I didn’t think I was good enough to get a scholarship to attend Notre Dame. I told people that if I could just make the traveling squad in my junior or senior year, I could probably come back to Connellsville, run for mayor and win it hands down.”
Lujack played for a couple of pretty good teams during his high school playing days with the Cokers.
“I remember that we had an awfully good team in 1941 — we were tied the last game of the season against Brownsville or we would have gone on into the playoffs,” Lujack said. “That was a big disappointment to us, but we really had a nice team. We had Wally Schroyer at fullback and Dave Hart at halfback and Dick Pitzer, who eventually went to West Point and was captain of the Army team, and I played against him in the 1946 Army-Notre Dame game. I think back to those days many, many times, and eventually I get a clipping of some sort and I remember this clipping said that I ran for two touchdowns of over 70-yards against Mount Pleasant and I don’t remember that at all.”
When Lujack graduated from Connellsville he sifted through some college offers and enrolled at Notre Dame in 1942.
“Henry Opperman was a strong athletic supporter of Connellsville and for some reason he thought that I could go on to college,” Lujack recalled. “I was getting offers from Pitt and Duke and other schools. Opperman got hold of a guy named Fritz Wilson in Pittsburgh and he was kind of responsible for Notre Dame scouting in and around the Pittsburgh area. Eventually I went out to Notre Dame for a tryout and after I had the tryout about a day or two later I received a scholarship, which really kind of surprised me, but I really think that I wasn’t good enough to make a Notre Dame team, and I said to my parents and my brothers and sisters, if I can make the traveling squad at Notre Dame my junior or senior year, I will be happy and feel that I had a successful career.”
Lujack became a star for the Irish.
He took over at quarterback for Notre Dame as a sophomore in 1943 when Angelo Bertelli joined the Marines — and he ended up helping the Irish to three national titles and establishing a reputation as one of the great signal callers in college football history.
In the 1943 school year, Lujack also played basketball, baseball (second base) and track (high jump and javelin) to become Notre Dame’s first four-sport letterman since 1912.
In his initial start versus Army in 1943, he threw for two scores, ran for another and intercepted a pass in a 26-0 victory. He spent nearly three years of his own in the Navy but returned in time to earn consensus All-America honors as a junior and senior on Notre Dame teams in 1946 and 1947 that did not lose a game.
But Lujack may be best remembered for a defensive play he made in the 1946 Army-Notre Dame game.
He preserved a scoreless tie between the second ranked Irish and top-ranked Army by making a touchdown-saving tackle of Cadet fullback Doc Blanchard from his defensive back position.
“That’s what I was supposed to do — tackle him,” Lujack said. “And maybe more people remember that Army game because it was a tie. It was just meant to be that way.”
Except for a 0-0 tie against Army, the Irish whizzed through Lujack’s remaining two seasons (8-0-1 and 9-0) without much of a challenge.
“That 1946 team we only had 24 points scored against us all year,” Lujack said with pride.
Lujack won the prestigious Heisman Trophy in 1947.
“As you look back now — you say boy that’s something,” Lujack stated. “In 1947 I was the 13th Heisman winner, it really didn’t have the publicity and the hoopla that you have going on today. I was told after the Southern Cal game in 1947 that I won the Heisman Trophy and I was really very surprised, because I wasn’t after any individual stuff. Now it really means an awful lot when somebody says John was an All-American at Notre Dame and that doesn’t grab them, but then if they add ‘and he was a Heisman Trophy winner,’ it grabs their attention.”
At lunch in 2022 Lujack made this point about the trajectory of his life.
“Connellsville prepared me,” Lujack said. “Notre Dame molded me into the person I became.”
Lujack was a No. 1 draft choice of the Chicago Bears, and in four busy seasons, he twice was All-Pro, once on defense and then on offense.
He also was the Bears’ extra-point kicker and led the NFL in scoring one season, all for a top seasonal salary of $20,000.
“I enjoyed pro football,” Lujack explained. “I signed up for four years with George Halas and at the end of four years I had two shoulder separations and I had a bad knee. I just thought it was time to quit rather than try and force things.”
One of Lujack’s big highlight’s with the Bears occurred on Dec. 11, 1949 when he passed for 468 yards and six touchdowns in a 52-21 shellacking of the Chicago Cardinals. The 468 passing yards is a Bear record that still stands today.
“1949 was my best offensive year,” Lujack recalls. “The game against the Cardinals where I threw for 468 yards was a new league record at the time surpassing Sammy Baugh’s mark of 446. I threw six touchdown passes and two more were downed on the one yard line. It was one of those days that was just fantastic.”
The last award that Lujack received was the Heritage Award and induction into the WPIAL Hall of Fame in May 2022.
Lujack said the WPIAL honor ranked right up there with being part of the first Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame Class in 2009.
“Any time that you are recognized in the area that you were born and raised,” Lujack offered, “and they recall your being there and living there and you were a citizen there, that means an awful lot to guys like me.”
When I heard of Lujack’s passing I could not help thinking about the late Carroll “Beano” Cook who was referred to as “The Pope of College Football” when he worked as an analyst for ESPN. Cook revered Lujack.
“The two greatest winners of the 1940s were FDR and John Lujack,” Cook stated. “But even Roosevelt only won two elections in the 1940s, while Lujack won three national titles.”
My thanks for the quote to author John Lukacs who penned a great book about Beano Cook, “Haven’t They Suffered Enough? An Unbelievable Career In Sports, PR And Television.”
Lujack had a combination of Hall of Fame skill, personal dignity and class that separated him from other “stars.” I was fortunate to have known him.
When I think of Lujack’s passing a line from the movie “Braveheart” seems so appropriate.
“Every man dies, not every man really lives.” RIP Johnny Lujack!