QB/FB Jack Graf (1941 Big Ten MVP)

[Buckskin86]

Jack Graf

Jack Graf Date of birth: April 19, 1919
Place of birth: Columbus, Ohio

Career information
Position(s): quarterback, fullback
College: Ohio State University


Jack Graf (born April 19, 1919) is a former two-sport athlete at the Ohio State University. In football he was named Big Ten MVP in 1941 and in basketball he served as team captain in 1942.

In 1938 Graf enrolled at Ohio State, where his father Campbell "Honus" Graf had been a three-sport athlete and the 1914 football captain. After college Honus had been a graduate assistant on the 1915 team and played professional football with Peggy Parratt's Cleveland Indians football club. He later served on the Ohio State Athletic Council.

Jack Graf joined the Ohio State football team as quarterback and served as a backup to All American Don Scott for two years. In 1941, before Graf's senior year, Paul Brown replaced Francis Schmidt as a Ohio State head coach and Brown moved Graf to fullback. As the featured back on the Ohio State offense, Graf led the Buckeyes to a 6-1-1 record. He won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award, the Most Valuable Player award in the Big Ten. Meanwhile, Graf was also a guard on the Ohio State basketball team and was named team captain as a senior.

The Cleveland Rams selected Graf in the 1942 NFL Draft, but he instead attended Harvard Business School. In 1945 Graf and his brother Campbell Jr. joined their father's electrical engineering company to form Graf and Sons. He also served 26 years as an assistant coach with the Ohio State basketball team.

Graf was inducted into the Ohio State Varsity O Hall of Fame in 1988.

Jack Graf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ex-OSU star dies: Jack Graf, an Ohio State star athlete and later an assistant men's basketball coach, has died. He was 90.

His granddaughter, Libby Graf, said Graf died Monday at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus following a heart attack.

Jack Graf played football and basketball for Ohio State in the late 1930s and early 1940s and lettered in both sports. The Ohio State Alumni Association Web site said he was the Big Ten football MVP in 1941 and excelled on both offense and defense, playing quarterback and fullback.

Graf was a basketball assistant from 1945 to 1965.

Akron starting quarterback Chris Jacquemain suspended: College Newswatch - cleveland.com

 

[Buckskin86]

Jack Graf | 1919-2009: Leaving a rich Buckeye legacy
Saturday, September 19, 2009
By Bob Hunter
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The memorial service for former Ohio State athlete and coach Jack Graf is almost a month away, but there's good reason for that. One of his daughters is in Ireland at the moment, and the date is during the first football road-game weekend when the family can attend.

"There would be lightning bolts if we held it on one of the home-game weekends," son Jack Graf Jr. said.

To say that Ohio State athletics have been a huge part of the family would be an understatement. Jack Graf was 90 when he died of a heart attack Monday in Riverside Methodist Hospital. He last coached at OSU in 1969, when he left Fred Taylor's basketball staff to take over his father's Overhead Door business, Graf and Sons.

Jack Graf had been on the Ohio State basketball staff since 1945 and served as an assistant football coach for several years. He lettered in football from 1939 to '41 as a quarterback and fullback. He won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award, given to the Big Ten's most valuable player, in 1941. He lettered in basketball from 1939 to '42 and was a captain during his senior year.

But the Graf-OSU athletic marriage started well before that. His father, Campbell (Honus) Graf, lettered in football from 1912 to '14 and was captain in 1914. He also lettered on the basketball team from 1913 to '15.

Jack's granddaughter (Jack Jr.'s daughter), Elizabeth, was a co-captain of the women's lacrosse team.

Jack Graf had been a star athlete at Upper Arlington, helping lead the school to the Class B state basketball title in 1937. After graduation from Ohio State, he coached an Army team while he attended Harvard Business School during World War II. When the war ended, Ohio State athletic director Lynn St. John told him the school needed coaches and asked him to return.

"He had touched a lot of lives over the years," Jack Jr. said, "just the way many of his coaches had touched his."

BuckeyeXtra - The Columbus Dispatch : Jack Graf | 1919-2009: Leaving a rich Buckeye legacy

 

[Steve19]

I met Jack Graf when I attended a Fred Taylor basketball camp in the late 60s. He was a good coach who you knew had your development at heart.

Imagine how much you love basketball to put your Harvard Business School MBA aside for coaching in an economy that was exploding with fast growth and opportunities.

He was a good somebody. A really decent man.

May God bless his soul.