In the avalanche of Brooklyn born children immigrants…Bernie Sanders ‘s passionate interpretation of our Democracy,Yale’s School of Law Hilary Clinton’s own grasp of the White House occupancy, in her lady like approach to what was once considered a masculine dominion…..Washington, Jefferson, Honest Abe Lincoln….Franklin Delano Roosevelt… Harry Truman
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Yet the culture of football as ludicrous as it sounds relativity, also had a pioneering hold on the immigrant children of parents,who settled in Brooklyn.
One such immigrant family from Germany, was the Luckman , residing near Prospect Park, and the Bryna Apartments, their son, Sidney, attending Erasmus Hall High School, on Flat bush Avenue. Here Sid Luckman polish his ten year intimacy with the pigskin, playing out the roe of a single wing quarterback., calling the plays, dictating the flow of running and passing, mixing it up against the defense.The consciousness of a football prodigy named Sidney (”Sid”) Luckman, the Name Detective’s “What’s in a Name”?) Curtis
Adler.
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He got the attention of Lou Little, the Columbia University coach. But the football touchdown standard barriers and the screaming mid field yard fans, were stagnant at Columbia, so Sid Luckman honed his craft at a campus where he could continue his life- long love affair with the pigskin. After two years, he and coach Little saw eye to eye and he continued his inevitability at the Columbia University field.
His plaudits gained recognition. Hearing about Luckman, the Chicago Bears NFL , owner and coach George Hals, a son of Czech immigrants, came to the City that never sleeps and was invited with Mister Sid and Mrs. Luckman to their tiny apartment, near the Stadium..
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For the following twelve years, Halas and his quarterback, devised and mastered the T formation, leaving the single wingin the dust..Thereupon the legends…Red Grange, Bronco Nagurski, Sammy Baugh of Texas Christian and the NFL’s Washington Redskins , came to the LA Rams Commissioner, a television prominence.
No les Army’s Felix “Doc” Blanchard and Glen Davis, two running halfbacks from West Point. If Burlington, Vermont’s former Mayor Bernie Sanders of Brooklyn’s Madison High School, says he’s having a he’s having sweaty accounts for hisown Presidential run, one could mirror Commissioner Pete Roselle’s leadership, inthe same breathe sweats that Sid Luckman expended since the age of four,
39 year old retired Payton Manning of Denver, formerly of Indianapolis, in his winning relationship with the football, his own emancipation thru those grueling seasons in Indianapolis and Denver, I the NFL of Peyton Manning, retiring after his historic career and reaching the age of 389, with a record of the only quarterback, mastering a moneyed amount of close to 300 million dollars..before or after taxes?.
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Father and mentor Archie Manning to both his sons… EIi, the younger, , a q/b with the New York Giants, his Tennessee drawl… out o the locker room, before and after the weekly Sunday struggle, remembering all the plays, variations o the theme clock, the players names their formations, hand offs,fakes, feint moves, reversals..deception into first downs (a microcosm of the game),. Yardage into first downs , enemy territory, relative abstracts of Picasso like yardage, essential to dominate the adversary, an d remain positive with the “w” and afterward…,the joy and distractions in the locker room.
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For ourselves, the typhoid fever coma limited our bodes well to the line of scrimmage….”hup hip hop” “the q/b calling the signals… The bench in an uproar. The fans screaming. The umpire and refs in a huddle, High School principle Norm Schacter bending his ear.
Needless to say in growing up, the Sid Luckman Sammy Baughrivalry… game of all games was the reigning memory for another son of immigrant parents ,raised in Brooklyn.
March 8, 2016 Brooklyn, New York The City that never sleeps.
