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Earl H. Blaik  1920

Cullum No. 6647-1920 | May 6, 1989 | Died in Colorado Springs, CO
Interment: West Point Cemetery, West Point, NY


“Men are brothers by life lived … It is this that we know together ... all of us, all ages. We have played this magnificent, wild, extravagant, difficult and often dangerous game—not merely watched it being played … We know the feel of it, the desperate excitement, the triumph, the despair … It is this which gives the game its power over our memories and minds—a power which those who have never played find inexplicable—even incredible,” said Archibald MacLeish, Pulitzer Prize poet, addressing the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame, December 1969.

Earl Henry Blaik, USMA Class of 1920, one of the truly great mentors of the game, died at a nursing home in Colorado Springs on 5 May 1989. A memorial service was conducted for his friends and associates at the West Point Cadet Chapel on Saturday 13 May by the USMA Chaplain, Richard P. Camp, Jr. Private graveside ceremonies were held earlier that day.

For those of us who were part of the life and times of Earl Blaik the mention of his name brings to mind an epoch of Army football never to be forgotten. Recalling those days of camaraderie, color and excitement will, for many of us, evoke memories of a time of matchless drama indelibly etched in our minds for the rest of our days. There was a time when the words “Army” and “football” were synonymous. It is for that reason that the name “Blaik” will always occupy a large page in the annals of West Point and have a special place in the hearts of all those in the Long Gray Line.

From seafaring stock in Glasgow, Earl Blaik’s father, William Douglas Blaik, succumbed to the lure of America as the land of opportunity and struck out for our shores from Scotland in 1883 at age 16. With a three-year layover at his uncle’s in Canada to learn the blacksmith trade, the senior Blaik landed in Detroit to open his own blacksmith and carriage shop. It was there that he met and married Margaret Purcell and proceeded to prosper and raise a family. Earl’s brother Doug was born in 1893 and his sister Mabel in 1907. Earl Henry was the middle child, making his appearance on 15 February 1897.

The Blaiks moved to Dayton, Ohio at the turn of the century. It was during those growing-up years in Dayton that Earl learned to love and play the game of football. His parents, determined to afford him an advantage, sent him to the University of Miami in Oxford, Ohio to prepare for law. Sports (football, basketball and baseball) and other activities almost got the best of him, but reorienting his priorities, he graduated with straight A’s, was a member of the debating team, and helped to pay tuition by serving as an assistant instructor in economics.

America’s entry into World War I was a major turning point in Blaik’s life. What could possibly prompt a man to go to West Point who already had four years of college and a degree? The way things looked by his senior year at Miami in 1917, he saw prospects for a law career diminishing. The excitement and drama of wartime was contagious, and he was anxious to participate in what was going on in the world. So immediately after getting his diploma from the University of Miami, Blaik found himself a new plebe in the Class of 1922. Of course, an additional attraction to West Point was the chance to play more college football. Thus began a collaboration between an individual and an institution that would last, on and off, for well over half a century. Earmarked for success from the start, the association between Blaik and West Point, however, was not without its own measure of trials and disappointment along the way.

Even before he came through the sallyport into Central Area for the first time, Blaik brought with him a certain quality of resiliency in his character, a temper of will. As a youngster he had experienced the desolation that comes from losing everything when a rampaging flood of the Miami River swept away all of the family’s belongings. He certainly would be no stranger to such devastation later in life on the gridiron, but the Dayton flood was his introduction to the chaos and shock of catastrophe. It was then he learned about starting over from rock bottom. The flood, more than any other event, was the crucible which forged that element in Blaik’s makeup that refused to accept defeat. The elder Blaik, who rescued and assisted others during the flood, was his model nearly forty years later when a blow of another sort befell his beloved football team.

Nineteen-eighteen was not a good year at West Point; for cadets as well as faculty, academically and in other ways it was the worst. Early graduation had reduced the Corps to three classes when in October the Secretary of War ordered the graduation of the two upper classes on 1 November, leaving Blaik’s class all that remained of the Corps Less than six months into plebe year he was made an acting sergeant in I Company at the same time a new class was admitted known as Plebe Class “B.” To make matters more confusing, when the war ended, the recently graduated yearlings, as second lieutenants, returned in December to complete the academic year.

By 1919 football, which had been cancelled during the war, was reinstated accompanied by the colorful coaching combination of Daly and Graves, both Class of 1905. Summer of that year also marked the arrival of the youngest superintendent ever to hold the position, Douglas MacArthur, Class of 1903. The latter had always had a keen interest in the football squad, but when he was superintendent it became even more of a personal matter. Blaik, an accomplished end long before he was on the Army team, showed early signs of leadership, an ability to spark the team. As a cadet, he went from sergeant to corporal to color sergeant and completed his last six months as a lieutenant in newly formed Company M. He lettered in football, baseball, and basketball, was an All-American end on Walter Camp’s teams, and won the coveted USMA Athletic Sabre.

His class became one of only two years tenure, the Class of 1920. He was commissioned in the Cavalry.

He initially served at Fort Riley, Kansas and later at Fort Bliss, Texas, where he resigned his commission in 1922. As fate would have it, only 24 hours after he resigned he received a letter from MacArthur requesting him to join his staff, then being assembled in the Philippines.

Another observer who recognized talent was his coach from Ohio, George Little, who talked Blaik into coming to Wisconsin to assist in coaching and scouting, and thus launched what was meant to be only a temporary diversion from a building business in Dayton. But it was Biff Jones (Class of August 1917), who stressing a sense of obligation to his alma mater, brought Blaik back to West Point as a civilian assistant in 1927, where he could not have laid a better foundation alongside of (and later under) Ralph Sasse for what was to follow. Sasse was a catalyst who brought color and sparkle to his coaching. In his own words, “Under me you’re going to get fireworks,” and it was under Sasse that Blaik probably learned the most he ever did about coaching, and he never forgot him for it. Sasse never let it be a secret that much of his success was dependent on the chemistry generated by two of his assistants, ones who always managed to stay out of the limelight, Blaik and Harry Ellinger, Class of 1925. Another individual, the most pivotal in Blaik’s career, who came to the same conclusion was a major on the superintendent’s staff named Robert Eichelberger, Class of 1909.

At the conclusion of Sasse’s tour of duty, Eichelberger made a bid to have him replaced by Blaik, but was unsuccessful because the policy at the time was for an active duty coach. Dartmouth, of course, had no such restrictions and in 1934 quickly hired both Blaik and Ellinger. Football now became a serious profession for Blaik, one to which he was once and for all fully committed.

Those years of playing—for Mathes at Steele High, Little at Miami, Graves and Daly at West Point—and the years of coaching—three for Biff Jones, three for Sasse and one for Gar Davidson—were all necessary for what followed. Blaik by this time had earned a reputation as a strategist, a quiet student of attack and defense characterized by imagination. Jones called him a splendid teacher, devoted to “charts and diagrams, with shrewdness and sound judgment in picking aides and subordinates.” His years at Dartmouth put all of that to the test. Like Daly and Graves, Blaik and Ellinger complemented each other. Here Blaik gained valuable experience in assembling a coaching staff, and developed a limitless capacity for hard work and a passion for perfection. In an article Harry Kipke, coach at the University of Michigan, said, “now that he [Blaik] is in full charge of Dartmouth the East may be in for some surprises.” He was right. In the 1938 Pigskin Preview, Francis Wallace said, “Dartmouth is strong enough and deep enough to play on a par with Pitt and Fordham as both Army and Navy continue a gradual slide from their old position …” The handwriting was on the wall. Eichelberger, whose belief in Blaik’s ultimate role at Army had never wavered, upon becoming the superintendent in 1940 embarked on a personal crusade to return Blaik to the Academy.

It was not easy for Blaik to leave his old friend Ernest Martin Hopkins, president of Dartmouth College, nor for the family to depart from Hanover. But, once more the appeal was made to Blaik’s sense of duty not only to his alma mater, but this time, duty to his country as well. The country was on the brink of war and Eichelberger could not stand for a losing football team to be associated with West Point—or the United States Army. So Earl Blaik returned for a third time to West Point. Along with Ellinger, who was active on the staff until his untimely death in 1942, Blaik brought trainer Roland Bevan and coach Andy Gustafson with him.

Blaik’s record, of course, became legendary. Any book on the history of college football lists his name and the accounts of his team’s exploits with singular frequency. Statistics on individual players abound. In his excellent pictorial history of sports at the Military Academy, Joe Dineen says, “There has never been a more glorious period of nation-wide success in Army football than occurred during the 1940’s.  The cadet football squad simply was elevated from the pit to the pedestal by Earl Henry ‘Red’ Blaik.”  To him football became in a large measure a game of science, and his “lab” was the office on the top floor of the gym where he could be found at all hours surrounded by blackboards, his coaches, and an excellent film library on the game.  They studied the physics of blocking and chemistry of speed and maneuver.  Blaik commented, “The few hours spent on the practice field or in the stadium on Saturday constitute only a minute fraction of the work.”  Many years later, Harvey Jablonsky, Class of 1934, who captained the Army team in 1933, in an interview stated that the greatest thrill of his life and fondest memories of the game were not playing it, but coaching it under Earl Blaik.

Another thoughtful tribute was the one that Joe Cahill devoted to his boss in the Spring 1959 issue of Assembly entitled “Au Revoir, Red!” Cahill pointed out that under Blaik some 21 of his assistant coaches went on to become head coaches.  If he saw potential in man, player, or coach, he pushed him to his limits.

In 25 years as head coach, first at Dartmouth and then at Army, Blaik was handed the difficult task of rebuilding decimated football squads, and he answered each challenge.  At Dartmouth, he inspired a losing ball club to become an instant winner.  During the seven years he was there, he led the school to a 45-15-4 record, without a losing season.  His teams had a 21-game winning streak; he won the Ivy League crown in 1936 and 1937, and Dartsmouth was ranked 7th in the nation in 1937.

His return to West Point in 1941 was electric; he took a team that had finished 1-7-1 the year before and coached it to a 5-3-1 season.  Army then won the National Championship in 1944 and 1945, was Eastern Champion four other times, won the Lambert Trophy seven times, and six unbeaten seasons, and a 25-game winning streak, with two undefeated winning streaks of 32 and 28 games.  His overall record at Army from 1941-59 was 121-32-10 (11 of the loses were in the 1951 and 1952 seasons, a time of painful rebuilding of the team.)  In his 25 years of coaching he had but one losing season, 1951.  By the time he closed his career he had developed 43 first team All American players and three Heisman Trophy winners.

And a telegram from Douglas MacArthur after Blaik’s last Army-Navy game signified the success of his final rebuilding effort:  “In the long history of West Point athletics there has never been a greater triumph.  It has brought pride and happiness and admiration to millions of Army rooters throughout the world … For you, dear old friend, it marks one of the most glorious moments of your peerless career.  There is no substitute for victory.”

And on another occasion MacArthur said of Blaik, “His value to the Academy goes far beyond his skill as football coach.  The men who pass through his hands of cross his path learn all over again that our Army became the greatest in the world because it operated on the understanding that once committed to battle it continued to fight until victory was achieved.”

In 1946 Earl Blaik was chosen Coach of the Year by his peers, The Football Coaching Association of America, and in 1953 was accorded a similar honor by the Touchdown Club of Washington, DC.  His relations with sportswriters, other coaches and people in the world of football set an example of demeanor and integrity, the fact being singled out and recognized by the New York Press Photographer’s Award of 1956.

In 1964 he was installed in the National Football Hall of Fame, and in 1966 received the National Football Foundation’s Gold Medal Award, the highest individual honor the Foundation can bestow.  The citation reads, “Presented to Earl Henry Blaik in recognition of a lifetime of interest in American intercollegiate football as a player, Hall of Fame coach, business executive and architect of victory and inspirational leader and builder of men in time of war and peace.”  Along with Earl Blaik, that particular award has been made to a university president, a Supreme Court Justice, four captains of industry and five Presidents of the United States.  The awards continued.  At a black tie dinner in Manhattan attended by over a thousand, he was honored by the West Point Society of New York as an “Illustrious Graduate of the Military Academy.”

One of the proudest moments of his life had to be at the White House in May 1986 when President Ronald Reagan presented him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with a very select group saying, “You’re a group of happy rebels.  You’re all originals.  You’ve all made America better.”  The citation to Blaik reads, “A soldier of gridiron, Colonel Earl ‘Red’ Blaik led the West Point team he coached into the pages of the history books.  He rallied the Black Knights from a record of devastating defeats and spurred them on to some of their greatest victories, winning the esteem of his cadet players and the admiration of his vanquished rivals.  One of America’s great coaches, he brought a winning spirit to his team, honor to his branch of service, and pride to his Nation.”

After retiring from coaching in 1959, Blaik became a corporate executive and served in a number of highly responsible positions from 1959-1989.  These included Chairman of the Executive Committee and Director, Avco Corporation; Director, Crosley Broadcasting Corporation; Director, Moffats of Canada, Ltd; Director, Gulton Industries; and Chairman, Blaik Oil Company.

Any man on whom the mantle of greatness is placed will have his detractors and Earl Blaik was no exception.  To those who only knew him peripherally, or not at all, he may have appeared aloof, remote.  But to those who knew him well, he was not that way.  On the contrary, even in a profession transitory by nature, he formed many warm, lasting friendships, some going back to Dayton; boyhood friend Victor Emmanuel, Chairman of AVCO, and teammate at Miami Marvin “Monk” Pierce, father of our current First Lady.  His association with Gerald Ford goes back to Dartmouth days, along with Dave Camerer, Bob MacLeod, and Ernest Martin Hopkins.  His friends at West Point were too numerous to list in full, but some are very special such as Gerry Counts, Red Reeder from his earliest coaching days, and Doug Kenna, Ray, Murphy, and Joe Steffy who phoned regularly long after he retires; and those who stayed close at the end – Skip Scott, Bennie Davis, Ski Ordway, Harry Walters, and Glen Davis.  No stranger to the White House, Earl Blaik was personally acquainted with seven Presidents from Hoover to Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush.  Then there was the host of men who wrote about him over the years – Red Smith, Allison Danzig, Tim Cohane, Willard Mullin and his “one man rooting section,” as he called him, Joe Cahill.

One of his many demonstrations of loyalty and high personal regard for others occurred when he took a train to Wilmington, Delaware one weekend afternoon in early 1942 in order to meet with his old friend Ralph Sasse to see what could be done about a problem that had gone beyond Ralph’s control.  We’ll never know what transpired between these two men in that hotel room, but whatever it was enabled Ralph to turn his life around.

His continuing devotion to duty was exemplified when in September 1963 he took a trip to Birmingham, Alabama for President John Kennedy, along with former Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall and stayed there until a very tense and dangerous situation was put to rest; a retired football coach helped discard a deadly racial confrontation.

The Blaik marriage must have been made in Heaven.  They were born only a few days apart in the same year.  Theirs was no whirlwind courtship.  They met while they were both attending Miami in 1916, were engaged in 1918, he gave Merle his class ring in 1920, and they were married in 1923. She always referred to Blaik’s players as “my boys” and at her 80th birthday celebration she looked around the room at the faces that were there and said, “Why must my boys grow old?” When she passed away, the marriage was only a month shy of 61 years. The Blaiks had two boys, Bill who was born in 1927 and Bob, born in 1929, who played football under his dad.

Perhaps a quotation from “The Scotchman” by Earl Blaik’s dear friend Grantland Rice says it all:
“There’s a big, braw fellow missing from the golden land of fame.br /> ... has left us and the game is not the same.”

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