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Princeton University Athletics
Dick Kazmaier Named Football Player of the Century
November 15, 1999 | Football
Nov. 15, 1999
He was a kid, and there was a war going on. The older boys from the town left, one after the other. Most came back.
The ones who didn't were gone. Forever. They were brothers of kids he'd played with. Kids themselves, really. He knew them. Remembered them. Watched them grow up around the neighborhood. And then they were gone, and each time the whole town struggled to accept it.
He knew, of course. They all knew. They all knew they owed something to those kids, the ones who wouldn't have a rest-of-their-life. They owed something big, on the order of the freedom to live their own lives.
One day he left Ohio, after the war had ended, but he took it all with him. It's still with him today, and that's why, when people speak of him more than 50 years later, you still hear about modesty and teamwork and hard work and effort and loyalty and how these are the things that matter most to him.
He is Dick Kazmaier, and he is the Princeton Athletic News Princeton University Football Player of the Century. Princeton football in the 1900s featured 45 players who were named first-team All-America. The College Football Hall of Fame inducted 10 member who played at Princeton this century.
Kazmaier's accomplishments, though, stand alone. Playing the tailback position to near-perfect in Charlie Caldwell's single-wing, Kazmaier was the a two-time consensus All-America who led Princeton to perfect seasons in 1950 and 1951 and victories in the last 22 games of his career.
With Kazmaier as a running or passing threat in the backfield, Princeton set a school record that still stands by averaging 38.8 points per game in 1950 and followed that with 34.4 points per game in 1951. In the 18 games of 1950 and 1951—all Tiger wins—Princeton scored at least 40 points eight times, at least 50 points six times and at least 60 points three times.
As a senior in 1951 he guided Princeton to the Lambert Trophy as the top team in the East and a No. 6 ranking in the final Associated Press and United Press International polls. He put together perhaps the greatest single game in Princeton history. He had his picture on the cover of Time Magazine.
At season's end, he became the only Princetonian ever honored with college football's highest honor, the Heisman Trophy.
"He was amazing, just a great ballplayer," says Frank McPhee '54, himself a two-time consensus All-America and a member of the Princeton Football Association All-Century team who was a year behind Kazmaier. "He was the most determined kid I ever saw. He could do it all. He could do everything you should be able to do on a football field."
Kazmaier certainly wasn't a big man when he arrived on campus.
"I was about 155 pounds when I first came to Princeton," he says. "I'm not sure they thought I was going to make that big of a difference in my four years there. But we had 120 men at that first meeting freshman year, and only 12 of us would letter as seniors."
Kazmaier came to Princeton from Maumee, a small town just outside of Toledo. He came of age during the heart of World War II, and he was in high school when it ended.
"The war hit home when one of your friends' brothers went off into the service," Kazmaier says. "One of my teammates, he had two of his brothers go off to the war. The oldest brother, he never came back. This happened in every town, in every community in the country. The war was a very, very real thing to us."
But they were still safe. There would be no invasion in Ohio, and they knew that. And while they mobilized on the homefront, they still found time for other things. For the kid from Maumee, this meant one thing.
Sports.
"I had always been a great football fan," he says. "I knew about football from around the country, particularly in the Midwest. Michigan was only 45 minutes away. After the war ended, we'd get in a car and drive up there and try to get tickets. We had access to a lot of good football at a time when travel wasn't easy and roads weren't that good."
He grew up playing all sports, not just football.
"I had good coordination and speed," Kazmaier says. "And I practiced. I shot baskets. I threw a football threw a rubber tire. I'd field ground balls. It was just a natural art of life. There were no sports camps, no special training. You wouldn't start getting ready for football until August 1st each year. The coach would send you a letter that said practice would start on such-and-such date, make sure you're in shape."
Maumee High School had a total of 150 boys. There were 72 total students in the Class of 1948, there were six grades in one buiding.
"My father was a manager of a glass company, and his boss was a man named Henry Dodge from the Class of 1932," he says. "The head of the Toledo schools was Gilmore Flues of the Class of 1926. They decided when I was a junior in high school that I should go to Princeton. My father was a graduate of Toledo, had played football there, and he wanted me to go to the best possible school I could. Princeton sounded like a pretty good place."
He began his Princeton career as a fifth-team tailback on the 1948 freshman team. "Did I ever think we were going to have the success we would have," he asks? "No. But I always was striving for the best. That's one of the fundamentals of athletics. I'd watched the college All-America teams, followed it for years. That's how you were raised. Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy. I thought maybe I could do those things."
Princeton started the 1949 season 2-3 before winning its final four games. He became a consensus All-America as a junior, and he had some epic performances as a senior.
He ran for 262 yards on 37 carries in a 12-0 win over Brown. It was in the 1951 game against unbeaten Cornell, however, that Kazmaier put together a game that has grown to legendary proportions.
"I was a sophomore, and he was a senior," says Dick Cliggott, Cornell Class of 1954 and the leading receiver on the 1952 and 1953 Big Red teams. "Both teams were hyped up for that game, I remember that. Kazmaier just had one of those perfect days. Every move he made was just perfect."
Kazmaier completed 15 of 17 passes for 236 yards and three touchdowns, with a completion percentage of 88.2% that is still the Princeton single-game record. He also ran 18 times for 124 yards and two more touchdowns in the game, and his 360 yards of total offense was the school record for 30 years. Princeton won, 53-15.
"I thought we were ready for him that day," Cliggott says. "He had been well-scouted by us, and we thought we had a good defensive plan. He just executed everything so well. He was the best offensive player I ever played against, and he deserved all the plaudits he received."
Kazmaier finished the season with 861 rushing yards on 149 carries, and he completed 123 passes for 960 yards and 13 touchdowns. He was 172 for 289 for 2,404 yards and 35 touchdowns while rushing for 1,950 yards for his career. He still ranks third all-time at Princeton in total offense.
"I had no real consideration or thought of the Heisman Trophy," he says. "The only thing we thought about was winning every game. Then one day I was called to the Dean of Students office, Dean Francisco Godolphin. He was a fearsome person, because if you were in trouble, you had to go see the Dean. He and Dan Coyle, who was the sports information director at the time, they were the ones who told me I'd won. I thought it was nice. Then I went back to class."
Kazmaier, who also won the Walter Camp Award and was named AP Player of the Year, played in one postseason all-star game, and he would be drafted by the Chicago Bears. He would never play football professionally, however.
"Mr. [George] Halas called me," he says. "I knew I could earn more money in business than I could in professional football, but there was more to it than that. I had played with a great group of people at Princeton. The players. The coaches. Everybody at Princeton was a first class individual. I had achieved everything I could achieve as an individual and as part of a team. What more could I want? I felt there was nowhere to go but down."
Kazmaier went to Harvard Business School instead of the NFL, and he's never looked back. He spent three years as a Naval officer, and he then set out on his business career. Today he is president of Kazmaier Associates, a marketing and financial services business with investments in the sports and leisure industries.
He has also been involved in countless other endeavors, including serving as a member and chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness under President Reagan and President Bush, as a member of the executive committee of the American Red Cross and as a trustee at Princeton. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1966 and has more honors and lifetime achievement awards than he can mention. The football field at Maumee High School is now named Richard Kazmaier Stadium.
"Dick Kazmaier is a modest man, too modest, but his career is not modest" says McPhee, who played in the NFL before injuries ended his career. "He was the best player I ever played with. It was a magical time at Princeton, and he was the main reason why. Dick Kazmaier was the No. 1 player we had, and he continues to stand out. He does more for the University than anybody. He did great things again and again and again, and he still does. I know I'm proud of him."
Today he is based in both the Boston area and the Florida Keys. He and his wife Patricia raised six daughters, and he loves to spend time with his grandchildren.
"It was an honor to play against him," Cliggott says. "I've met him many times since, and he has always been very modest. He's a very humble guy, very friendly, very down-to-Earth. He's the type of individual anyone would be happy to be associated with. He is the type of person that every Heisman Trophy winner should be."
The original Heisman sits in the Princeton football office in Jadwin Gym, and Kazmaier has a replica of his own. It doesn't come up much, but he knows what he has accomplished.
"It's been a long time since someone recognized me as a Heisman winner," he says. "I don't think of it as something I did. I think of it as something we did as a group. Football is a consumate team sport. Nobody does anything of substance unless they do it with everyone else on the team. You have to have the team. The rest? It's just hype.
"I believe in history and I believe in accomplishment. I have two requests that I make when I say my prayers, which I do daily. One is to accomplish. One is to contribute."
Princeton's best football player this century has done both. How could he not? He was a kid, after all, and there was a war going on. How could he not be touched by it?
— By Jerry Price