Georgia Football: 98-year-old Charley Trippi, the Bulldogs’ first national star

In the 125-plus-year history of Georgia football, few players are more legendary than multi-tool player Charley Trippi.

Frank Sinkwich was the first great Georgia football superstar, winning a Heisman Trophy in 1942. But he wasn’t Georgia’s first national superstar.

That distinction belongs to Charley Trippi. Perhaps the only quintuple-threat athlete college football has ever seen. Trippi excelled as a pre-modern running back in Wally Butts’s innovative passing offense. He could run, pass and catch all over any defense, and he also returned kickoffs and punts, and play defense. Would that not make Charley a septuple-threat then?

Trippi starred alongside Sinkwich on the 1942 Georgia Football team which won Georgia’s first consensus National Championship. The 42′ Bulldogs finished the season 11-1 and added SEC Champions and Rose Bowl champions to their résumé. Trippi, a sophomore on that squad, played half back alongside Sinkwich who was a senior playing fullback. Many will remember Trippi receiving a lot of love during Georgia’s triumphant return to Pasadena in 2018.

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A two-time All-American for Georgia football, Trippi won the Maxwell Award (nation’s most valuable player) in 1946 while finishing second in votes for the 1946 Heisman Trophy. In his Georgia football career, Trippi rushed for 1,908 yards and passed for 1,878 yards in less than three seasons. Along the way, he accounted for 42 touchdowns.

Duty called after the 1942 season and Trippi served in the Air Force during World War II. He returned to Georgia football in the middle of the 1945 season in time to lead the Bulldogs to a 9-2 record. Georgia football went a step further with Trippi in 1946, going undefeated and winning the SEC Championship, though the politics of pre-playoff college football kept Georgia from playing for a consensus National Championship.

Further, Trippi played baseball at Georgia too. I won’t go into that here, yet I am guessing he might have pitched from the mound to himself behind the plate while also playing third base and right field.

In 1947, the New York Yankees, yes a football team, almost announced they signed Trippi at a press conference. But the Yankees got an unpleasant and embarrassing surprise when the Chicago Cardinals outbid them for Charley’s services.

Trippi accepted a four-year contract for a record $100,000, That is $1,326,553 in 2020 dollars if my inflation calculator does not have the flu. Yet in 1947 many, NFL players had to work off-season jobs to make ends meet. I gather Trippi did not.

Trippi proved as versatile in the NFL as he was in college. In Chicago, Trippi was a member of the “Million Dollar Backfield” with Elmer Angsman, Paul Christman and Pat Harder. The group led the Cardinals’ franchise to its last world championship in 1947.

In the 1947 NFL Championship Game, Trippi wore tennis shoes on an icy field in Chicago and totaled 206 yards, while scoring two touchdowns on a 44-yard run from scrimmage and a 75-yard punt return.

With the Cardinals, Trippi played half back for four years, then quarterback for two years before returning to half back. He played defensive back sparingly and he punted and returned kickoffs and punts his entire career. He played nine seasons in the NFL, reaching 3,506 rushing yards, 2,547 passing yards, 1,457 kickoff return yards, 1,321 receiving yards and 864 punt return yards. Trippi added 53 total touchdowns.

Trippi is in the College Football Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. He is the only Pro Football Hall of Fame member to surpass 1,000 yards in rushing, passing, and receiving. At 98 years old, Trippi is the oldest living member of each of those Halls of Fame.

Like Wilt Chamberlain never having fouled out of an NBA game, I will wager Trippi’s 1,000-yard trifecta will never be matched. That is for very different reasons, however. Wilt played little defense and thus avoided fouls. Trippi played everything and everywhere to rack up those yards.

Georgia football is blessed that Charley Trippi chose to play in Athens, where he still resides as a “Damn Good Dawg.”