{"id":88510,"date":"2025-07-24T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T11:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/88510\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T11:29:10","slug":"don-hutson-alabama-end-might-have-been-greatest-college-football-player-of-pre-world-war-ii-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/88510\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Hutson Alabama end might have been greatest college football player of pre-World War II era"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history<\/a>, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide\u2019s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy. <\/p>\n

Paul \u201cBear\u201d Bryant often self-deprecatingly referred to himself as the \u201cother\u201d end on Alabama\u2019s 1934 Rose Bowl championship team, though it wasn\u2019t necessarily a case of false humility. <\/p>\n

Playing on the opposite end of the Crimson Tide front line was Don Hutson, one of the greatest football players of the pre-World War II era and one of the all-time legends at Alabama. He was an All-American for an undefeated Crimson Tide team his senior year, and was later one of the early superstars in the NFL. <\/p>\n

Hutson wore No. 37 for at least part of his Alabama career, but also donned No. 6, No. 44 and No. 14 (which he would wear throughout his Hall of Fame tenure with the Green Bay Packers). Crimson Tide coach Frank Thomas liked to keep both opponents and fans guessing by constantly changing his players\u2019 jersey numbers, the latter so they would have to buy a program to know who the players were. <\/p>\n

Hutson was born Jan. 31, 1913, in Pine Bluff, Ark. \u2014 some eight-and-a-half months before Bryant came into the world 80 miles to the northeast in Moro Bottom on Sept. 11. The two played against each other in high school, with Bryant writing in his 1975 autobiography, Bear, that Hutson \u201cwas something to see even then. We\u2019d hitchhike to Pine Bluff just to watch him play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 6-foot, 150-pound Hutson first intended to focus on baseball in college, with Alabama coach intending to make him starting center fielder. Hutson continued to play baseball for the Crimson Tide, but soon enough gravitated to football and joined the team as a walk-on. <\/p>\n

Hutson is mentioned as a \u201cvarsity end\u201d candidate heading into the spring of 1932, but a bone in his foot in mid-November vs. Georgia Tech and missed the remainder of the season. Alabama finished 8-2, with losses to Tennessee (7-3) and the aforementioned Yellow Jackets (6-0). <\/p>\n

Hutson was a third-team All-SEC pick as a junior for an Alabama team that went 7-1-1 and claimed the first championship of the newly formed SEC, beating Tennessee and Georgia Tech, but playing to a scoreless tie vs. Ole Miss and losing 2-0 to Fordham at the Polo Grounds in New York. Statistics are sketchy, but contemporary reports note that he recovered two fumbles in the loss to Fordham, caught a 21-yard touchdown pass in a 20-0 win over Kentucky and \u201cknifed through blockers for many tackles\u201d in a 12-9 victory over Georgia Tech. <\/p>\n

Hutson played summer league baseball in his home state in 1934 before returning to Alabama for his senior football season. It was then that the SEC and the larger football world became aware of his greatness. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon didn\u2019t make all that much of an impression when he made varsity as a sophomore,\u201d teammate Buck Hughes later said. \u201cAs I recall, he played just enough to earn a letter in 1932 and 1933. Now 1934, that\u2019s another story.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 13-6 win over Tennessee on Oct. 20, Hutson set up one touchdown with a 33-yard reception and ran for the other on an end around. He scored a total of eight touchdowns \u2014 six receiving and two rushing \u2014 in blowout wins over Georgia, Clemson and Georgia Tech. <\/p>\n

Bryant \u2014 by then starting at right end with Hutson on the left side \u2014 wrote glowingly of his teammate some 40 years later. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was, in every respect, a complete football player \u2014 a good defensive end, a fine blocker and an intelligent player,\u201d Bryant wrote. \u201cBut oh, my, could he catch passes. In all my life I have never seen a better pass receiver. He had great hands, great timing and deceptive speed. He\u2019d come off the line looking like he was running wide open, and just be cruising. Then he\u2019d really open up. He looked like he was gliding, and he\u2019d reach for the ball at the exact moment it got there, like it was an apple on a tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyDon Hutson, second from right, was among the inaugural class of inductees for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1969. He’s shown here with, from left, Johnny Mack Brown, Joe Louis, Paul “Bear” Bryant and Ralph “Shug” Jordan. (Birmingham News file photo by Robert Adams)Alabama Media Group<\/p>\n

Alabama closed out the regular season by beating Vanderbilt 34-0, claiming the SEC championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl. Hutson, tackle Bill Lee and halfback Dixie Howell \u2014 who threw the majority of the passes in the Crimson Tide\u2019s Notre Dame box offense \u2014 were all named first-team All-SEC and first-team All-American. <\/p>\n

Hutson completed his college career a year before the Heisman Trophy was first awarded, but there\u2019s a good chance he would have been Alabama\u2019s first winner had the honor then existed. In 2009, writing for the National Football Foundation newsletter<\/a>, famed sports writer and college football historian Dan Jenkins awarded Hutson a \u201cretroactive Heisman\u201d for 1934.<\/p>\n

Alabama\u2019s opponent for the Rose Bowl was Stanford, which was 9-0-1 and had allowed just 14 points all year. The Crimson Tide would more than double that output on New Year\u2019s Day 1935 in Pasadena, winning 29-13 largely behind the combination of Howell and Hutson to finish the season 10-0.<\/p>\n

Howell ran for two touchdowns \u2014 including a 67-yarder \u2014 to help Alabama take a 22-7 lead at halftime. Hutson caught a 54-yard scoring pass from Riley Smith in the second quarter, then a 59-yarder from Howell in the fourth that put the game away after Stanford had gotten with 22-13. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo team in the history of football, anywhere, anytime, has passed the ball as Alabama passed it today,\u201d Ralph McGill wrote in the following day\u2019s Atlanta Constitution. (There were no official college football polls until 1936, but Alabama was later awarded the national championship by five independent selectors that are still officially recognized by the NCAA).<\/p>\n

There was also no NFL draft at the time, so Hutson was free to sign with the highest bidder. Though Brooklyn coach John \u201cShipwreck\u201d Kelly argued that Hutson had first signed<\/a> with his club, the Alabama stars rights were awarded to Green Bay and coach Curly Lambeau. (Hutson later admitted he\u2019d taken money from Kelly and maybe even verbally agreed to a contract offer, but always disputed that he\u2019d signed anything.)<\/p>\n

Hutson scored on an 83-yard touchdown on his first play as a Packer, and was off and running on an 11-year career in which he led the NFL in receptions eight times, receiving yards seven times and receiving touchdowns nine times. He won three NFL championships, was a first-team All-Pro eight times (making second-team the other three years) and was a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Coming Friday: Our countdown to kickoff continues with No. 36, when Alabama snapped six years of Iron Bowl frustration in emphatic fashion. <\/p>\n

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