Fritsch: Unfair competition?

“The Packers have come up with a 205-pound fullback, Ted Fritsch, whose alert, aggressive play in pre-season exhibition against the Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh combine made the experts ask for his pedigree,” the Kenosha News wrote about the sophomore fullback as the 1943 season kicked off..

“After Fritsch’s showing in the east, Green Bay fans promptly tabbed him as another Clarke Hinkle and recalled that the Packers enjoyed their greatest success when the Bucknell Beauty was on hand to lend variance to the characteristically devastating Packers passing game.”

The Packers finished 7-2-1 during the 1943 season, with Fritsch fifth in rushing (169 yards), fourth in scoring (four TDs), third in punting (five) and third in kickoff returns (tied with four).

Though Fritsch finished the season respectably, his name would hit the newspapers for an entirely different reason — when the Dec. 27, 1943, Time Magazine ran a blurb entitled “Unfair Competition”

“The ultimate post-mortem on 1943 college football was pronounced last week by George Strickler, press agent of the National (professional) Football League: ‘… College football just threw the book [of eligibility rules] out the window and took anybody that came along. Why, they even offered some of our pro players the same salary they were getting in our league, to play for them.’”

Among the players that Strickler claimed colleges had offered “the same salary they were getting” in the NFL was Ted Fritsch.

Major John L. Griffith, commissioner of the Western Conference, named Fritsch, who was back in school at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and employed by Bowman’s Dairy by then, “as one player Strickler believed had been offered inducements to play for the school,” The Daily Tribune stated.

“We discussed the matter with Mr. Strickler and asked him if any of the Big 10 universities were involved, and he replied that the Universities of Wisconsin and Iowa were involved, although he added that in one case it is possible that the school itself did not make the offer or back it up,” Griffith stated.

“Mr. Strickler, in our conversation, indicated that he believed that while no one connected with the University of Wisconsin had offered Mr. Fritsch money inducements to enroll at the university, someone had done so. While Mr. Strickler did not mention [Duane] Bowman by name, he apparently was of the opinion that when Mr. Bowman gave Mr. Fritsch employment, he did so with the idea of strengthening the University of Wisconsin football team.”

Bowman and University of Wisconsin Athletic Director/Head Football Coach Harry A. Stuhldreher both refuted the claims, and an investigation later declared that there was no evidence to support the claim.

To be continued