RIP Doc Blanchard, Mr. Inside

Thought he died years ago. Shame on me. RIP.
_____

URGENT
Army’s Mr. Inside, Doc Blanchard, dies at 84
Eds: APNewsNow.
BULVERDE, Texas (AP) — Felix “Doc” Blanchard, the 1945 Heisman Trophy winner and Army’s Mr. Inside in one of college football’s most famous backfields, has died. He was 84.
Blanchard’s daughter, Mary Blanchard, told The Associated Press late Sunday night in a phone interview that her father died of pneumonia at home earlier in the day.
The bruising Blanchard and Glenn Davis, aka Mr. Outside, helped Army win consecutive national titles in 1944-45. The year after Blanchard won the Heisman Trophy, Davis won it and Army went undefeated again.
_____

Of course, it moves minutes after I'm off the floor.

 

I also thought he died years ago. RIP.

 

We were off the boards too. Just got it on the web site.

Good work, Mark Schlabach.

Blanchard's Heisman remains at St. Stanislaus College, a prep school he attended in Bay St. Louis, Miss. I should add that my esteemed colleague Del B. Vista did a really good piece on this a few years back.

Del talked to Mr. Blanchard in '03, it turns out, just before Eli Manning finished third in the Heisman balloting. He told him, "I thought it would do a lot more good at the school."

Del's story also mentions he came to St. Stanislaus when he was 13 and he got the nickname "Little Doc" because his father was a physician and played football at Tulane.

SSC staff made sure Hurricane Katrina did no damage to the Heisman.

That's where I'll be manana.

RIP Doc.

 

Cue Boom.

 

You rang

 

Guess what? Aside from the outside guy dying, I never would have heard of Blanchard either.

 

Really? I knew of both of them before I moved here. But that's because I became a bit of a football nerd once I found out the sport existed.

 

Nope. And when our college football guy called tonight to tell us he had died, three people I work with said "Who?" and no one knew until one girl said she'd google.

 

Three people who work with you do had no idea who Doc Blanchard was?

That is appalling.

 

It happens more every day once you get around 50. You say, "So-and-so died," and the five people around you say, "Who?"

It is what it is. But he was a big deal.

 

I was born 11 years after Davis won the Heisman.

I knew about him in high school. And by then, West Point pretty much sucked in football. It wasn't like good players wanted to go there during 'Nam.

By the same token my dad had told me about guys like Blanchard and Davis and Bronko Nagurski. It was a helluva lot more interesting than some of my history books.

 

Angola! had nothing cross his mind and doesn't know why.