December 14

The greatest college football player ever? Bear Bryant said he was. Even if he did play for Georgia.

Charley Trippi was born in Pennsylvania in 1920. The young athlete caught the attention of a former Georgia Bulldog who ran a Coca-Cola bottling plant near Trippi’s home. He offered Trippi a scholarship to play football at UGA, where Trippi and Frank Sinkwich formed one of college football’s most fearsome backfields.

The Bulldogs went undefeated in 1941 and won the Orange Bowl. The next year Sinkwich and Trippi led Georgia to the SEC championship and a Rose Bowl victory over UCLA. Trippi took Most Valuable Player honors. Then he took two and a half years to serve in the Army Air Corps in World War II, before he returned to Georgia to lead the Bulldogs to another SEC championship, and won the Maxwell Award as National Player of the Year.

Trippi went on to a stellar career in the NFL. Elected to both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame, this Bulldog gridiron legend was born in Pennsylvania on December 14, 1920, Today in Georgia History.