Last Friday night I was given the honor of standing in for Lone Star Dietz at his induction ceremony for the Albright College Hall of Fame. (Link to Albright website: http://www.albright.edu/athletics/) At the banquet I had the pleasure of sharing a table with Marcia and Sheldon Cohen, the wife and son of the late Gus Cohen, one of the stars of the 1937 undefeated team. Gus didn’t have it easy. He was orphaned as a child and had little money but was a good student and athlete. His high school coach took him to see various colleges when he was nearing graduation. Getting schools interested in him as both a student and an athlete was no problem. However, in those Depression days, getting financial support was a problem. Albright College came through with a scholarship so he became a Lion.
At Albright College his coach, Lone Star Dietz, became the father Gus didn’t have. Doris’s cooking probably didn’t hurt either. That Doris was also Jewish may have made communication with her easier. Gus got a lot from Albright but it wasn’t a one-way street because he gave back when he could. There is now a Gus Cohen scholarship at Albright and the school’s archives are much richer thanks to the generosity of the Cohen family.
Earlier Friday Marcia and Sheldon donated Gus’s considerable stack of memorabilia to the college. Included are Gus’s letter sweater and game programs. The item I am most interested in seeing is Gus’s playbook from 1938, I think. It will be great to see what Lone Star was running at that time. He had the reputation of being the best implementer of the single-wing, some say better than Warner himself. Who knows, it might even include the Dead Indian Play. I must set a day aside to sift through this stuff.
Albright College Hall of Fame Plaque
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