96 Marcus Griffin and Memorial Day
Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 6:01 pm
Griffin is a 6-3, 292, redshirt Junior defensive lineman from Bellevue, WA. He has struggled to get playing time appearing in only 6 games and making 3 tackles over 2 years. A large body and big recruit, Griffin should be a natural to see plenty of playing time, but he has been outworked by smaller walk-ons. He has 2 years still to make an impact, but for now Griffin looks like a fill in player for the D-line. Hopefully, he proves me wrong and turns it on this year.
It may be 96 days until Wildcat football, but more importantly it is Memorial Day. A day when we pause as a country to honor and remember the men, women, children, and families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and prosperity.
On the Arizona campus we honor the fallen with the Berger Memorial Fountain for the men who served in WW I,
The new USS Arizona Memorial as well as the USS Arizona Bell,From All Sports Tucson the list of those honored by the fountain:
— Alexander Tindolph Berger
— Karl Thomas Hurst
— Morgan Bland McDermott
— William Orville Bloys
— James Preston Jones
— Cornelis Molenbeek
— Hugh Daye Campbell
— Ritchie William Jones
— Leslie Abram Waterbury
— Corlande Brown Curry
— Louis Edward Kengla
— Homer Donald Whipp
— Leonard Low
but on Memorial Day man made monumants are not enough. We need to pause and remember the lives and stories of those who gave the last measure for our country. Here is a column from Greg Hansen that does just that for Ted Bland,
This Memorial Day please share a story with friends or family about someone from your life who should be memorialized. Also, pray for peace and comfort for the families who are still hurting from their loss. If you want to get a glimpse of their pain read this story of a young, expectant mother who spends a final night with her fallen husband.The best football player in Arizona history woke up early on Thanksgiving morning 1935 and walked from his parents’ house on Ninth Street, five minutes at most, to Bear Down Gym.
He ate an early Thanksgiving dinner with his 32 teammates and prepared to play the last football game of his life.
By the time Ted Bland pulled jersey No. 15 over his head, more than 8,000 people squeezed into 6-year-old Varsity Stadium to watch the “Blue Brigade” play the Drake Bulldogs.
“I don’t remember the details of the game,” Ted’s younger brother, retired Tucson oral surgeon George Bland says now. “But I was sitting in the old Knothole Club and I do know that Ted scored a couple of touchdowns.”
The Star’s headline the following day said “Invaders Powerless as Bland Leads Mates to Victory.”
Arizona won 53-0. Two weeks later, Bland was named a first-team “Little All-American,” which was that era’s equivalent of today’s Division II All-America team.
. . .
The best football player of Arizona’s first 35 years of football was reported missing in action in late September 1944. Two weeks later, a telegram arrived at the Bland home on Ninth Street.
Their son had been killed by a bullet of a German sniper. He was buried at the Epinal American Cemetery just above the Moselle River in Dinozé, France.
Seventy-one years ago today, a headline in the Tucson Citizen said:
UA’s Mighty Mite,
Ted Bland, Killed
Now his name is on display at Arizona Stadium’s Ring of Honor, bottom row, seventh from left.
Every time I stand for the national anthem at Arizona Stadium, I think of Ted Bland. It’s about so much more than football.
Bear Down!
