Notre Dame legend, Bears QB Lujack dies at 98

Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Elder WriterJul 25, 2023, 02:37 PM ET

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• College football press reporter.
• Signed up with ESPN.com in 2008.
• Graduate of Northwestern University.Johnny Lujack, the 1947 Heisman

Trophy winner at Notre Dame who ended up being an All-Pro quarterback with the Chicago Bears, died in Florida on Tuesday after a brief disease. He was 98. Lujack’s death was verified by his granddaughter, Amy Schiller, who stated he had actually gone into hospice care recently after having been in good health up until a couple of weeks ago.Lujack led Notre Dame to 3 championship games in a profession interrupted by 2 years of Navy service throughout The second world war. He earned consentaneous All-America honors in both 1946 and 1947, as Notre Dame did not lose a game, and he also earned university monograms in baseball, basketball and track at the school.Playing quarterback in the T-formation as well as protective back, Lujack became Notre Dame’s 2nd Heisman Prize recipient, following Angelo Bertelli.Lujack replaced Bertelli late in the 1943 season after Bertelli was summoned to the Militaries. After nearly three years of his own military service, consisting of one stretch on a sub chaser in the English Channel, Lujack went back to Notre Dame in 1946. He went 21-1-1 as the group’s starting quarterback. Life publication put Lujack on the cover for the Sept. 29, 1947, concern. In addition to the Heisman, he won Associated Press Athlete of the Year honors in 1947.”Whatever for me at Notre Dame was happenstance,” Lujack informed UND.com in 1999.” If I played five years later on, possibly people would not have even observed that I was around. So I feel so fortunate about the timing and everything that came my way.”Chosen 4th in the 1946 NFL draft, Lujack started playing for the Bears in 1948 and made Pro Bowls in 1950 and 1951. He tied a record with eight interceptions(on defense )as a rookie, threw for an NFL record 468 backyards versus the Chicago Cardinals in 1949, and he set an NFL quarterback record with 11 rushing touchdowns in 1950. Future Pro Football Hall of Famers Sid Luckman and George Blanda played behind Lujack, who passed for 6,295 backyards with 41 touchdowns and 54 interceptions in his career.Lujack retired after 4 NFL seasons, later stating that he never made more than$ 20,000 a year in football. He returned to Notre Dame as an assistant coach in 1952 and 1953, and was discussed as a possible successor to coach Frank Leahy, however rather opened a vehicle dealership with his father-in-law in Davenport, Iowa.He invested more than 40 years at the dealer before retiring in 1986. Lujack functioned as a CBS color analyst for New york city Giants games from 1958 to 1961, and he later on called college games with Jim McKay on CBS and ABC in the late 1960s. Born Jan. 4, 1925, in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, as the youngest kid and 5th in a household of six kids, Lujack played four sports in high school. Regardless of local pressure to participate in Army– city officials even pursued a visit to West Point– Lujack accepted Leahy’s scholarship offer from Notre Dame

. “I loved Notre Dame the first time I ever heard the name,”Lujack told The(Notre Dame)Observer in 2015. Lujack was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1960 and into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Popularity in 1978. Information from The Associated Press was consisted of in this report.