Nesbitt on Willis Ward

This story is worth checking out, even though most readers of this blog seem to know the details of the main storyline.

There's one passage I can't figure out:

Kipke relayed that conversation in full two years later in a feature he penned for the November 1934 edition of Esquire, then a one-year-old men’s magazine. Kipke’s essay posited: “The first hundred seconds of any football game are always the hardest.” “Willis Ward’s first hundred seconds were a classic,” Kipke wrote. After Ward finally shirked the nerves enough to get out a sentence, Kipke sent him into punt coverage. On the snap, Ward burst out of his stance and down the field, flying far ahead of his teammates. The punt returner started in Ward’s direction, immediately realized his mistake and ducked. “When he was still ten yards from the man, Willis sort of took of, like one of these fast-climbing jet planes,” Kipke wrote.  [Emphasis supplied.]

How is it possible that he'd use an analogy such as "like a fast-climbing jet plane" made in 1934?  If my history's correct, the first jet aircraft did not fly until 1939 (Heinkel He 178).  If the reference to jet plane is correct, it was a casual reference to something that had not yet been made.  (Jet engine prototypes were in the works.)

I'm not saying the article is citing the article erroneously, but it strikes a really odd reference for 1934. 

Good stuff.  In no way am I getting into politics, but it blows my mind that the AD and coach nearly came to blows over playing an African American player at UM but freaking Dartmouth didn't see that as a problem.  It's a bit embarrassing to look back and realize that this level of naked racism existed not that long ago.

Willis Ward didn't exactly die lonely, broke or forgotten.

He was a respected lawyer and Wayne County Probate Court judge.  He had many important friends throughout Detroit and Ann Arbor.  I know exactly where his season Michigan football tickets were in Section 2.  I attended many tailgate affairs where Judge Ward was in attendance; and his friends -- black and white -- treated him with the respect and deference he had so richly earned.  He was royalty, sipping a beverage and wearing a suit, hat and a raincoat (everbody wore coats and ties to games then), on the grass and parked cars at Ferry Field.

And yes; racial prejudice and discrimination was part of the fabric of Detroit, as it was elsewhere in the country, and Willis Ward was a historic pioneer and overcame more than most of us can imagine.

But the notion that Willis Ward was somehow forgotten in his later days is not true, at least by my own personal observation.

I have followed this story with interest the last few years. One thing I haven't read yet has been whether or not Georgia Tech in the last year or two has acknowledged Ward and the situation in any way. I did a google search (Georgia Tech Willis Ward) but the only non-Michigan entry was for USA Today.

This doesn't seem that complicated. Perhaps someone else can explain why GT doesn't make a statement at all.

...Greg Dooley to contact the curators of the Arthur Miller library at the University of Texas to see if a draft of his not published Michigan Daily editorial was there. Unfortunately, they reported that it's not.  

Arthur Miller, the future Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was a staff writer for the Michigan Daily at the time. According to Kruger, Miller drove to Atlanta the week of the game demanding an audience with Georgia Tech. He never had a chance. He returned to the Daily and wrote a scathing editorial that his editors determined unwise to print, leaving it lost to history.

Sadly, it does appear that what would be an incredibly interesting facet of this saga is likely lost to history.