Homestate football heroes

Monday, November 13, 2017
Warren Alfson

Warren Alfson, of Wisner was a great example of the homegrown athlete that made up some of the great football teams that Nebraska has produced. Though he was certainly a success as a cattle feeder, his chosen profession, he will ever be identified as a member of the Nebraska Rose Bowl team of 1940. It has almost 75 years since that game was played, and Nebraska has gone on to greater glories, yet whenever sports fans in Nebraska get together to talk about great moments in Cornhusker football history, the talk is sure to turn to the great Rose Bowl game of Jan. 1, 1941, the culmination of the first 50 years of Nebraska football.

Coach Biff Jones had replaced Dana X. Bible, (a legend at Nebraska) in 1937. As had Coach Bible before him, Biff Jones recruited heavily within the state. By 1940, with the exception of three Kansas boys, all members of the squad were from Nebraska. One of these Nebraska boys was Warren Alfson, from Wisner.

Alfson had been a standout athlete at Wisner H.S. But after high school, there was no money to go to college, so Warren worked on farms around Wisner for three years before enrolling at the University. After his freshman year, he took a self-imposed “red shirt” year, came back for the 1938 season, and immediately made his mark on the Cornhusker squad.

In the ’30s Nebraska had no financial assistance to give. The best the University could do was to line up jobs for the athletes with businesses around Lincoln. The average pay for the part-time jobs that the football players held in 1940 was 35 cents per hour.

But using local boys who paid their own way proved to be no handicap to fielding a nationally ranked football team. After a slow beginning in 1938, Biff Jones’ team posted a 7-1-1 season in 1939. Warren Alfson, Harry Hopp, and Herm Rohrig earned All-Conference honors that year.

1940 was to be a big year for the Cornhuskers, but it didn’t start out that way. The first game of the season the team lost to Minnesota 13-7, the last loss to the Cornhuskers in 1940. The fine Nebraska season was rewarded by an invitation to a Bowl game, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA on Jan. 1, 1941, to play Stanford. Though the team played well, and the game has been referred to as one of the outstanding games the first half-century of college football, NU lost 21-13.

The 1940 season was looked upon as a fitting climax to the University’s first half-century of football — Conference Champs and the school’s first-ever Bowl game. Ray Prochaska, Forrest

Behm, Warren Alfson, Harry Hopp, Butch Luther, Roy Petch, Eddie Schwartzkoph, and Vike Francis all won All-Conference honors, and in addition, Warren Alfson and Forrest Behm were named All-Americans.

After playing in the College All Star game, in January, 1941, the professional teams showed interest in several members of the Cornhusker Rose Bowl team, including Warren Alfson. After a bit of soul searching, Warren accepted an offer from the Brooklyn Dodger Football team to play in the 1941 season. Professional football was not the big deal it is today. The teams had very little money with which to work. Consequently, players’ salaries were low. Warren Alfson, a lineman, signed his contract, which carried a bonus of $50. Years late Alfson recalled the contract, “Don’t knock it, new wife, Marge and I went to the best nightclub in town and had their best steak, with wine and dessert, and still had money left over from that $50 bonus.”

In his first season, during the game on December 7, 1941, word came that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Most of the ’41 players, both College and Pro, including Warren Alfson, would be in the service of their country before another season rolled around.

Warren Alfson went into the Navy in the spring of 1942. When he finally was discharged, in 1945, he had gotten over his desire for a football career. He went back to Wisner, farmed and raised cattle for the rest of his working life. While his professional football career only lasted one year, his association with football, especially Cornhusker football, lasted the rest of his life.

The association among the members of the “Rose Bowl” team remained strong, like an extended family. They got together frequently, for Cornhusker games. They served as namesakes to each other’s sons. They kept in touch with frequent telephone calls.

In 1965 I was in Lincoln at the time of the 25th anniversary of the Rose Bowl game. The team chose this opportunity for a reunion. It was the last time that Coach Biff Jones came to a reunion and most of the living members of that team were in attendance. I happened to run into Marge Alfson in the lobby of the old Cornhusker Hotel. I mentioned that it was nice that the team could get together for a reunion. She said that it was a special reunion, perhaps because Coach Jones was there. These men of the world were again boys, gathered around their coach. They knew they had been a part of something special, and they enjoyed the experience.

“I’ve never seen anything like this reunion”, Marge said. “No one is even drinking very much. (unlike some earlier reunions). It’s as if they hate to miss out on even one minute of their time together. They’re reliving every play of that whole season.”

George Able

George Abel and Warren Alfson, both linemen, were especially close. The Abel family was and is a very rich and powerful family in Lincoln, with interests in many enterprises. At one point after the war, George contacted Warren and offered him a position in one of the Abel businesses. It was a good offer, and one that probably would have made Alfson extremely wealthy. He considered it seriously but eventually turned down the offer. As he explained it years later,

“You know, George Abel and I were like brothers. I told George that I respected our friendship more than anything. If the offered job didn’t work out it would probably end our friendship, and I just couldn’t take that chance.”

And so it was. The two remained best friends — Rose Bowl brothers-- till the end.

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