Sport: Chick Harley

At Columbus, Ohio, Charles W. (“Chick”) Harley, remembered by the football world for the crooked smile and the crooked, sidestepping gait that were his when dazzling broken-field runs won two Conference championships for Ohio State (1916, 1917), last week besought a court to strike from its record lunacy proceedings that were brought against him, successfully, in 1922.

“Chick” Harley was an all-American halfback in 1916 and 1919. After being graduated by Ohio State, he and other Conference players formed a team, at Chicago, in 1920, called the “Staleys” and joined the National Professional Football League. In a game, Harley was severely injured. Normally a mild-mannered man, Harley became morose and pugnacious in the spring of 1922, possibly as the result of his injury. He went to sanatoriums, seemed to recover, then relapsed. Friends told of his “cleaning out” restaurants and theatres, of his annoying the family of a former sweetheart by nocturnal demonstrations. The sweetheart’s family and other friends of Harley instituted proceedings, in which Harley was found insane and sent back to confinement. Harley’s petition now sets forth that he was “abducted,” incarcerated illegally.