Sport: Man with an Arm

On the first day of football practice at Columbia in 1938, photographers hauled out an old archery target. To get stunt pictures, they placed Quarterback Sid Luckman 25 yd. away and told him to toss passes. Six times in a row he hit the dead center of the four-inch bull’s-eye. In seven years of college and pro football he proved that he was just as accurate under gridiron fire.

Last week burly Sid Luckman hit his marksmanship top. Before a record crowd of 56,696 in Manhattan’s Polo Grounds, he showed himself the best passer of the year, perhaps the best in football history. As his Chicago Bears gave the New York Giants the worst drubbing ever, 56-to-7, Sidney Luckman:

» Threw 30 passes, completed 23 for a total gain of 453 yards.

» Passed seven times for touchdowns.

Both were now alltime National (professional) Football League records.

Said the New York Times’s William D. Richardson, astonished at this show of virtuosity: “The paper shortage doesn’t permit a detailed recitation.”

Black-haired, brown-eyed Sid Luckman played his first football in the blare of automobile horns on the hard pavement of Lott Street, Brooklyn. After graduating from Columbia, he signed up with the Bears four years ago. But this week, at 26, he announced that his career was close to its end: he has signed on as an ensign in the U.S. Maritime Service, expects his call any minute.