The Blue Gray Game Coaching Staffs 1939-1960

The Blue Gray Football Classic was a college All-Star game held in Montgomery's Cramton Bowl the final week of December each year from 1938 through 2001. The contest featured seniors from teams located on opposing sides of the Mason-Dixon line and was, for many years, an early highlight to the bowl season.

The coaches for the squads were also selected from schools in the respective regions and each team had three -- one head coach and two assistants. It was not uncommon for coaches receiving late bowl bids to pull out of the Blue Gray Game and that same problem among the players usually kept announcements of the starting lineup pending until well into December.

I am currently working on a research project that has prompted me to look into the coaching staffs of the Blue Gray games immediately after World War II. What I've discovered is there just isn't a heck of a lot of good information out there on these games and the folks who participated in them.

Using newspaper accounts, I've compiled a reasonably complete tally of the coaching staffs of the contests between 1945 and 1960 but a few names elude me and I could use some help. So, after the jump, you can find a list of the games and staffs from that period.

A few interesting tidbits I uncovered while researching this:

• Bear Bryant was never a Blue Gray Game head coach but was an assistant on three staffs (1947, 1953 and 1956) and an official visitor at one other contest that I could discover (1945). The only Alabama HC in this 15-year span was Red Drew in 1948.
• In 1957, Ole Miss's Johnny Vaught and Texas' Darrell Royal were slated to coach for the Gray squad. They pulled out when their teams received invitations to the 1958 Sugar Bowl and were replaced by Sammy Baugh and Earl Edwards. The Rebels then stomped the Longhorns 39-7 in New Orleans.
• Auburn's Shug Jordan was slated to lead the Gray squad in 1955 but excused himself when his team received a bid to the Gator Bowl to face Vanderbilt. They lost.
• The 1955 and 1946 Blue Gray games featured two of Alabama's greatest passers, Bart Starr and Harry Gilmer, respectively. While Gilmer turned in a superb performance Starr only played a few snaps but successfully parlayed the effort into a draft selection by Green Bay.

UPDATE 05/04/12: Now complete back to 1939.