The 1957 College All-Star Game
In
a rainy game held at Soldier Field in Chicago the New York Giants met
the All-Stars of college football as champions of the National Football
League for the first time since 1939. August 9, 1957 was a rainy summer
evening for the crowd of 75,000 that turned out to watch the annual
Chicago Tribune Charities football classic. The start of the
game was
delayed 15 minutes due to a sudden downpour and it rained off and on,
sometimes hard, all throughout the game. Curly Lambeau coached his third
and final time for the All-Stars and on his staff was Otto Graham as
assistant coach (Graham would go on to coach the 1958 All-Star team).
Lambeau had well-prepared his 1957 team including Notre Dame’s Heisman
Trophy winner, Paul Hornung, John Brodie (MVP) of Stanford, Jim Brown of
Syracuse, and Paige Cothren of Wake Forest.
Billy Ray Barnes of Wake Forest and the rest of the All-Stars surprised
the heavily favored Giants in the first quarter with a two-yard slashing
run for a touchdown after a 55-yard drive in 14 plays. Hornung missed
the extra point. At the end of the first period the Giants’ Ben
Agajanian kicked a field goal 33 yards after an All-Star fumble and the
score was 6 to 3. In the second period the Giants quarterback Charley
Conerly took his team on an 88-yard drive that ended with a 38-yard pass
to Ken McAfee who scored on the play. Agajanian kicked the extra point.
The All-
Stars
answered with a drive that swept from their 15-yard line to the Giants’
7 in 10 plays. Cothren booted a 12-yard field goal and nearly evened the
score at half-time, Giants 10, All-Stars 9.
Conerly and McAfee hooked up a second time in the third quarter with a
10-yard pass play to make the score 17-9 with an extra point by
Agajanian. In the fourth quarter Cothren made his last three points with
a 25-yard field goal and the score was raised to 17-12. Also in the
fourth quarter Agajanian was able to add his last three points on a
45-yard field goal for the Giants. The pros tacked on a safety late in
the final period when the Giants’ Dick Nolan tackled Abe Woodson of
Illinois in the endzone. The final score was 22-12.