The Team that Never Came Back

Remember Deonce Whitaker · July 6, 2008

As football season approaches and young men across this nation exchange caps for helmets, there was a time in our not so distant history that they traded football helmets for military helmets and footballs for weapons. The year was 1941. The date Dec.8th San Jose State football players assumed a more serious role. The squad was scheduled to end the season with two games in Honolulu and had just arrived when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7. Many players joined the local police force or the armed services.

Many never returned to the gridion. The following seasons of 42-46 were cancelled as the Nation resources of manhood were channelled towards a more dire need. The football teams from Willamette and San Jose were to play a series of games with the University of Hawaii called the Shrine Bowl.

In the first game of the Shrine Bowl on Dec. 6 Willamette lost a 20-6 contest against the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. The next morning, the San Jose State was preparing for the game when the Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor. That led to the United States’ Involvement in World War II.

After the initial attack, the SJS Coach volunteered his players and male supporters for 10 days of guard duty at Punahou School while the women on the trip were sent to a Navy hospital as nurses’ aides. Most of the Willamette group left Hawaii two weeks after the initial bombing, arriving on the ocean liner President Coolidge in San Francisco bay on Christmas Day. Most of the San Jose State players enlisted on the spot and when on to fight in major WW2 battles. 182 of the schools men were Killed in Action.

The Football program was not resumed until 1947.

To this day, we think about the Team that Never Came Home and wonder about all those gridiron exploits and fantastics plays that never were.