Date: June 23, 2008

A Scholar/Athlete Remembers
By Bob Field, Jr.

"Talk about ‘detail’…I’ll never forget how "Pop" sat up in that high platform along the sidelines, surveying the entire field, and watching the scrimmage with an eagle eye."

When 88 year old Julian Ertz of Laguna Beach, California recalls his days of gridiron grit ‘n glory as a freshman fullback and linebacker with the powerful Temple University Owls of 60 years ago, it’s almost like he’s telling you about what happened just this afternoon. 

“Suddenly, he blows his whistle, the action stops, and everybody listens. Then, in this big, gravelly voice, he calls down to each player on that field, telling him just what he did right, or wrong, on a series of plays!

"So-and-So, you didn’t do this! And So-and-So, you need to do that!"  I’d never seen anything like it. He saw what each player on that field was doing, and he knew exactly what that player was supposed to do, both on offense and defense. But, that was "‘Pop." He was something else!“

Becoming "Something Else"

As it turned out, Temple’s freshman fullback and linebacker Julian Ertz, would soon become "something else" too, and not simply on the football field. The story of Jules Ertz’s dedication to “detail”, to team-play, the arts, the legal profession and the defense of freedom in perilous times proves, once again, that Pop Warner was a coach who could spot "character" and mold it into conviction.

But, to get a sense of that conviction, and how it lives on in Julian Ertz, the last man to have played for Pop Warner, let’s turn back the clock to a time when a world on the brink of upheaval would test the fiber of millions of young Americans.

Like many members of the Temple Owls football program in the 1930s, Julian had come to Temple U. knowing full well that the tradition of athletic and scholastic excellence taught by Glenn S. “Pop” Warner was not to be taking lightly.

"Pop was tough on us, and so was my freshman coach at Temple, Fred Swan," says Julian. "But, I played with some wonderful guys, talented guys, on those Owl teams. And, we sure had a lot of fun."

And, who wouldn’t have fun when Temple football under Pop Warner was brightening up the cold, hard times of  the Great Depression years in Philadelphia, and all over America, by  taking on such venerable opponents as Army, Oklahoma, Penn State, Florida, Iowa, Michigan State Texas A & M and SMU; and, oh by the way, winning most of those games!  In fact, between 1933 and 1938, Coach Warner directed the Owls to 31 victories. What’s more his 1934 team played in very first Sugar Bowl game in New Orleans.

Early Days at Temple

When Julian Ertz arrived at Temple University in 1938, he had a bit of football tradition in his background, as well.  "I was co-captain on Coach Bob Pflug team at Bradford High School in Bradford, PA (McKean County), and we had rolled up a pretty impressive winning streak." In fact, the boys from Bradford High were part of the second oldest interstate high school football rivalry in America, courtesy of their annual tussle with nearby Olean High across the border in New York State. 

"But, when I got to Temple," Julian recalls, "it seemed like every guy out on that field was some kind of All-American. There was Stan ‘ The Turk’ Tellianus – 5 foot , 9 inches with an 18 inch neck. And the speedster, Al Juralewicz. Once he broke a tackle, Al was gone!  And, Ed Kolman,-who later played for the Chicago Bears. Ed was a great big tackle who was very fast. And, the “Great” Calena, rough and tough, but a guy who could take a joke too." 

And, there was someone else who played football with at Temple with Julian, a guy whom some of us may remember more for his baseball acumen and his great sense of humor . "Yes, that was my roommate at Temple, the late, great Jim Honochick."  

A Memorable Roommate and Opera

Wow!  Jim Honochick, the major league umpire who called the 7th game of the 1955 World Series- the only World Championship for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jim Honochick, who called the game between the Yankees and Red Sox where Roger Maris hit his 61st home run . And, Jim Honochick, famed for being the "nearsighted ump" in the classic Miller Lite commercials of the 1980s. (e.g. “Hey, you’re Boog Powell!”) 

Even with all that talent on the field for Temple, Julian had his opportunities to play on the freshman team and he jumped right in. What’s more, as a testament to Coach Pop Warner’s belief in (and endorsement of) both scholastics and athletics, Julian Ertz was able to pursue something at Temple that he loved just as much, if not more, than football. 

"I wanted to be an opera singer."  An opera singer?  "Yes, you see I’d always loved to sing," recalls Julian. “When I was at Bradford High, I placed second in the state in baritone solos."  And, what did Julian perform to capture that lofty honor? "The ‘Largo’ from Handel’s  ‘Xerxes’."  A "Largo"- singing linebacker! Is that cool, or what?

"Well, I suppose," recalls Julian. "Except in those days, I wasn’t too sure how that would have been received by my football teammates. So, when I got to Temple, I kept up my classical singing, but I tried not to let on about it.  Still, when you’re that good, the cat’s bound to be out of the bag sooner or later, and sure enough…I was in the Temple U. Glee Club, and one night my teammate Ed Kolman, that big lineman I was telling you about?  Well, he came to one of our concerts. When he saw me at football practice the next day, he had a big smile on his face and he congratulated me as being Julian "Caruso" Ertz.  After that, the guys just called me "Caruso."  Some guys thought I should call out the signals before every play, so the cadence wouldn’t be off-key!  It was all in fun. And, I think they kind of like hearing me.”

World War II, the "Bachelor Baby" & Heroism

Being in an atmosphere at Temple University where Coaches Pop Warner and Fred Swan stressed discipline and maximum effort on the gridiron and in the classroom, Julian developed strengths that would soon prove to be a life-saver.

When America entered the Second World War, Julian Ertz – the singing fullback – traded his football pads and sheet music for the leather flight jacket and charts of a navigation officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He loved the detail and precision on airplane navigation. In many ways it reminded him of the detail that Pop Warner attended to from the sidelines as he studied every move of his Temple Owls football team. By November of 1943, Julian had completed combat training at the Air Corps base in Herrington, Kansas.

Soon, he and his fellow crewmen boarded their brand new B-24 Liberator bomber, nicknamed “Bachelor’s Baby” for a flight to North Africa, then on to Wales, and finally, to long-awaited action over Germany.  But, as fate would have it, the last stage of their flight would test Julian’s mettle more than any foe on any football field.

On the 7th of January, Ertz’s  B-24 took off from the Royal Air Force station in Anglesey, Wales for a short hop to their new home base – the USAAF’s 3rd Strategic Air Depot at Watton -  East Anglia.  The B-24 was told to play “follow the leader” with a big B-17, also bound for Watton.  But, the weather that day was treacherous. Heavy cloud cover and a steady, icy drizzle greeted the Liberator’s labored climb into the winter skies. Soon into the flight, Julian discovered that the B-24’s magnetic compass was malfunctioning. Worse, the B-17 had disappeared from view into the dense cloudbank.  Julian’s heart jumped to his throat. Their plane was flying blind!

Suddenly, the clouds parted just enough for the Liberator’s pilot 2nd Lt. A.J. “Ace” Schultz to see a solid wall of hills looming  dead ahead. Schultz slammed on the throttles, trying to gain altitude. Too late!  In seconds, the plane hit a rocky ridge adjacent to Penmanmaer mountain. Its engines still screaming, the Liberator bounced off the ridge, ploughed up a slope and finally came to a halt.  But, its fuel lines ruptured, and the plane burst into flames. Julian Ertz felt sharp pains shooting all the way through his spine. His back had been badly injured in the crash.  Yet, somehow, he kept his sense of “detail” firmly in mind. Who could he save?  Where could he go?  Quickly, he spotted another injured crewman nearby. Julian lurched over, grabbed the man and, summoning all the strength he had left, hauled the two of them through a hole in the fuselage and out of the burning wreck.

It was then that rescuers from the Welsh village of Llanfairfechan scrambled onto the fiery scene with blankets and stretchers. They found Julian Ertz conscious, but unable to move, propped up against a detached engine.  When the villagers carefully carried Julian and the other survivors of the burning B-24 down the mountain to safety, he recalls apologizing to them for his size. You see, Julian still carried his football weight, a solid 235 lbs.

The Next Step & The Impact of "Pop"

Four members of that ill-fated crew survived their ordeal that day. The man Julian saved went on to a career in broadcasting after the war. The plane’s pilot, Ace Schultz, retired as a career Air Force colonel in 1962, And our singing fullback/ linebacker and Air Corps navigator Julian Ertz? Well, he went on to law school and a long and successful career as an attorney in Los Angeles, still singing for a hobby. 

Like so many of the men and women of our “Greatest Generation,” Julian Ertz talks little of his World War II experiences, and less of the courage and stamina it took for him to pull a  fellow crewman out of a burning B-24 on that cold, hard mountainside in Wales many years ago. 

He’d prefer to talk about the man taught him the knack for spotting every little detail, and for knowing what to do and when to do it; the man who gave Pop Warner Little Scholars its name and its inspiration.

“As many people know, Pop Warner had a long and distinguished coaching career," says Julian. "I got to know him for only a year or so, at the end of that career. But, he impressed me so very much.  In fact, when I read Sally Jenkins’ book about Pop’s days at Carlisle College with Jim Thorpe and Pop’s great Carlisle Indian team of 1912 , I enjoyed it immensely. I wrote to Sally and I told her what a marvelous job she had done in capturing one of the greatest stories in the history of American sports.  I’m proud to say that I knew the coach who made that story, and so many more like it, possible. Yep, Coach Pop Warner, he was something else!"

Thanks, Julian, for some great memories of a great American coach and teacher, a mentor dedicated to molding young men of character and conviction...men like you!

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For more recollections on Glenn S. “Pop” Warner, his coaching career, his lasting impact on so many scholar athletes from so many different backgrounds, and with so many different interests, read THE REAL ALL-AMERICANS – The Team That Changed A Game, A People, A Nation by Sally Jenkins  (Doubleday- 2007); CARLISLE vs. ARMY – Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner by Lars Anderson, Images of America – POP WARNER LITTLE SCHOLARS by Joel D. Balthaser, or pick up a DVD copy of the classic JIM THORPE-ALL-AMERICAN (starring Burt Lancaster as Jim Thorpe, and with veteran actor Charles Bickford playing the role of Pop Warner).