Personal information | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Born: | October 14, 1908 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | ||||||||
Died: | November 18, 1979 Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. | (aged 71)||||||||
Height: | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) | ||||||||
Weight: | 225 lb (102 kg) | ||||||||
Career information | |||||||||
College: | Oregon State | ||||||||
Position: | Tackle Placekicker | ||||||||
Career history | |||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Player stats at PFR |
Adolphe John "Tar" Schwammel (October 14, 1908 – November 18, 1979)[1] was an American football tackle who played collegiately for the Oregon State College Beavers. He was named an All-American in 1933.
Entering the National Football League (NFL) in the years before it had a player draft, Schwammel would play for five seasons with the Green Bay Packers. He was named a first-team All-Pro in 1935.
Schwammel was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.
Schwammel attended Fremont High School in Oakland, California and starred in football.
Schwammel chose to enroll at Oregon State for his college education and to play football. He ettered in football from 1931 through 1933, earning first-team All-American and All-Pacific Coast Conference at tackle as a senior was chosen as an All-American at tackle for the 1933 season, for a team that had a 6-2-2 record that included a win over powerhouse Fordham University and a scoreless tie with the USC Trojans, ending USC's 26-game winning streak in a game played with exactly 11 players without any substitutions by Oregon State.[2] He was also chosen to play in the 1934 East-West Shrine Game.[3]
Schwammel was one of the key players in the now illegal "Pyramid Play" where the Beavers hoisted 6'7" Clyde Devine atop the shoulders of 6'2" Schwammel and 6'2" teammate Harry Shields in order to block a placekick. The play was first successfully used in a game against the University of Oregon, and a picture of the play published in the Saturday Evening Post brought the team — and the play — national attention, leading to the pyramid technique being banned by the NCAA's rules committee shortly thereafter.[4]
Schwammel was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity during his time at Oregon State.[3]
Schwammel played in the NFL for five seasons with the Green Bay Packers, in two separate stints, from 1934 to 1936 and from 1943 to 1944. During his time with the Packers, they won two professional titles.[5]
Schwammel was named to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1981[6] and the Oregon State University Hall of Fame in 1990, both for his football prowess.[7] He died in Honolulu, Hawaii in November 1979.[1]