Remembering Waddy Young

Waddy Young's biography is summarized by a list of firsts. He was Oklahoma's first consensus football All-American and led the Sooners to their first bowl game, the 1939 Orange Bowl.

As a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers football franchise, he played in the NFL's first televised game.

He was among the first to pilot a B-29 Superfortress over Japanese targets during World War II. On Jan. 9, 1945, returning from a mission over the skies of Tokyo, he was the first to turn around.

"Waddy is the boy who makes our running attack go. Most of our plays go to the right over the foe's big left tackle but Waddy is big enough and good enough to move any of them. Also he is smart, fast, clean, can catch any kind of pass, handles the forward lateral well and is a fine end in every respect."

- University of Oklahoma head football coach Tom Stidham, November 1938

Born Sept. 4, 1916, in Ponca City, Okla., Walter Roland "Waddy" Young was born into both toughness and showmanship. His father, Glenn, was a roper at the 101 Ranch and Wild West Show in the days preceding statehood. Young played on the offensive line on a junior high team that never lost a game. His junior year at Ponca City High School, the Wildcats went undefeated and held their opposition scoreless. As a senior, he earned all-state honors.

Young was the right end for Tom Stidham and was the Sooners' sensation in the years ahead of Bud Wilkinson's reign that touted three national championships and an NCAA-record 47-game winning streak. In an era of platoon football, when substitution limitations required the same players to be on the field for both offense and defense, Young never missed a start through a career of 60-minute games.

Waddy Young

Also a heavyweight wrestler and intramural boxing champion, Young stood out on campus well beyond his 6-foot-2, 200-pound frame. The genial Young was voted "most glamorous" by the campus co-eds and was so mobbed for attention and autographs prior to the Orange Bowl that the distractions forced the first of what would become what is now a standard of "closing" practices. Yet Young also maintained an outlaw image. He rode a motorcycle and roughnecked in the oil fields for offseason work, two activities that caused him serious injuries.

Young was chosen as an All-American by the Associated Press, United Press International, the New York Sun and by legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice for Collier's magazine in 1938, becoming the first player from the state to earn consensus honors. He also garnered the respect of his peers in Liberty magazine's player-chosen All-America team.

Selected by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the third round of the 1939 NFL Draft, Young, considered at the time to be the greatest heavyweight the state had produced, gave serious consideration to waiving a contract offer in order to train for a spot on the 1940 U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team. However, he eventually signed on with football, citing the sport as his "first love."

He fell in love with an Oklahoma State (then Oklahoma A&M) alum named Maxine Moody during his second NFL season. More than six decades before a Boise State running back dropped to his knee in the midst of a Fiesta Bowl celebration, Young popped the question to "Maggie the Aggie," as he referred to her, at halftime of a gridiron battle against the New York Giants by having the public address announcer recite his proposal.

"Down where the derricks and oil well casings are etched like gallows against the clear horizon, you'll find the nation's No. 1 end. Professional football scouts have already beaten you to him. These sharp-eyed observers waste no time on sentiment of publicity build-ups, and Waddy Young of Oklahoma is their man.

"A rawhide, bone-seasoned, alkali-hardened giant, Young is not just another of those fancy pass snarers for which the southwest is noted, though he can grab far-flung heaves with the best of the glue-fingered gentry.

"This 202-pounder who can stretch yards beyond his 6 feet 2 inches in height is primarily blocker and tackler. When it comes to rushing the passer, nobody is even close to Young. `They can't pass sitting down' is his motto' and Waddy picks `em up by the scruff of the pants and sits `em down unceremoniously.

"`He treats passers as though they were his bedroll,' says a Panhandle scout. `Yes, sir, you can pick `em up with a blotter after Young gets through with them.'

"Built like a prairie schooner, Young plows through interference, or takes the defensive tackle for a ride. His blocking is murderous.

"Young is the college boxing and wrestling champion. What's a little game of football to a hard mat-man bender and rope-burned leather pusher?"

- Excerpt from New York Sun College All-America Team announcement, December 1938

Young joined the Army Air Force following his second professional season. He had already been celebrated as a military man, having been named the outstanding Army Reserve Officers Training Corps enrollee of a six-week summer course at Fort Sill in 1939.

For his enlisted duty, he trained at Spartan Air Field in Tulsa, then Brooks and Randolph Fields in San Antonio before graduating and earning his wings on Aug. 15, 1941. He married five days later.

Following multi-engine and combat flight training, Young headed east, accumulating more than 9,000 combat hours in a B-24 Liberator serving anti-submarine patrol from New York, Newfoundland and Great Britain. He was awarded the first bronze Oak Leaf cluster to the Air Medal for distinguished service over Europe.

With a tour of duty in Europe complete, Young had the celebrity to find safety in a War Bonds tour or desk job. But he wanted more of a fight.

"Here I am in England with a cricket bat in one hand and a mug of ale in the other."

- Waddy Young, in a letter, July 1943

Young talked of a transfer from the Liberator to the P-47, an attempt that seems to have been denied due to being too tall for the fighter plane's cockpit. He instead volunteered for the B-29 program and was selected to captain Crew A-5 of the 21st Bomber Command, 73rd Bomb Wing, 497th Bombardment Group, 869th Bomb Squadron stationed at Isley Field on Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

The 869th was an all-star group handpicked by Robert K. Morgan, who commanded the B-17 "Memphis Belle" in Europe. Morgan, now piloting "Dauntless Dotty," led the squadron on the United States' first bombing mission over Japan from the Saipan base.

Waddy Young

Knowing the first plane to return from the raid would be the focus of media attention, Young, commanding the Superfortress "Waddy's Wagon," had his crew dump excess weight to fly lighter and faster. He landed well ahead of Morgan and soaked in the lavish praise.

In November 1944, Young asked his former OU wrestling coach, Paul V. Keen, for the names of Japanese wrestlers from the Waseda University team that had met the Sooners in a dual just five years earlier. Unlike his prisoner-of-war counterparts in Europe, who were held in relative safety, the Japanese were rumored to torture and kill their captives.

Young wrote to Keen: "I might need to talk my way out of the country sometime."

"I remember once on a kickoff two of `em hit me so hard -- and for no reason -- that I wound up in the tenth row of the bleachers. It had happened the kickoff went out of bounds and had to be kicked over. So I chose me one of `em and took care of him. I've always sort of regretted I didn't get `em both, but I reckon I ought to be satisfied.

"We had a blocking back who was the best fighter on either team. But he was knocked cold in the first minute of the game. He played three or four more plays -- until we saw he really was out on his feet. Then we sent him to the sidelines. He didn't come to until 11 o'clock that night. If he had only been with us all day...

"But it was a good fight. I enjoyed it. Even if I couldn't eat steak for a month."

- Waddy Young recollecting the 1939 Orange Bowl to Miami Herald columnist Jack Bell, January 1944

On Jan. 9, 1945, "Waddy's Wagon" was among 72 B-29s sent to bomb the Nakajima Aircraft Engine Factory near Tokyo. Attacked upon reaching their objective, the aircraft to the immediate right of Young's in the 8-ship formation was rammed by a kamikaze fighter.

Young released his bombs on target and radioed for the group to slow, but realized the task would be impossible and have all survive, so he turned back to shepherd the stricken plane and signal where it ditched, the All-American crew throwing a block for their teammates.

Waddy Young

"Waddy's Wagon" and its 10-member crew were last sighted 10 miles east of Choshi Point off mainland Japan at 27,000 feet and descending into clouds while providing protection to B-29 Crew A-46. A search plane flown the next day, and those that combed the area for the next two weeks, never found a trace of either aircraft.

Young was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986 and named the recipient of the Robert Kalsu Freedom Award, presented by the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, in 2007. The University of Oklahoma Air Force ROTC Silver Wings chapter is named in honor of Waddy Young.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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