The Justice

Former NFL player Benny Friedman is the subject of Murray Greenberg's book, 'Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football.' Photo courtesy of the Associated Press

Not an especially large man, wearing a neatly pressed sweater and dark slacks, author Murray Greenberg '77 seems just about as far removed from the muddy playing fields and bone-jarring hits of 1920s American football as a person could be. Yet it is the 1920s, when the National Football League teetered on the edge of existence and when men risked the very real possibility of grievous injury for one or two hundred dollars a game, that serves as the backdrop for Greenberg's book Passing Game: Benny Friedman and the Transformation of Football.

Speaking in Rapaporte Treasure Hall last Wednesday before an audience of students, members of the Waltham community and several Brandeis alumni, Greenberg talked about Benny Friedman, a 1920s football player and former Brandeis football coach. Friedman is the subject of Greenberg's book, which was released in Nov. 2008. He committed suicide in 1982, a fact that Greenberg mentioned in the book but not the presentation.

According to Greenberg, Friedman was a "one-of-a-kind player with the unprecedented skill to throw the forward pass and the audacity to do it time and again. … A sensation in the truest sense of the word."

Greenberg quoted sportswriter Paul Gallico, who said that Friedman, the son of two orthodox Jewish immigrants, was "the greatest football player in the world." From 1924 to 1934 Friedman played with the University of Michigan and then in the fledgling NFL with the Cleveland Bulldogs, Detroit Wolverines, New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

After his days as a football player, Friedman went on to become head football coach at City College of New York and then athletic director and head football coach at Brandeis University until the team was disbanded in 1959.

Greenberg's fascination with Friedman's life stems from his own experiences as an athlete. He was the goalie on the Brandeis men's soccer team in 1976 when it won the National Championship and was inducted into the Brandeis University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997.

After graduating from Brandeis, Greenberg studied at Hofstra University School of Law and worked as a practicing attorney for over 20 years. Recently, however, Greenberg became interested in writing and took courses at the Columbia School of Journalism, hoping to pursue a career as an author.

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