The definition of All-American: you know Dayne and Ameche—now it's time to hear about another Wisconsin hero

On June 18, 1945, Dave Schreiner wrote a letter home from a godforsaken island 400 miles south of Japan.

"Dear Mother and Dad--

"Rec'd letter of June 6 from you....

We've been eating very well of late. Fresh meat, good canned food, etc. And I've been sleeping a lot. Boy, it's good to rest.

"Will write next chance I get. Don't forget a company commander is a pretty safe spot.

"Much love, Dave"

Dave Schreiner was 24 years old and the very picture of a Marine lieutenant. He was square-jawed, handsome, rangy and rawboned. He had been an All-American football player at the University of Wisconsin, the Big Ten's most valuable player in 1942--an end quick enough to average 20 yards a catch and so strong that few teams tested his side of the defense. The '42 team, coached by Notre Dame legend Harry Stuhldreher, went 8-1-1 and was the Helms Foundation's national champion. Teammates elected Schreiner co-captain with childhood buddy Mark Hoskins, both from the small southwestern Wisconsin town of Lancaster.

Then, with the world on fire, Dave Schreiner went to war. He had seen the moment coming. On December 11, 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor, he wrote a letter home: "I don't want to leave my normal way of life, but I'm not going to sit up here snug as a bug, playing football, etc., when others are giving their lives for their country. I'm not going to foolhardily dash into it, but I'm going to do more than sit up here and do nothing but go to school. If everyone tried to get out of it, what a fine country we'd have!"

During the '42 season, Schreiner arranged his enlistment. By 1945 he had been in combat at Guam before moving to Guadalcanal with the 4th Regiment of the Marines' 6th Division. As U.S. forces fought on Okinawa in advance of a planned invasion of Japan that promised death to hundreds of thousands, Schreiner had moved up to A Company commander. The previous commander had been shot twice.

Some pretty safe spot.

Schreiner's name will come up in conversation on September 3 in Madison, when the Badgers open against Bowling Green. Six members of the '42 team have said they plan to attend Celebrate the Legacy ceremonies. That legacy is enriched by Dave Schreiner's story, for it is a story of young men, their doubts and fears, their courage and love, a story of joy and tears told through football.

Stuhldreher made the connection directly. "I keep picturing the boys who are playing for me as they may be a year from now, battling a Jap or a Nazi with a bayonet," the coach told an Ohio newspaper reporter before Wisconsin's second Big Ten game of the '42 season, against mighty Ohio State. "We've always wanted our players tough. Now we want them tougher than ever.... Eventually the present-day football players will go a long way in helping to win this war."

Sounds brave. As if the boys were mythological warriors awaiting their inevitable moment of glory. Not really. They were college students having fun. National headlines spoke of Germans laying siege to Stalingrad. The Wisconsin school newspaper's gossip column reported that the phone number for Delta Gamma sorority should be "SEX-SEX-1 ." One Delta Gamma, Odette Hendrickson, became Dave Schreiner's fiancee.

Mythology is nice. Truth is better. The '42 Badgers were boys being boys. Good for them. Good for Terry Frei, who chose to write their story truly in his book, Third Down and a War to Go: The All-American 1942 Wisconsin Badgers. What a powerful piece of work the book is, a telling detail in the great portrait of America at war, young men and women who saw their duty and did it no matter how much it scared them.

The University of Wisconsin honors tradition. The names of its Heisman Trophy winners, Ron Dayne and Alan Ameche, are on its stadium's facade. By this time next season, other names may be added, perhaps those of players whose jersey numbers have been retired: Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch, No. 40, an All-American halfback; Alan Shafer, No. 83, a walk-on who was fatally injured in a 1944 game; and David Nathan Schreiner, No. 80.

On June 20, 1945, two days after writing his letter home, Schreiner was shot by a Japanese soldier. Frei believes the shooter faked surrender and then opened fire on the Marine approaching him. Schreiner died the next day, four days before his letter assuring his parents that he was in a pretty safe spot arrived home. The parents learned of his death on June 28. A little more than a month later, the war ended.

DAVE KINDRED

dkindred@sportingnews.com

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