I am Larry McGinnis’ niece and I would be very interested in his bio if you wish to share.

I wrote a 342-page history of the Milwaukee Badgers that I am presently seeking a punlisher for. I found your research on Mr. Dilweg quite thorough and containing a couple of facts I did not discover during my research. I also did a bio on Larry McGinnis that I think might be of interest to you. Let me know.

Mike

In 1922, Laurence McGinnis of Topeka, Kansas and a second year law student (or law school junior, in the parlence of the time) was elected captain of that year’s varsity football team. McGinnis was a tackle/kicker who transferred to Marquette from Washburn College in Kansas.

McGinnis’ appointment was a big enough story to be reported in the October 27, 1922 Kansas City Star.

* After the 1925 season, Dilweg was invited to play in East-West Shrine Game, the premier all-star game in that era for college players. He was apparently the first Marquette player so honored. According to Ring Lardner, who covered the game, Dilweg was one of the top performers present and outplayed his more famous counterpart, end Brick Muller of the University of California.

* Although all were gone by 1926, Dilweg’s rookie season, the roster of the NFL’s Milwaukee Badgers (1922-1926)had included Fritz Pollard (1922), the first black player in the NFL and the first black head coach of a major league professional sports team; Johnny “Blood” McNally (1925), an original member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and later Dilweg’s teammate with the Packers, Jimmy Conzelman (1922-24), also a Hall of Famer; and Paul Robeson (1922), the noted musical performer and civil rights activist. While playing for the Badgers, Robeson was also a student at Columbia Law School in New York.

* After the 1926 season Dilweg declined an offer to sign with the Chicago Bears and opted instead to join the Green Bay Packers.

* According to the Dec. 12, 1932 issue of Time Magazine Red Grange once described Dilweg as “the ablest end he ever met.”

*Although he played end on defense, when he retired in 1934, Dilweg was the NFL’s all-time leader in interceptions. He was also the Packers all-time leading receiver at the time of his retirement, but his marks were shattered by his replacement at left end, the legendary Don Hutson.

*When he relocated to Green Bay, he initially practiced law with Gerald Clifford, who was one of the so-called “Hungry Five” who owned the Packers in the 1920′s. In January 1935, Dilweg was a witness to the reincorporation of the Packers as a non-profit organization.

* Dilweg’s interest in politics manifested itself publicly shortly after he moved to Green Bay. In 1928, while playing for the Packers, he ran for the position of county attorney, but was defeated by his Packer teammate Verne Lewellen, a graduate of the University of Nebraska and a member of the Wisconsin bar. Halfback Lewellen held the office for several years while still an active member of the Packer roster.

* Prior to his election to Congress, Dilweg unsuccessfully ran for the office of state attorney general. In 1950, he was also an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate.

* As a congressman Dilweg was most closely indentified with the idea of keeping college and professional sports going during World War II. His rousing “What Does Baseball Do for America?” speech, delivered on the floor of Congress in 1943, was frequently quoted, and he lobbied President Roosevelt, unsuccessfully, it turned out, for the creation of a National Sports Commission.

*From 1951 to 1952, Dilweg served as a special Assistant United States Attorney assigned to investigate the existence of an alleged oil cartel.

* Dilweg was reappointed to the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission in 1964 and 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson.

* Dilweg died less than three days after the Ice Bowl. He was suffering from cancer at the time, but was in Florida visiting relatives. He is buried in Green Bay.

* In 1968, Dilweg was elected to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. His formal induction came in County Stadium in Milwaukee in October before a Packers-Bears game. In 1970, he was selected as a charter member of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.

* Efforts of the part of football historians to secure his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame have so far been for naught. In 1986, noted football historian Bob Carroll described Delweg as “the best end we ever forgot.” Almost a quarter century later, that observation appears equally apt.

* Dilweg’s wife Eleanor Coleman was a member of the 1924 United States Olympic Diving team.

* On October 31, 1939, legendary Washington, D.C. sportswriter Shirley Povich opined in his column that “Marquette has supplied professional football with more good players than any other college.” He then cited eight names, including that of Dilweg.

http://members.fortunecity.com/gopackers92/photo_1929.jpg

A photograph of Congressman Dilweg can be found on page 20 of the 1944 Wisconsin Blue Book which can be accessed online at

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.WIBlueBk1944.p0042&id=WI.WIBlueBk1944&isize=M