I PMed SWC about the the player who died after a game. His response:
Boston University, 1953. Here is an excerpt from my report on that game, part of my "Bold Brave Men of Archbold" series:
"The game seemed like a normal game most of the afternoon. No one knew that one of the participants would not survive it. The newspaper account of the game is spare, as if the reporters were more interested in the other story of the day, as well they should have been. There were only three pictures of the game published, all very small and none showing a score. They do reveal that Syracuse was in it’s white jerseys with orange helmet and pants while BU was in scarlet and white, with the helmets and pants white. The first shot was of Joe Terrasi carrying the ball to the SU 1 foot line in the first quarter, just before the first score, Lyle Carleson fumbling a white colored football at an unknown juncture of the game and a picture of BU guard John Pappas, #55, in game action, watching a tackle being made “about an hour…before he lapsed into unconsciousness“...
...Early in the fourth period of this game, Boston U was lining up for a play after moving from their 10 to the 30 on “seven hard-fought running plays” when guard John Pappas sank to one knee and told his teammates “I was banged on a play or two before.” It was the last thing he ever said. He passed out and never regained consciousness. He died at 3:30AM the following morning. His parents arrived at Hancock Airport at 5:30AM and were taken by cab to the Hotel Onondaga where Coach Donelli had to tell them that their son was dead.
An autopsy at University Hospital determined Pappas died of “an unusual hemorrhage to the middle brain, which caused impairment of vital body processes“, but there had been no fracture. Dr. Edward Swift said “It’s very unusual in football when a player who suffers a head injury isn’t knocked out.” He labeled it “a freak accident”, saying “He suddenly went bad and died.“ A picture in the paper of Pappas in action earlier in the game shows him without any face-mask: but nobody else has one, either.
Both coachers agreed that the game wasn’t unusually rough and it was reported that the players on both teams were very friendly to each other after the game. SU Athletic Director Lew Andreas said that relations between the schools had always been good and there was no reason to believe that would change. Donelli said that as far as he knew, the Terriers would play the remaining games on their schedule. SU and BU would continue to play every year through 1960.
There was some talk that the injury was due to the one-platoon system being too much for Pappas and potentially other players to handle but Donelli said that in his career Pappas had played as much as 55 minutes in a game under the two platoon system and not been injured.
A telegram was sent to Boston U. and to Pappas family, signed by the men’s and women’s student government heads at SU, offering condolences and saying they would like to attend the funeral. 1000 people were in attendance, including all 50 of Papas’ teammates. A collection was taken among the crowd at Boston U’s next game against Penn State to establish a memorial fund. At the end of the season, SU’s players named John Pappas the captain of their All-opponent team.
Bill Reddy wrote: “The death of John Pappas, the fine young senior guard on the Boston University team., was a shocking affair and his family an teammates receive all our sympathy. This is the first fatality suffered as a result of an injury suffered in Archbold Stadium since the big concrete bowl was built in 1909 and the medical findings still are incomplete. There is a possibility, based on studies which have not been fully checked, that a pre-game injury, entirely unsuspected, led up to Pappas’ death. Regardless of everything else, however, it is a sad outcome for any game. It casts a pall over both squads and leaves football itself in an ignoble light.”
