Ed Duren passes away

[Doc Gopher]

Ed Duren, a second team All Big Ten lineman on our last Big Ten championship team in 1967 passed away. I just thought this should
be mentioned on Gopher Hole. RIP Ed Duren

 

[rickyupchurch]

I remember being at a game when he took a fumble and he rumbled about 95 yards for a TD. He had deceptive speed, he was slower than he looked. He had 5 or 6 players begging for him to lateral the ball but he just kept plodding along for the score. The play took forever and was all everyone talked about after the game.

 

[Calgoph]

I remember being at a game when he took a fumble and he rumbled about 95 yards for a TD. He had deceptive speed, he was slower than he looked. He had 5 or 6 players begging for him to lateral the ball but he just kept plodding along for the score. The play took forever and was all everyone talked about after the game.

I was there and IIRC it was 98 yards. Most importantly Coach Warmath said later that as Duren ran past the Gophers bench the coach had yelled at him to hurry it up before the ref threw a flag for delay of game.

 

[highwayman]

What a great story! RIP, Ed.

 

[Nomellini]

Yes! Gophers 17 Iowa 0. The fumbler was Ed Podolak, of all people. The other Gopher touchdown was on a pass from lefty Larry Carlson (Williston ND) to Ken Last (Bloomington). That day, Last became the first Gopher with 1,000 career receiving yards. Wow, it was a different game then!

 

[50PoundHead]

Yes! Gophers 17 Iowa 0. The fumbler was Ed Podolak, of all people. The other Gopher touchdown was on a pass from lefty Larry Carlson (Williston ND) to Ken Last (Bloomington). That day, Last became the first Gopher with 1,000 career receiving yards. Wow, it was a different game then!

I wasn't at the game, but I read about it in the old Minneapolis Tribune Sports Peach. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in that era, a player could only return a fumble if it was recovered before it hit the ground. If it hit the ground, it couldn't be advanced. I was listening to this game on the radio and I seem to recall that Podolak was hit and the ball popped into the air where it was grabbed by Duren and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Nomellini]

You are exactly right, Mr. Head! That is just the way it happened! The article in the "Peach" describes the crowd of 62,631 as "wind-chilled", though the game was played on October 15. Duren's touchdown run was referred to as "the ultimate indignity for Iowa's long suffering football team." Podolak was "bumped on the arm by Gopher defensive tackle Ezell Jones. The ball squirted loose and wound up in the hands of Duren, a sad-eyed junior guard who may have been the slowest man on the field. Protected by a phalanx of Gopher blockers, Duren began his journey from the Hawkeye five. The Hawkeyes had no chance to get him and the only question was whether Duren, as he lumbered past the chortling Minnesota bench, would lose his sense of navigation and run out of bounds." The play was ruled an interception return and it set a school record, which may have been eclipsed. The game was Iowa's 15th straight Big 10 loss and the Hawkeyes had not scored a touchdown in 17 straight quarters. This play by Duren occurred late in the game and "must have been the cruelest deprivation of this bleak season". I thought it interesting that Duren was referred to as "242 pound Duren", the implication being that he was huge (for that time).

 

[Doc1001]

I lived next to him in frontier hall--along with Hubie Bryant and McKinley Boston.

 

[Great Plains Gopher]

I wasn't at the game, but I read about it in the old Minneapolis Tribune Sports Peach. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in that era, a player could only return a fumble if it was recovered before it hit the ground. If it hit the ground, it couldn't be advanced. I was listening to this game on the radio and I seem to recall that Podolak was hit and the ball popped into the air where it was grabbed by Duren and the rest, as they say, is history.

I still think a fumble should be advanced only if caught in the air, which was a rare and dramatic thing when it happened.

 

[MattyH]

I still think a fumble should be advanced only if caught in the air, which was a rare and dramatic thing when it happened.

Mr. Duren was my youth football coach back in Roseville in the '80s. He was a kind and soft-spoken guy and his son Michael went to grade school with me. I remember seeing his Big Ten Championship ring, which he wore and I asked him about it. He told me it was 1967 and I knew that was pretty cool and they were hard to get for sure. RIP Mr. Duren and condolences to the family.