The 100-Year-Old Wolverine Recalls Yost, Harmon, Oosterbaan and Kipke
8/31/2017 9:27:00 AM | Football, Features
By Steve Kornacki
NOVI, Mich. -- When you mention to Robert "Pete" Piotrowski that his 100th birthday will come on the day the Wolverines open another football season, his eyes twinkle and his face lights up.
"And I'll be watching that game right there," said Piotrowski, pointing to the 50-inch, flat-screen TV in the corner of his family room. "I got that bigger TV because I can read the smaller print then."
Piotrowski remembers the great times he had as a University of Michigan football player whenever he watches the Wolverines, who play Florida Saturday (Sept. 2) in Arlington, Texas, to kick off the 138th season in program history. He was part of the 57th and 58th teams, and tackled so well that Tom Harmon paid him a compliment and hit so hard that Coach Harry Kipke wanted him. Â
There's nothing like watching Michigan football and basketball for Piotrowski. He never misses a game. He also works out for 20 minutes daily at the gym in his community complex. He gave up golfing at 94, though, saying, "We didn't score as well anymore and stopped."
Piotrowski has slowed down. Everybody his age does. He uses a walker for long distances and a cane sometimes. But he's also the kind of guy who greets a visitor walking in from the parking lot in the rain by showing up with an umbrella.
That can-do attitude is what attracted Kipke to Piotrowski, who was getting ready for his junior season 80 years ago.
Piotrowski was born and raised along Lake Michigan in Manistee, where his father ran City Drug Store, and he grew up "going to the beach and playing tennis a lot". He was a two-way halfback (now tailback on offense and cornerback on defense) for the Manistee High Chippewas, and was a good one, too, combining toughness, speed and quickness.
But he never dreamed of playing at Michigan, where he went to attend the School of Pharmacy and follow in his father's footsteps.
"I got a call from Wally Weber," said Piotrowski, referring to the long-time assistant coach. "He wanted me to meet him at the Waterman Gym, and I found out that he and Kipke and another coach had taken a trip Up North to different high schools. My coach, Al Arnold, told (Weber) he had a guy going to Michigan who he thought could make his team.
"So, I met Kipke and Weber and a couple of linemen at the gym. They had a sled where two people bang with their shoulders and push off. He asked me to go with one of the bigger linemen and I really banged into him. They were quite impressed. The lineman was quite impressed. And so they asked me to play football, and I made the team!"
1936 Michigan football team
1937 Michigan football team
He was 5-10 1/2 and 159 pounds, which is small for a team manager these days, but packed power into that frame. Coaches eventually moved him to fullback.
"I did pretty well at fullback," said Piotrowski. "In fact, the week before the Ohio State game (in 1937), I had a heck of a good practice. Everybody thought I was going to start. But when (Kipke) called out the starters' names, he didn't call mine.
"Well, I didn't say anything. I came to practice the next Monday and Kipke took me aside and apologized for not playing me. He didn't say anything more, and I did the most I could, and I had to graduate the next year. I had labs to make up, and so I didn't go out for my senior year. I also had a girlfriend and we wanted to get married after I graduated. So, I got a job."
In those days, only those who started generally received varsity letters. Piotrowski never started and so he received varsity reserve mention as a team member. Only 22 of 54 team members received varsity letters in 1936.
"Not as a starter, but I got to play in the big stadium," said Piotrowski, "and I had a great time. Just going into that big stadium is what I remember most. You can hear that crowd and the announcer saying who carried the ball or made the tackle. I did start after half time a couple of times."
He's listed as Robert Piotrowski on team photos, but picked up the nickname "Pete" from his brothers in the Kappa Sigma fraternity on Hill Street.
"We had too many guys named Robert in the fraternity," said Piotrowski,"and so they started calling me Pete."
The team practiced at Ferry Field, which had hosted the games only one decade earlier, and Piotrowski recalls seeing Fielding H. Yost there. The legendary coach who built the Michigan program was the athletic director when Piotrowski played.
"Yost was around sometimes at practices," he said. "He was slam-bang, cheering us on when we practiced tackling. He was an old guy then, but he would yell, 'Hit 'em!' "
Piotrowski chuckled at that memory.
What were his impressions of Kipke, a 1922 All-America halfback for Yost who also won national championships as a coach in 1932 and 1933?
"He ran the whole thing but was with the backs in practice," said Piotrowski. "He won a couple national championships before I got there. But when I played, there weren't as many good players (Michigan was 1-7 in '36 and 4-4 in '37). He was a nice guy. I worked at his house one summer. I did yard work or drove his car to take his kids someplace."
Piotrowski grew up listening to the first radio voice of Wolverines football, Ty Tyson, broadcast the games of Bennie Oosterbaan, the three-time All-America end.
"I remember playing games in grade school and saying, 'I'm Bennie Oosterbaan,' " said Piotrowski. "Then I go to practice, and there's Bennie Oosterbaan! But I didn't get to talk to him much. Wally Weber coached me and the backs, and he coached the ends. Then, Ty Tyson, who was with WJR, traveled with us on the trains to games. I said, 'There's Ty Tyson!' "
He was able to witness the past and future greatness of the Wolverines.
"Tom Harmon and Forest Evashevski came in as freshmen when I was a junior," said Piotrowski. "Sometimes, we tackled those guys in drills. I remember tackling Harmon. He was just coming down the line. But I must have been a pretty good tackler because I heard him say I was the best tackler. I actually got into a game because of that."
He was later in the stands watching Evashevski and Harmon lead Michigan to glory, and Harmon won the Heisman Trophy in 1940. Piotrowski hasn't seen a game in person since the 1970s, when Bo Schembechler was starting out at Michigan, but he watches them all on TV.
Piotrowsk looks back at the 1936 team // A framed retirement gift from Bristol-Myers Squibb hangs in Piotrowski's den
"I'm looking forward to seeing how good this year's team is," said Piotrowski. "You know, they lost 17 starters.
"But I'm sure Coach (Jim) Harbaugh has brought in some pretty good new players because he attracts them with his name and his really good records. Like, in my day, I didn't come to Michigan to play football. They asked me and I played. Now there are all these highly-recruited guys."
Piotrowski has seen pretty much all the football greatness Michigan has had, beginning with Yost coaching Oosterbaan and then tackling Harmon in practice, and staying up on the team he loves, his team, right down to the exact number of starters that need to be replaced.
It still rankles him a bit that he never got to start that Ohio State game, but he says he doesn't need anything tangible, like the varsity letter he coveted, to know what he contributed and was part of.
"You know," he said, "when you get real old, things tend to fade away. But I'll always be a Michigan Man, and I'll always be proud to be a Michigan Man."
Piotrowski moved to Hamtramck and then Detroit's west side after graduating, and had great success as a pharmaceutical salesman for Bristol-Myers Squibb. He married his Michigan sweetheart, Jean, in 1941 and they had three children, Laurie, Ken and Terri. Jean died in 1998, and he married for a second time at 81, but he lost Jane 18 months ago even though she was 20 years younger.
He said his children and other relatives are flying in from New England to celebrate his 100th birthday with a party on game day. Does he have anything that he considers the secret to his longevity?
"People ask that," said Piotrowski. "But you know, we ate everything, greasy foods, all that Polish food, and didn't pay any attention to that. I still don't. Steak is my favorite meal. We all smoked back then, but I don't anymore.
"Time flies, you know."
And, like clockwork, usually during the week of his birthday, another Michigan football season kicks off.
That never gets old.
