Benjamin Lom (June 29, 1906 – June 29, 1984) was an American
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
player who played for three seasons for the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
Golden Bears, and was best known for his attempt to stop his own teammate
Roy Riegels
Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels (April 4, 1908 – March 26, 1993) played for the University of California, Berkeley American football, football team from 1927 to 1929. His wrong-way run in the 1929 Rose Bowl is often cited as the worst blunder in the his ...
after Riegels ran the ball 69 yards in the wrong direction during the
1929 Rose Bowl
The 1929 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game and the 15th annual Rose Bowl Game. Played on January 1, 1929, the game saw the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (also known at the time as the Georgia Tech Golden Tornado) defeat the California Golde ...
.
Biography
1927 season
As a sophomore in his first game with Cal, Lom threw two long
forward pass
In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The forward pass is one of the main distinguishers between gridiron ...
es to win the game. In another game that season, several of Lom's passes led Cal to a 13–0 win over
Saint Mary's College of California
Saint Mary's College of California is a Private college, private Catholic Church, Catholic college in Moraga, California. Established in 1863, it is affiliated with the Catholic Church and administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college of ...
. The team went 7–3 that season and Lom was named as an honorable mention on the ''
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
''
All-America
The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...
team and was named as a first-team member of
Lou Little
Luigi "Lou Little" Piccirilli December 6, 1891 – May 28, 1979) was an American football player and coach born in Boston, Massachusetts. City of Boston, Birth Registrations, number 8583, December 6, 1891After Lou's birth, his father changed his ...
's All-America team.
[Benny Lom]
, Jews in Sports. Accessed July 13, 2009.
1928 season and 1929 Rose Bowl
Cal finished with a 6–1–2 record in the 1928 season and faced the
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets is the name used for all of the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), located in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. The teams have also been nicknamed the Rambl ...
in the
1929 Rose Bowl
The 1929 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game and the 15th annual Rose Bowl Game. Played on January 1, 1929, the game saw the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (also known at the time as the Georgia Tech Golden Tornado) defeat the California Golde ...
. In the second quarter, Lom forced a fumble by Stumpy Thomason of Georgia Tech. Lom's teammate Roy Riegels picked up the ball at the Georgia Tech 35-yard line and headed for a touchdown but reversed direction after spinning to avoid tackles and started heading towards his own goal line. Lom chased after Riegels trying to tell him to turn around, but Riegels couldn't hear him over the roar from the crowd of 70,000.
[ Lom ultimately caught up with Riegels at Cal's own six-inch line. The play was described at the time as follows:]"Down the field raced Riegels, the white lines passing beneath his feet, his mind concentrated upon outrunning the Georgia Tech team. Lom gradually overtook him. Once it looked as if Lom were going to make a flying tackle of his teammate, as he was within diving distance, but he evidently expected to turn Riegels around. Not until Riegels reached the 1-foot mark did Lom overtake him. Lom then pulled Riegels by the shoulders and motioned toward the opposite goal. Riegels stopped, and at that instant two Georgia Tech players tackled him and threw him over the goal-line. The referee called the ball down at the place where Riegels had been stopped by his teammate."
Recovering the ball inside their own one-yard line, the Cal Bears opted to punt on first down. Lom attempted the punt, but Lom's punt was blocked and the ball was recovered by Georgia Tech after a "mad scramble" for a safety that gave Georgia Tech a 2–0 lead.[
Georgia Tech scored a touchdown in the third quarter to make it 8–0. With a little more than a minute left in the fourth quarter, Lom led Cal on a 98-yard drive to score a touchdown and kicked the ]extra point
The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...
to bring the Bears within a point, but the safety proved to be the margin of victory for Georgia Tech. In its coverage of the game, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called Lom "the outstanding hero of the game for the losers. he played smart football, was in every play and carried the ball on sweeping end runs with dash and vigor."
Lom was retrospectively honored in 1953 with the Player of the Game Award of the 1929 Rose Bowl game, one of only two players from the losing team to be selected outright for the honor.[Siegman, Joseph]
"Jewish Sports Legends"
p. 94. Brassey's Brassey's is variously the name of a publisher, an imprint, or a published series of volumes, all mostly associated with military topics, that was in existence in one form or another from 1886 to around 2005.
Brassey's in Britain
The heritage of t ...
, 2000. . Accessed July 13, 2009.
1929 season
The team had a 7–1–1 record in 1929. Highlights of the season included a 54-yard kickoff return
A kickoff is a method of starting a drive in gridiron football. Typically, a kickoff consists of one team – the "kicking team" – kicking the ball to the opposing team – the "receiving team". The receiving team is then entitled to ''return ...
on the opening play of a game against the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
that Cal won 12–7. In a November 1929 game against the heavily favored University of Southern California Trojans
The USC Trojans are the College athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC), located in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the ' ...
, Lom set up for a punt and ran the ball back for an 85-yard touchdown after a USC player trying to block the kick was blocked and two USC players were avoided near the line of scrimmage. Cal beat USC 15–7, and Lom's performance led the United Press
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...
to write:"Standing out above all the others in the California lineup were Benny Lom, the slight Jewish halfback, and Roy Riegels .... If there ever was any doubt that Lom was a great back he proved it to-day. His long punts continually offset advantages Southern California gained through hard running plays. His passing was deadly. He ripped off long gains with disturbing frequency and finally took the game out of the disputed class by running eighty-five vards through the entire
Trojan team to a touchdown, the second for the Bears."
In 1929, Lom was selected for the All-Pacific Coast first team[ and was selected as a third-team All-American by the Associated Press and a second-team All-American by the Newspaper Editors Association and the North American Newspaper Alliance, He was also received honorable mentions from ]Grantland Rice
Henry Grantland "Granny" Rice (November 1, 1880July 13, 1954) was an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio.
Early years
Rice wa ...
and ''United Press
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...
''.[
]
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
Lom was one of ten athletes inducted in 1995 into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere around ...
.[Tugend, Tom]
"10 ex-athletes named to Jewish Hall of Fame"
''Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web ...
'', December 10, 1995. Accessed July 13, 2009.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lom, Benny
1906 births
1984 deaths
California Golden Bears football players
Players of American football from San Francisco
Jewish American sportspeople
20th-century American Jews