Edward Raymond "Bibbles" Bawel (born November 21, 1930) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

for the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

. He also was a member of the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fiel ...

in the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union. He played

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 ...

at Evansville College.

Early years

Bawel attended

Boonville High School Boonville High School is a public high school located in Boonville, Indiana. The school is one of three high schools in Warrick County, that make up the Warrick County School Corporation. About Boonville High School, Warrick County's oldest high ...

. He accepted a basketball scholarship from the Evansville College, where he was a three-sport standout; winning a total of five varsity letters in football, basketball and baseball. He was a starter on the 1951-52 basketball team for the legendary coach

Arad McCutchan Arad A. McCutchan (July 4, 1912 – June 16, 1993) was a collegiate basketball coach. The Evansville, Indiana, native coached his hometown University of Evansville from 1946 to 1977, guiding the Purple Aces to a 514–314 record. McCutchan spent ...

. He led the Purple Aces to a record of 22-1-2 from 1948-1951; the 1949 Ohio Valley Conference championship and appearances in the 1948 and 1949

Refrigerator Bowl The Refrigerator Bowl was a college football bowl game played annually from 1948 until 1956 in Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the ...

s. He was named the MVP of the 1949

. In 1979, he was inducted into the

Indiana Football Hall of Fame The Indiana Football Hall of Fame is a sports museum and hall of fame in Richmond, Indiana. It honors persons associated with high school, college and professional American football in Indiana. It also works to establish scholarships and endowments ...

Professional career

Bawel was signed as an

undrafted free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

by the

after the

1952 NFL Draft The 1952 National Football League Draft was held on January 17, 1952, at Hotel Statler in New York. Selections made by New York Yanks were assigned to the new Dallas Texans. This was the sixth year that the first overall pick was a bonus pick de ...

, after his coach Don Ping, being a friend of the

head coach

Jim Trimble James William Trimble (May 29, 1918 – May 23, 2006) was an American gridiron football coach who served as head coach in both the National Football League (NFL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL) In the NFL, he spent four years leading the P ...

, convinced him to give Bawel a try out. As a rookie, he made the team as a

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

, leading the league with 34 punt returns. He also intercepted eight passes. He was called for military duty at the end of his rookie season, rejoining the team two seasons later in

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

. That year, he intercepted 9 passes (a franchise record until

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...

), finishing second in the league to Willard Sherman. He also led the league in return yards (168) and

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

returns (2). In

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...

, he followed Trimble to the

of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union, as a two-way player (offensive end and defensive back). He helped the team win the

45th Grey Cup The 45th Grey Cup was the Canadian Football Council's (CFC) championship game of the 1957 season, which was played on November 30, 1957. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 32–7 at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. This was ...

, where he had 2 interceptions and was famously tripped by a spectator (David Humphrey) standing on the sidelines in front of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers bench, preventing him from returning the second one for a

References

External links

Indiana Football Hall of Fame Bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bawel, Ed 1930 births Living people People from Boonville, Indiana Players of American football from Indiana American football safeties Evansville Purple Aces football players Evansville Purple Aces men's basketball players Philadelphia Eagles players Hamilton Tiger-Cats players American players of Canadian football