George Gulyanics

George Gulyanics (June 11, 1921 – January 19, 1990) was born in

Mishawaka, Indiana Mishawaka is a city on the St. Joseph River, in Penn Township, St. Joseph County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 51,063 as of the 2020 census. Its nickname is "the Princess City". Mishawaka is a principal city of the South ...

and was a professional

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 wi ...

player who played

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. Ther ...

and punter for six seasons for the Chicago Bears. Gulyanics won the South Bend, Indiana Golden Gloves welterweight title in 1937 and was an Indiana All-State fullback in 1938 at

Mishawaka High School Mishawaka High School is a public high school located in Mishawaka, Indiana. The school educates students in grades 9–12 and is part of the School City of Mishawaka. History The first Mishawaka High School was proposed by the Mishawaka Town Bo ...

. He then attended

Jones County Junior College Jones College is a public community college in Ellisville, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and serves its eight-county district consisting of Clarke, Covington, Gre ...

Ellisville, Mississippi Ellisville is a town in and the first county seat of Jones County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 4,448 at the time of the 2010 census, up from 3,465 at the 2000 census. The Jones County Courthouse is located here, as is much of t ...

and later played on the 1941 Alabama Crimson Tide football team. He served in the First Army Signal Corps from 1942 to 1945 and went ashore in Normandy at Utah Beach on D-Day Plus 1, June 7, 1944. While waiting for his return home after the war's end, he played football with a service team in France, where word of his ability filtered back to Chicago Bears' owner-coach, George Halas, who offered him a tryout. In 1946, he played for the Halas-owned Akron Bears of the AFL, before being "promoted" to the Chicago Bears in 1947. Nicknamed "Little Bronko" (after Bears' Hall-of-Famer Bronko Nagurski), he played six years at fullback and halfback and was the team's punter. He ranks 15th on the Bears' all-time rushing list with 2,081 yards, a 4.1 yards per rush average; he scored 19 touchdowns between 1947 and his retirement after the 1952 season. In 1953, he returned to Mishawaka and was elected to the Penn Township assessor's office in 1954. He held that office for 32 years before his retirement in 1986. He and his wife, Ann Marie, had four children. He is a member of the Mishawaka High School Athletics Hall-of-Fame. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gulyanics, George 1921 births American football running backs Chicago Bears players Alabama Crimson Tide football players Jones County Bobcats football players 1990 deaths People from Mishawaka, Indiana American people of Slovak descent