John True Beynon (July 12, 1913 – October 17, 1989) was an

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 ...

player. He was the

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for the

Illinois Fighting Illini football The Illinois Fighting Illini football program represents the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. The Fighting Illini are a founding member of ...

team from 1932 to 1934 and was selected as a first-team All-Big Ten player in 1933 and 1934.

Early years

Beynon was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 1913 and grew up in

Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...

University of Illinois

Beynon attended the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

. He was the

of the

team from 1932 to 1934. He was selected as a first-team player on the

1933 Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wis ...

and

1934 All-Big Ten Conference football team The 1934 All-Big Ten Conference football team consists of American football players selected to the All-Big Ten Conference teams chosen by various selectors for the 1934 Big Ten Conference football season. All Big-Ten selections Ends * Frank Larso ...

s. He was also selected in 1934 as a second-team All-American by Red Grange Universal Service and a third-team All-American by the

Newspaper Enterprise Association The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news ...

Later years

In 1935, Beynon was hired as an assistant football coach at Drake. He later attended law school at the University of Illinois and served as a backfield coach and radio sports announcer during law school. He interrupted his legal career to serve in the military during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He became the first public defender in

Winnebago County, Illinois Winnebago County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 285,350 making it the seventh most populous county in Illinois behind Cook County and its five surrounding collar counties. ...

, in 1966, and later became an Illinois state court judge. He died in 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beynon, Jack 1913 births 1989 deaths Players of American football from Rockford, Illinois American football quarterbacks Illinois Fighting Illini football players Public defenders