Manuel James Jemail (September 12, 1893 – July 26, 1978) was a writer-photographer for ''The Daily News'', a veteran of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, and 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.

Life

Born in

Byblos Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 880 ...

, Lebanon, Jemail moved with his family to

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...

when he was five years old. He was the first American of Lebanese decent to be accepted into the

U.S. Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a United States Service academies, federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of ...

, where he played football. After being sidelined by an injury his first year, he transferred to

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

where he started as a

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 ...

and halfback and played in the

1916 Rose Bowl Originally titled the "Tournament East-West football game," the second of what is now known as the Rose Bowl Game was played on January 1, 1916. The Rose Bowl game has been played annually since this game. The first game, the 1902 Tournament Eas ...

. He played for the

New York Brickley Giants The New York Giants (informally known as Brickley's Giants and Brickley's New York Giants) were a professional American football team with the American Professional Football Association (now the National Football League) whose only season played ...

in 1921. He is distinguished as being the first Lebanese to play 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 ...

(NFL). Jemail served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After leaving the Navy, he found work as a security guard for ''The Daily News''. He was made inquiring photographer just thirty minutes after being hired as a security guard, when the paper's editor "decided that any former Navy officer and Ivy League football player who would take an $8 a week job should also make a hard-nosed newsman". Jemail started working for ''Sports Illustrated'' when it was founded in 1954. He had a weekly full page

feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing characteristic of a software item ...

titled "Jimmy Jemail's Hotbox" where he would ask a sports question to people from both inside and outside the sporting world. Jemail worked for ''The Daily News'' as a writer-photographer for 52 years and would interview "presidents, premiers, royalty, the rich, the famous, the ordinary and the bums". In 1962, he met President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

who told him "I've followed your

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

for years." President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

called Jemail's column one of the most widely read in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Jemail retired from ''The Daily News'' in 1973. He died of cancer in

Lenox Hill Hospital Lenox Hill Hospital (LHH) is a nationally ranked 450-bed non-profit, tertiary, research and academic medical center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, servicing the tri-state area. LHH is one of the region's many unive ...

on July 26, 1978.

References

External links

* 1893 births 1978 deaths 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American photographers American football halfbacks American football quarterbacks Brown Bears football players New York Daily News people New York Brickley Giants players United States Navy personnel of World War I People from Byblos Sportspeople from Newport, Rhode Island Players of American football from Rhode Island Military personnel from Rhode Island Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United States Lebanese emigrants to the United States Lebanese players of American football Sportspeople of Lebanese descent {{quarterback-stub