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The Daily News

Upper Peninsula, Michigan
December 5, 2005


Iron Mountain-Kingsford By Burt Angeli,  Editor

   Looking for a good “David Fells Goliath” story? I recommend William N. Wallace’s  Yale’s Ironmen: A Story of Football & Lives In The Decade of The Depression & Beyond.

   Wallace, a Petoskey, Mich., newspaperman who went on to prominence with the New York Times, researched the story of underdog Yale’s 1934 football game with Princeton, a 5-to-1 favorite and unbeaten for the past two seasons.

   Besides Wallace's ties to Petoskey, there’s two other angles to Michigan including one from the Upper Peninsula. Princeton was coached by Fritz Crisler, who later gained fame at the University of Michigan.

   Yale center Jim DeAngelis squared off with Harvard captain and right guard Herman (Gunny) Gundlach for four seasons. Gundlach, from Houghton, Mich., entered the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of  Fame in 1973. The book also contains a picture of Gundlach and Kelley at the 1985 Yale-Harvard game.

   Wallace is best noted for his professional football writing. He tackled Yale’s Ironmen with the same excellence.