Harry Jagade Jr. — commonly known by the nickname "Chick" — was born December 9, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois.[1] He attended Leyden High School in Franklin Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.[1] His father, Harry C. Jagade Sr., was the plant manager of a Chicago tool and die firm.[2]
Jagade was a four sport athlete in high school, earning athletic letters for four years in football, four years in baseball, and two each in basketball and track and field. An infielder on the baseball diamond, Jagade served as a team captain and helped lead his squad to conference championships in 1942 and 1943.[1] He was named as an All-Conference star in track, setting new conference records both in the speed sport of hurdles and the power sport of shot put, as well as sharing three records with teammates as part of the Heyden High relay team.[1]
His performance on the football field was superlative, earning him honors during his 1943 senior season as an All-Conference and Illinois All-State player and recognition as Most Valuable Player of the year.[1]
College career
Entering the Indiana University in 1944, Jagade continued on his path as a multi-sport athlete, earning an athletic scholarship for football but also participating in track and field and baseball for the school.[3] He would earn two athletic letters as a member of the Indiana Hoosiers baseball team.[1]
On the football field Jagade played offensively as a fullback — primarily a blocking and short-yardage running position under head coach Bo McMillan's scheme — and defensively as a linebacker.[4] He was extremely proficient on both sides of the ball.
Jagade did not play college football in 1945.[5] His college career was interrupted with Jagade's March 1945 induction into the military associated with America's ongoing engagement in World War II, still in its final months.[6]
He returned to Indiana in 1946, playing out his sophomore year after a one year delay.[5]
Although best known as a tough fullback, Jagade also won laurels for his defensive work, winning a trophy as Outstanding Player of the 1947 Indiana–Purdue game, an upset win for the Hoosiers, for his linebacking prowess in the contest.[1]
Jagade was lauded by his new head coach, Clyde Smith, after scoring a winning touchdown against the Iowa Hawkeyes during his senior season. "At least five of those Iowa players had a clear shot at Chick, but he was in one of those Jagade moods — he just wouldn't be stopped," Smith said. "He combines that brute strength of his with confidence and courage. No one else on our football team could have made that 35-yard run for the winning touchdown; anyone else would have been stopped on the 20 yard line."[1]
Jagade returned to Indiana for the school's 1948 season but was immediately sidelined by a knee injury that limited his playing time and effectiveness.[7] He nevertheless retained a reputation as a particularly tough runner, called by one observer a runner "with few peers for head-on destructive power."[8]
Jagade capped his college career by being named a participant in the 1949 College All-Star Game in Chicago.[9]
Professional career
Chick Jagade featured as a team star on the cover of a 1949 Baltimore Colts program.
He had the honor of scoring the first points of the year against the San Francisco Forty Niners, running a trap play over the left guard to break a 45-yard touchdown run.[4] Jagade's run set a new team record for the longest running play from scrimmage, a record previously held by teammate Lou Gambino.[4] Jagade would see action in 10 games for the Colts during the 1949 AAFC season, starting in three and scoring two touchdowns.[11]
Jagade was out of football in 1950, the year in which the Korean War began.
A return was made to professional football in 1951. From 1951 through 1953, Jagade played for the Cleveland Browns, the four-time AAFC champions who had joined the National Football League (NFL) in 1950.[11] In his first season under the legendary head coach Paul Brown, Jagade was confined to a reserve role, seeing action in 11 games without a single start.[11] He only carried the ball 7 times in the year, gaining 22 of his 30 total yards on one play.[11]
While he came off the bench in 1952, Jagade was the starting fullback for Cleveland during the 1953 Browns season, gaining 344 yards and scoring 4 touchdowns on the ground, while adding another 193 yards on 20 passes caught.[11]
As a member of the Browns, Jagade played in both the 1952 and 1953 NFL Championship Games.[12] He was named a member of the 1953 Pro Bowl team for his performance.[11]
For the 1954 and 1955 seasons Jagade returned home to Chicago as a member of the Chicago Bears.[11] He was once again cast in a starting role, appearing in 23 of the 24 games the Bears played in those seasons, with 21 starts over that period.[11] His career best in rushing yardage came in 1954, when he gained 498 yards on the ground, although his 3.2 yards per carry average that season was topped by all five of his other seasons in the league.[11]
He remained with the team in 1956 in the role of player-coach.[13]
Life after football
After retirement from football, Jagade lived in Glenview, Illinois with his wife, the former Ada Lee Bozarth, whom he married in 1949,[9] and the couple's three children.[14]
Even during his career as a professional football player, Jagade worked in the off-season as superintendent of a tool and die factory on the northwest side of Chicago.[15]
Death and legacy
On November 24, 1968, Jagade was hunting with friends on Washington Island, located in Wisconsin just off the peninsula at the northern tip of Green Bay.[3] Jagade successfully shot a deer and was dragging it out from where it had fallen when he was stricken with a fatal heart attack.[3] He was pronounced dead at the scene.[3]
Chick Jagade was 41 years old at the time of his death.
Deadly heart attacks seem to have run in the Jagade family, with Chick's father, Harry C. Jagade Sr., suddenly dying of the same ailment almost exactly twenty years earlier when he was visiting the University of Indiana campus in Bloomington in May 1948 for a "Cream and Crimson Day" athletics celebration.[2]
^ abc"Pigskin Profiles: Harry Jagade," in Baltimore Colts vs. San Francisco Forty Niners, Sunday, November 6th. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Colts, 1949; p. 8.
