to play for the NFL. Chuck Ealey was not one of them; he only wanted to play as quarterback. Several African American quarterbacks opted to do just as Chuck did and played in the quarterback position in the Canadian Football League.
There are a number of up-and-coming black quarterbacks who will be available for the NFL draft in the near future.
. . .
Christine played a number of sports while growing up. Due to her height, in the sixth grade a group of boys nicknamed her “Frankie.”
Courtesy of Christine Brennan
Chuck is still a hero in the eyes of the University of Toledo fans. He was recently voted as the number one player among the university’s All-Century team in honor of the football program’s one-hundred-year history.
Just as the Rockets were racking up wins, Christine was chalking up some gains herself. She was growing, taller and taller. She was just eleven years old and was already 5 feet 3-1/2 inches tall and weighed 110 pounds. And she gained a hurtful nickname that year from some of her sixth-grade classmates. “The boys at school have called me Frankie (short for Frankenstein) for some time,” she wrote in her diary.20
Christine not only kept growing as she entered high school, she also developed the thick skin that served her well later in life.
DID YOU KNOW?
Despite his incredibly successful collegiate career, Chuck Ealey is not a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
THREE
BOX OUT
“This ain’t no dress rehearsal.”
—Jim Brennan, Christine’s dad1
CHRISTINE WAS one of the millions glued to their televisions for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.
The 1972 Games “etched the Olympics into my soul,” Christine said.2
What began as a week of competition and celebration suddenly turned into tragedy. Eight Palestinian terrorists entered the Olympic Village and kidnapped eleven members of the Israeli team. Two were murdered during the initial struggle. Christine couldn’t bring herself to leave the couch in the living room as the events unfolded outside the Israeli Olympians’ dormitory. She chose to spend her last day of summer vacation before entering high school watching the news.
After a daylong siege, the captors negotiated a deal. They were to be transported to the airport, along with their hostages. At the airport, an ill-trained West German police force opened fire on the terrorists. Five of the eight Palestinians were killed, as were all nine Israeli athletes, and one police officer.3
One of the athletes killed was a man named David Mark Berger. He competed in the Maccabiah Games in 1965 and 1969, where he won a gold medal and was chosen to represent Israel in the Olympics.4 He was just twenty-eight years old on September 6, 1972, the day he was murdered.
It was announced that David was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a short distance away from the Brennans’ new family home in Ottawa Hills. Christine’s mother came out of the kitchen and into the family room when she heard the news.
“Can you imagine what his parents are going through?” her mother said.5
The tragedy was beyond understanding for young Christine, especially since a bright young man from Ohio was one of the victims. She tossed and turned all night, and not because the next day was the start of her first year at the high school. Christine couldn’t stop thinking about the eleven men killed during the height of their athletic careers. They left their homes to compete in the Olympics, healthy and full of hope. Their loved ones never saw them alive again.
“I couldn’t let go of that thought that night,” Christine said. “In some ways, I never have.”6
Through all the coverage of the Olympics, and then all the other sporting news Christine began watching night after night, she noticed something. All of the reporting was done by men. Not a single woman was on camera sharing the latest news in the sports arena. Christine also continued to devour articles on various sports in the newspaper and observed that none of those were written by women either.
“I’d never read a woman’s sports byline, never saw a woman sportscaster until 1975. She was Phyllis George, former Miss America. If that was what was required, that wasn’t going to happen for me,” Christine joked.7
As she entered high school in 1972, she was still being teased for her height. Christine towered over most of her classmates at nearly five feet ten inches. As tall as she was, it was difficult to even shop for clothes. Christine hated the thought of going to the mall near their home to shop. Pants were always too short. Clothes and shoes that did fit were designed for older women, not teenagers. Christine got headaches while shopping and wanted to leave the store minutes after entering. Jewelry and makeup weren’t her style, other than occasionally wearing blush and lipstick for special occasions. “And let’s not even talk about nail polish. I was throwing too many baseballs to worry about that,” Christine said.8
Christine didn’t let the teasing get to her. Just like on the basketball court where a player boxes out an opponent from getting a rebound, Christine did the same with the comments. She turned her back on them, ignored them—as her mother suggested—and didn’t let them get to her.
Instead of worrying about her appearance, Christine had better things to do. Like school and sports.
School was first—always first. In the Brennan family, “we were not allowed to get a grade in junior or high school lower than the first letter of our last name,” Christine wrote.9 Christine rarely received marks less than her parents’ expectations. As a result, she was very concerned about how her parents, especially her dad, would react to the news that she was getting a D in geometry during her freshman year. Christine couldn’t bring herself to tell them how poorly she was doing in the class. When she did finally break the news, she burst into tears.
Her father calmly took Christine into the den, closed the door, and spoke to her quietly about what steps needed to be taken to improve her grade. “For a moment, I thought that I detected just a hint of sympathy in his bright blue eyes. I received the grade associated with our last name in that class the next quarter.”10
Geometry still wasn’t Christine’s favorite class. But as soon as she walked into her freshman honors English class, she found a subject she was passionate about and a teacher who inspired her—Mr. Sanzenbacher. When the class read The Great Gatsby, he came to school dressed as the main character. During a vocabulary lesson, he once asked a student to lie on the floor and wiggle around and get dirty. “None of us would ever forget the definition of the word sullied,” Christine said.11
Christine (second from left) was a member of the girls’ basketball team at Ottawa Hills High School.
Courtesy of Christine Brennan
Mr. Sanzenbacher also taught a journalism class for upperclassmen and served as the advisor for the student newspaper, the Arrowhead. Christine and a friend vowed that they would take his class as well as work on the newspaper. Sadly, Mr. Sanzenbacher was no longer at OHHS by the time Christine was a junior. Christine honored Mr. Sanzenbacher’s inspiration by moving forward with her goals despite his absence.
Christine’s education continued at home as well. Her parents were always teaching lessons about giving to others, patriotism, and current events. The Brennan children were expected to pledge and give their own money to their church and went shopping together every year at Christmas for toys for children who might not receive