PHILADELPHIA – With the college football 150th anniversary season nearing its conclusion, ESPN has announced its All-Time All-America Team. The Ivy League was represented by one player across the two teams picked by ESPN's panel of experts: University of Pennsylvania legend Chuck Bednarik, who was named to the first team as its center on offense.
 
Following his graduation from high school, Bednarik entered the United States Army Air Forces and served as a B-24 waist-gunner with the Eighth Air Force. He flew 30 combat missions over Germany and was highly decorated.
 
Bednarik began attending Penn at the age of 20, where from 1945-48 he was a 60-minute man excelling at center on offense and linebacker on defense and occasionally filling in at punter. He was a three-time All-America who was third in Heisman Trophy voting in 1948. He also won the Maxwell Award that year, given to the player whom the Maxwell Club of Philadelphia considers the outstanding collegiate football player in the nation. Bednarik was the first offensive lineman to receive the award and remains one of just two to be so honored more than 70 years later.
 
Bednarik was inducted as a member of the College Football Hall of Fame in 1969, joined later by his coach George Munger (inducted in 1976) as well as two of his teammates from the 1947 squad: tailback "Skip" Minisi (1985) and tackle George Savitsky (1991).
 
Penn went 6-2 each of Bednarik's first two years, finishing those seasons ranked 10th and 13th, respectively, by the Associated Press. That set the stage for the Quakers' historic 1947 season, during which they fashioned a 7-0-1 record—the tie coming against Army, 7-7, in front of 80,000 fans at Franklin Field—and finished the season ranked seventh by the AP. In Bednarik's senior year, he was a co-captain along with Carmen Falcone as Penn started the season 5-0 before ending with losses to ranked teams from Penn State, Army and Cornell.
 
Since 1993, college football has annually given the Chuck Bednarik Award to the national Defensive Player of the Year. Penn Football also gives out a Bednarik Award annually, to the player considered the team's top lineman.
 
Bednarik was a member of the Inaugural Class inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996. In addition, a statue of Bednarik stands sentinel in the North concourse of Franklin Field.
 
Bednarik, of course, had a decorated career after he hung up his red-and-blue uniform. He was the first player taken in the 1949 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles, starring on both offense (as a center) and defense (as a linebacker). He was a member of the Eagles' NFL championship teams in 1949 and 1960. In the 1960 championship game, played at Franklin Field, Bednarik tackled Green Bay's Jim Taylor on the final play of the game at the Eagles' 8-yard line, and remained atop Taylor as the final seconds ticked off the clock, ensuring the Packers could not run another play. The Eagles won that game 17-13.
 
Bednarik played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1949 through 1962 and, upon retirement, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility (1967). He proved extremely durable, missing just three games in his fourteen seasons. Bednarik was named All-Pro eight times and was the last of the NFL's "Sixty-Minute Men," players who played both offense and defense on a regular basis.
 
Bednarik's nickname, "Concrete Charlie," originated from his off-season career as a concrete salesman for the Warner Company, not (contrary to popular belief) from his reputation as a ferocious tackler. Nonetheless, sportswriter Hugh Brown of The Bulletin in Philadelphia, is credited with bestowing the nickname, remarking that Bednarik "is as hard as the concrete he sells."
 
In 1999, Bednarik was ranked 54th on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. This made him the highest-ranking player to have spent his entire career with the Eagles, the highest-ranking offensive center, and the eighth-ranked linebacker in professional football.