Cecil Souders, former Ohio State national champion, dead at 100

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Cecil "Cy" Souders, a former Ohio State football national champion who was a three-time All-American and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, died Monday. He was 100.

Souders was an offensive and defensive lineman during his football career, according to the Columbus Dispatch. He played for Ohio State and in the NFL for the Detroit Lions. 

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He was initially recruited by LSU to play football for the Tigers, but an interesting anecdote in his Crawford County, Ohio, Sports Hall of Fame profile revealed why he stayed in Ohio.

"Ernie Godfrey, a long-time coach at Ohio State, came to Bucyrus to recruit football players and Cy told him he planned on going to LSU," the profile read. "Ernie was very disappointed. Ernie went to the high school principal, and found out Souders had a steady girlfriend, Jean Hoover, who was a cheerleader. Godfrey went to one of Jean’s classes and convinced Jean that the southern belles might not let Cy come back north, so between Ernie and Jean, Cy agreed to go to Columbus and take a look at OSU."

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Souders would eventually begin his time with Ohio State in the fall of 1939 and he and Jean would stay married for about 80 years. He took a two-year hiatus from school to join the Navy, according to The Detroit News.

Souders was drafted by the Washington Redskins in 1945 but never played for them. He eventually played for the Lions until 1949 before he left for a different job – salesman. His wife told The Detroit News in 2019 he left the team because of low pay.

"He played three years for the Detroit Lions, and then decided he better get a better-paying job because we had a little girl… And you needed money; they didn’t pay nothing back then," she told the paper.

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He was a salesman for the Suburban Motor Freight Company and was the manager of the Detroit Terminal before becoming the executive vice president of the company. He retired in 1984.