Jackrabbit is sportswriter Bill Chastain’s chronicle of the life of Clint Castleberry, one of Tech’s all-time greatest players, whose life was cut short in World War II. In this excerpt (the book is out now), Chastain, IM 79, zooms in on Castleberry’s starmaking plays in Tech’s clash against Navy in 1942.
One play can define an athlete. At that moment, every movement falls into place and for a fleeting instant, that athlete attains perfection, capturing the minds of those who witnessed the play or for those listening on the radio, creating a blank canvas for which to fill in the details the way they wanted to remember the play. Legions of Clint Castleberry fans were born shortly after the Wee Jackrabbit ran onto the field, leaving Coach Aleck standing on the Tech sideline.
Navy tailback Al Cameron took the snap at the right hash mark and got himself into position to throw toward the end zone. Like most great athletes, Castleberry possessed a keen awareness of where the ball was at all times and this play was no exception. Recognizing the direction of Cameron’s pass, Castleberry broke for the ball, stepping in front of the Navy receiver at the five-yard line to snatch the pass from mid air at the last instant. Then the Jackrabbit’s magic took over.
They listened from coast to coast in the United States. They listened in the European Theater and in the Pacific. What they heard:
Second quarter, still 0-0. Navy in an obvious passing situation. Long pass.
Intercepted by Castleberry at the Tech five…
A roar of crowd noise followed. Navy had been knocking on the door to score the first points of the game and suddenly the partisan Navy crowd pleaded for one of the Middies’ eleven to put a stop to the return.
Castleberry initially made a lateral cut to his left to elude the intended receiver then he broke back across the field to his right at an angle toward the sideline, switching the ball to his right hand as he went to avoid having the ball stripped. Great backs can see daylight and recognize where an opening is about to develop. Castleberry possessed that ability and darted back toward the middle of the field once he reached the Tech thirty. Harvey Hardy made a tremendous block against the final Navy defender at midfield. By the time Castleberry stopped running he had crossed into the end zone standing for a ninety-five yard touchdown.
“That run was a thing of beauty,” Crawford said. “Nobody had ever seen anything like it.”
Dodd threw his fedora down on the ground and grabbed Castleberry as the entire Tech sideline celebrated the play. In stark contrast, Navy looked deflated.
“I had no idea when I caught that pass that I’d get anywhere,” said Castleberry in an interview with the United Press International. “But I picked up some good blocking … and not a man touched me.”
By the end of Tech’s 21-0 rout, Castleberry had added three batted-down passes with Navy about to score, and an electrifying fifty-one yard run on the final play of the game. Dodd called the interception return against Navy Castleberry’s “greatest” play while offering his own description of what happened.
“Near the end of a scoreless first half, the Middies marched to our twenty-yard line with blood in their eyes. They flipped a pass right to the goal line. Clint intercepted it and ran it back the entire length of the field for a touchdown—a magnificent run that I can still follow step by step in my mind. It shook Navy to its keel, and Tech won, 21-0.”
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