The 1944 NFL draft ran 32 rounds. In the 20th round, with the 206th pick, the Philadelphia Eagles selected Syracuse fullback Norm Michael.
At the time, Michael was stationed at Maxwell Field in Alabama. He left Syracuse after his junior year, enlisted in the Army, and didn’t plan to return to the game. Three college seasons had taken a heavy physical toll, leaving him with a torn arm muscle, a broken nose, and fractures to his wrist, arm, and ankle.
Back then, teams were responsible for tracking down their own draft picks. With Michael stationed in Alabama, the Eagles never managed to make contact.
After the war, Michael came home, built a multi-decade sales career, ran a business in upstate New York, and raised a family. For the next five decades, professional football remained a distant memory, and he spent those years a Buffalo Bills fan, with no idea he’d ever belonged to another NFL team.
That changed in 1999, when he was reading a local newspaper and came across a historical list of every Syracuse player ever selected in the NFL draft. His name was right there. He was 78 years old at the time.
“That was the first I heard of it,” Michael told NFL.com, according to ESPN.
“My son sent them a letter after we found out,” he said. “I think he wanted to see if the Eagles owed me a signing bonus. Think of the interest I could have had. Fifty-seven years’ worth.”
The team never wrote back. “I still haven’t heard from the Eagles,” he said, laughing, that same year.
It was the same spring the Eagles used the second overall pick on another Syracuse player, Donovan McNabb.
Michael died in 2011 at 90, never having played a down in the NFL.
