Tom Harmon

Tom Harmon was a legendary college football player who became a sportscaster and sired TV superstar Mark Harmon (who also played college football at UCLA). Thomas Dudley Harmon was born in Rensselaer, Indiana, to Rose Marie (Quinn) and Louis Amiel Harmon, a real estate agent. His maternal grandparents were Irish, and his father had Irish, French, and German ancestry (the family surname had originally been "Hermann"). Harmon starred for the University of Michigan, being voted All-American his junior and senior years and winning the Heisman Trophy in 1940 as a senior. As a wolverine, he led college football in scoring in both 1939 and '40, setting a record. He was so famous, he went to Hollywood to make the movie Harmon of Michigan (1941), which was released in 1941, the year America entered WWII. The war would curtail his pro football career. Drafted by the Chicago Bears of the NFL, Harmon accepted an offer from the upstart American Football League's New York Americans. (One of many p