 By
Brad Herzog /
Cornell Alumni Magazine
In the long history of Cornell football and the slightly shorter
history of the National Football League, nearly three dozen Big
Red players have gone from the university's playing fields to the
pros.
It is safe to say that Ignacio Molinet '27 is among the least
remembered of the bunch. He wasn't the first to make the jump to
the NFL (four Cornellians did it in 1920, the league's inaugural
season). He wasn't the most successful (Pete Gogolak '64 is the
New York Giants' all-time leading scorer). And he certainly wasn't
the most famous (after all, tailback-turned-thespian Ed Marinaro
'72 came this close to winning the Heisman Trophy and the heart of
Laverne DeFazio).
But arguably the most significant Cornellian ever to play in the
NFL was a little-known 5-foot-11, 195-pound fullback nicknamed
"Molly."
And until a couple of years ago, nobody realized it. It took a
confluence of curiosity -- from a self-made sports historian in
Texas, an archivist in Ohio, and a loving granddaughter in New
England -- to come to the unexpected discovery that Molinet was a
pigskin pioneer.
The voyage to discovery began in 1980, when Heidi Cadwell was
sorting through her late grandparents' belongings. You could say
that Cadwell, a forty-seven-year-old special education teacher
from Hollis, N.H., is family-oriented. Indeed, she and her husband
took in 36 foster children before having two of their own. ("We
have a padded cell waiting for us in heaven," she jokes.)
So when she came across her grandfather's
1927 NFL contract and some correspondence about the
negotiations, she saved it as a reminder of a man she adored. For
nearly two decades, it remained tucked away, a memento of interest
to nobody, she figured, but the man's descendants.
Meanwhile, a part-time historian named Mario Longoria was in the
process of investigating the Latino presence in professional
football. His 14 years of study became a book -- Athletes
Remembered: Mexicano/Latino Professional Football Players,
1929-1970 -- in which he concluded that Jesse Rodriguez, a
fullback with the 1929 Buffalo Bisons, was the first NFL player of
Hispanic heritage.
But then, in 1999, interests intersected. Cadwell called the Pro
Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, to see if they would be
interested in her grandfather's NFL contract. She spoke to Jason
Aikens, the collections coordinator, who told her no thanks. After
all, if they took in every signed contract . . . "Well, I have all
of his correspondence from Cuba," Cadwell told him.
"Cuba?" There was a pause. "Isn't Molinet a French name?"
"My grandfather was Cuban."
Another pause. "I'll have to get back to you."
Aikens informed his boss of the phone call, and he contacted
Longoria. The researcher then called Cadwell to affirm her
grandfather's ethnicity. They all came to the same conclusion:
Ignacio Molinet had been the first Latino player in the league.
Molinet's parents had come to Cuba from Spain, their ancestors
having likely crossed the Pyrenees from France. They were a
well-to-do family. In fact, his uncle was a high-ranking
government official. Molinet was educated primarily in America,
attending prep school in New Jersey before enrolling at Cornell,
where he followed in the footsteps of his older brother, Joaquin,
Class of 1921, an excellent all-around athlete who has been
inducted into the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame.
The younger Molinet lettered twice each in basketball and
football, but following his sophomore year both of his parents
died. Financially and emotionally, he found the prospect of
returning to Cornell too challenging, so he remained at home in
Chaparral, Cuba. But when the Frankford Athletic Association of
Philadelphia contacted him about playing for the defending NFL
champion Frankford Yellowjackets -- at a salary of $100 per game
-- that seemed a worthwhile challenge.
Statistically, Molinet's single NFL season was unremarkable. He
rushed for seventy-five yards, threw for another thirty-five,
caught a couple of passes, and scored a touchdown. Frankford
finished in seventh place. Afterward, Molinet returned to Cornell
to finish up his mechanical engineering degree, having played a
grand total of nine games as a professional halfback. But
Molinet's numbers don't tell the whole story. "[His position] is
important, because if you ask the average pro football fan
nowadays about Latinos, they'll mention only kickers and linemen,"
says Longoria. "But the initial history of the Latino presence in
professional football is at the running back spot, and it starts
with Molinet."
Fewer than two dozen of the 1,590 players on NFL rosters today are
of Hispanic heritage, but over the years some of the league's
brightest stars have been Latinos, including Hall of Fame
offensive lineman Anthony Munoz and Super Bowl-winning quarterback
Jim Plunkett. Still, there remains a good deal of misinformation
about the man who led the way. According to Good Sports,
the comprehensive history of Cornell athletics written by former
athletic director Bob Kane '34, Molinet, who died in 1976 at the
age of seventy-two, spent his entire working career at Eastman
Kodak. He actually worked for the Carrier Corporation, first in
New York City, then in Rochester and Syracuse. In addition,
accounts of his pioneering efforts often refer to him as "Lou"
Molinet. His family states he was never called that -- just
"Molly," they say, and later "Iggy."
Terri Van De Carr Godshell, one of Molinet's five children and
Heidi Cadwell's mother, doesn't recall her father ever discussing
his single campaign in pro football. But she does have memories of
joining him around the radio, rooting for the Big Red. "I can
still remember listening to Thanksgiving football -- Cornell
versus Penn," she says, "and hearing that wonderful announcer say,
'Molly could have made that play.' " |
