Max Spurlin (American football)

Max Leland Spurlin (September 8, 1923 – 2001) was an American football guard. He played for the University of North Carolina in the 1940s and for the Great Lakes Navy service team in 1944. In 1949 he was on the roster of the Charlotte Clippers, a minor-league professional team.^[1][2]

Early life

Pro Football Archives gives his birthplace as Salisbury, North Carolina, and lists his high schools as Asheville, North Carolina, and Baylor Prep in Chattanooga, Tennessee.^[1] North Carolina's athletics website lists his hometown as Asheville and his high school as Baylor Prep.^[3]

North Carolina and the Navy

According to a 1947 profile in the Daily Tar Heel, Spurlin came to Chapel Hill in 1942 and was a first-string guard on that year's freshman team, which also included Doc Blanchard. In 1943 he was a substitute at both guard positions on the varsity.^[4] Pro Football Archives records him as a letterman in 1943 and 1946.^[1] In June 1944 The Tar Heel listed him, as a football player, among Navy V-12 students being transferred to a pre-midshipman school at Asbury Park.^[5]

The same 1947 profile says that he played in 1944 for the Great Lakes Naval Training Station team coached by Paul Brown.^[4] That team went 9–2–1 and was ranked 17th in the final AP poll.^[6]

Spurlin returned to North Carolina after the war. In August 1946 the Daily Tar Heel reported that he and Charlie Justice, after helping out at a campus housing project, were reportedly working out with the Miami Seahawks at Asheville.^[7] In September the paper counted him among five Asheville players on the squad, with Justice, Billy Britt, Joe Wright and Joe Swicegood.^[8] He was not a starter in 1946, but the 1947 profile says he played in every game except the one against William & Mary, which he missed with a knee injury.^[4] An October 1946 game preview listed him among the reserve linemen expected to play.^[9] That season North Carolina won the Southern Conference and played Georgia in the 1947 Sugar Bowl.^[10]

North Carolina's 1947 roster lists him as a junior, number 75, at 6 ft 0 in and 198 lb.^[3] A preview of the April 1947 spring intrasquad game named him as a guard in the Blue team's line,^[11] and the June profile called him one of the team's leading line prospects for the coming season. It also mentioned that he was working that summer as a lifeguard at the campus pool.^[4] In October 1948 the Chapel Hill Weekly included a Max Spurlin among Chapel Hill residents on the university's dean's list for the second summer session.^[12]

Charlotte Clippers

In August 1949 the Kings Mountain Herald named "Max Spurlin of North Carolina" on the "rookie" list of the Charlotte Clippers, which it called the Carolinas' representative in professional football, ahead of their season opener against the McKeesport Ironmen.^[13] The Clippers had been champions of the Dixie League, a minor league, in 1946, and they carried on as an independent team through 1949 after the league collapsed in 1947.^[14] Pro Football Archives lists Spurlin, then 26, on the 1949 roster and records his signing that year, but credits him with no games played.^[2][1]

Death

Pro Football Archives gives his date of death as July 1, 2001.^[1] A Find a Grave memorial for Max L. Spurlin, with the same birth date, gives 1 June 2001 and records his burial at Forest Lawn Cemetery and Mausoleum in Henrico County, Virginia.^[15]