Joe Popp '52 of Mooresville, N.C., was the eldest son of nine children in a Yugoslavian immigrant family living in Johnstown, Pa., when Catawba College Football Coach Gordon Kirkland made him an offer that he did not refuse. Kirkland offered Joe a chance to attend Catawba College on a football scholarship and Joe did, even though Joe's grandfather was skeptical given that young men of immigrant families often worked in the steel mills and coal mines instead of attending college. Read more »

(See also My Catawba Childhood and Catawba Football)