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67 days until Michigan football: Honoring Marv Pregulman, the best to wear No. 67

Anthony Broomeby:Anthony Broome•06/25/24•

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There are 67 days until the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines football team takes the field in the Aug. 31 opener against Fresno State. Each day until then, we’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.

Michigan football is 67 days away from the new year kicking off, which brings us to the best player to wear the number in program history. That distinction goes to Merv Pregulman.

Pregulman was a Lansing, Michigan native who bucked the proximity expectations for him and enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he played from 1941-43. A paragon of versatility, Pregulman played anywhere from guard, tackle and center on the offensive line. Wherever he was needed, he was. The result was becoming one of head coach Fritz Crisler’s favorite players. Pregulman’s play earned him All-American honors during the 1943 campaign.

Pregulman’s life after Ann Arbor

He was drafted seventh overall by the Green Bay Packers in the 1944 NFL Draft, but was called into military service and joined the Navy. Pregulman served as a gunnery officer in the Pacific Theater on the USS Taluga in World War II. Returning home was never a certainty in those times, and he and his crew barely survived a kamikaze attack on their ship in April 1945.

Pregulman returned to football in 1946, signing his contract with the Packers. He joined the coaching staff at Michigan State in 1947 before being traded to the Detroit Lions. He would play in all 24 games in Detroit over the next two seasons. Pregulman’s last season in football came in 1949, where he was traded to the New York Bulldogs. He retired in June 1950 to go into the furniture business and was later elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982.

Pregulman had a long career as an entrepreneur operating out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He and his wife Helen, who was also a U-M grad, endowed a scholarship at Michigan that was given out based on leadership ability, financial need and “commitment to work in the Jewish community after graduation.” Pregulman was given the Gerald R. Ford Award in 2004, considered the highest honor given to a former U-M athlete for “excellence in scholarship, sport and society.”

Pregulman passed away on Nov. 30, 2012 at age 90.

Michigan football countdown to kickoff

68 days | 71 days | 72 days | 73 days | 74 days | 75 days | 76 days | 77 days | 78 days | 79 days | 80 days | 81 days | 82 days | 84 days | 85 days | 87 days | 88 days | 89 days | 90 days | 91 days | 92 days | 93 days | 95 days | | 96 days | 97 days | 98 days | 99 days | 100 days

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