Appalachian Figures
In the spring of 1919 a baby boy arrived in a railroad town that straddled the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau. He would grow up to play end for Auburn, serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War, and catch passes in the early years of the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. His name carried the memory of a president and his story ran from Corbin, Kentucky, into the industrial smoke of Birmingham and on to the bright grass of NFL stadiums.
Today most football fans could not pick Ted Cremer out of a lineup of old team photos. Yet the paper trail he left in census schedules, high school all state lists, student newspapers, and box scores lets us stitch together a life that began in an Appalachian rail town and ended in Alabama’s steel city.
Corbin, Kentucky, On The Appalachian Edge
Corbin sits where Whitley, Knox, and Laurel counties touch, a small city tucked into the Cumberland Plateau region of southeastern Kentucky, itself part of the broader Appalachian Mountains. Modern descriptions still call it a road and rail crossroads on Interstate 75 and U.S. 25W, almost exactly halfway between Knoxville and Lexington, backed by the forests of the Daniel Boone National Forest and within driving distance of Cumberland Falls.
The Kiddle encyclopedia entry on Corbin puts it plainly. This is a town born of rail lines and depots that later picked up new fame through Colonel Harland Sanders, fried chicken, and nearby parks. It also remembers a harder history, noting the October 1919 racial expulsion in which Black residents were forced from town and the city’s much later official reckoning with that past.
This was the place into which Theodore Roosevelt Cremer was born on March 16, 1919. Modern football databases, from Wikipedia to Pro Football Archives and StatMuse, agree on the date and on Corbin as his birthplace. Corbin’s own popular reference lists of “Famous Faces from Corbin” now put Ted Cremer alongside Rodger Bird, George McAfee, Roy Kidd, Silas House, and Colonel Sanders as one of the town’s notable names.
A Baby Named For A President
Genealogical compilers give us the family that surrounded that newborn. A Whitley County birth index entry states that a woman recorded as Florence Struck had a baby named Theodore R. Cremer on March 16, 1919. FamilySearch trees and related notes, though not fully visible without subscription, consistently pair that child with a father named Theodore Haller Cremer.
The elder Theodore Haller Cremer turns up in an “Alabama Inventors” bibliography as a Saxton, Pennsylvania native born in 1882 who died in Birmingham in 1956. The same entry summarizes Birmingham News obituaries that describe him as a retired railroad mechanic and tie him firmly to Birmingham by the mid twentieth century.
Put together, the records suggest a familiar Appalachian story. A northern born railroad man brought his family to the southern mountains and then followed the lines south into industrial Alabama. His son, born in a Kentucky rail town, carried both the presidential name and the mobility of that working railroad life.
From Corbin To Birmingham’s Red Hills
Federal census entries for 1920 and 1930, as summarized in genealogical databases, place the Cremer family first in Whitley County near Corbin, then in Birmingham, Alabama, within a decade. By the time Ted reached high school age he was no longer a mountain child in a depot town. He had become a city boy running routes under the smoke and red dust of Birmingham’s iron and steel plants.
Alabama high school football historians remember him best in this phase. The Alabama High School Football Historical Society’s listing of NFL alumni from Phillips High School in Birmingham names “Ted Cremer, born Corbin KY, school: Phillips Birmingham, college: Auburn, position: E, years pro: 1946–48, pro team: Detroit, Green Bay.” Another page tracking All State selections notes a “Cremer, E” from Phillips as a second team and honorable mention pick in 1937.
Those brief notations tell us that by the late 1930s the Corbin born boy was a standout end in Birmingham’s prep ranks, tall and athletic enough to draw statewide notice and, eventually, a place at Auburn.
A Presidential Name In Auburn Orange And Blue
In 1938 Cremer turned up in Auburn football circles. Pro Football Archives later summarized his college career with a short line of type. Under “Year – College – Status” it lists “1938 Auburn Freshmen Team, 1939 Auburn Roster, 1940 Auburn Lettered.”
Student journalists at Auburn filled in the color at the time. A September 5, 1939 issue of The Auburn Plainsman, previewing the season, explained that only two lettermen were returning at the end positions, so coaches were leaning heavily on a group of tall ends that included L. T. Faulk, James Samford, Herbert Lamb, Theo Cremer, and Jesse Mauldin. That same fall a Birmingham Southern student paper, the Hilltop News, printed a roster for the Birmingham Southern vs. Auburn game listing “Theo Cremer, 199, end,” which shows both his playing weight and his status in the rotation.
By late October the Plainsman called him “another star flankman” who was being given a chance for starting honors and noted a punting duel that dated back to his freshman year. That phrase makes clear how writers and fans saw him. He was not a bench obscurity. He was a tall, athletic end involved enough in the kicking game to inspire his own storyline.
One of the most charming contemporary mentions came from far outside Alabama. A syndicated sports column in the Sheridan Press out in Wyoming told readers that two Auburn footballers were named after presidents: halfback Woodrow Wilson McNair and “Theodore Roosevelt Cremer, end.” The note is small, but it confirms his full given name and hints at how unusual that presidential pairing sounded to sportswriters in 1940.
A studio style portrait of him in Auburn uniform survives in the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The AlabamaMosaic catalog simply labels it “Theo Cremer, football player at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama,” filed alongside other Tiger players from that era. For historians, that image anchors the statistics and box scores in a real young man with a crew cut, padded shoulders, and the self conscious stare of a college athlete posing for the camera.
Blocked Punts And Saturday Headlines
On November 30, 1940, at Legion Field in Birmingham, Auburn met LSU in a game that later writers treated as a pivotal moment in LSU history. A retrospective on “LSU Pivotal Football Moments” describes how Auburn reached the LSU eighteen yard line before stalling, then still came away with the game’s first touchdown when end James Samford blocked Walter Gorinski’s punt at the LSU twenty four. The ball rolled into the end zone where Theo Cremer fell on it for a touchdown, putting Auburn up seven to nothing.
In the summary Cremer’s role is simple. He is the end who fell on a live ball in the end zone. Yet anyone who has watched special teams play knows the instincts that requires. He had to follow the rush, track the ball as it caromed free, and beat everyone else to the spot. For Auburn fans reading their Sunday paper, that meant seeing Corbin born, Birmingham raised, Auburn trained Theo Cremer’s name attached to the biggest early play of the game.
“Lost To Uncle Sam”
The brief window of his college career closed almost as quickly as it opened. By August 1941 the United States had not yet formally entered the Second World War, but the draft and mobilization were already reshaping southern campuses. An August 15, 1941 Plainsman article looking back over the previous season and forward to the fall noted that Auburn had already “lost two lettermen, quarterback Buddy McMahan and end Theo Cremer and halfback Paul Ellis to Uncle Sam,” using the newsroom shorthand for induction into military service.
A follow up piece in the September 16, 1941 issue explained that three letter winners, ends Henry Monsees and Theo Cremer and halfback Bill Yearout, had been lost during the summer to the Army and defense projects. In two sentences campus journalists captured a turning point. The tall end who had just earned his letter and scored on a blocked punt was gone from the practice field, one more college athlete pulled into the swelling war effort.
Later football reference works fill in the military details with a short line. Pro Football Archives gives his full name and then, under a simple heading of “Military Service,” states: “United States Army Air Forces.” That near primary note almost certainly rests on enlistment or discharge records and confirms that Cremer served not just in the Army but specifically in the air arm that would become the United States Air Force after the war.
Coming Home To A Different Game
When he returned to civilian life, the professional game was waiting. The National Football League that greeted him in 1946 was still a modest, largely regional circuit. Rosters were small, passing was growing but had not yet reached its modern centrality, and many players still played both offense and defense.
Pro Football Archives shows that the Detroit Lions signed him in 1946 and lists his height at six feet two inches and his weight at 209 pounds. It records that he wore number 21 for the Lions that year, starting nine of eleven games at the end and defensive end spots.
Statistical compilers agree on his receiving line. Across three NFL seasons he caught twenty eight passes for 296 yards and one touchdown, almost all of that production coming in 1946 and 1947 for Detroit. A detailed 1947 Detroit Lions stats page at jt-sw.com shows him with thirteen receptions for 117 yards and one score that year, part of a receiving corps that also included John Greene, Bill Dudley, and Kelley Mote.
League and team records give us the names of his colleagues. The NFL’s official 1947 Detroit roster lists “Ted Cremer” among the ends and receivers, alongside John Greene and Ralph Heywood. Green Bay Packers history pages record that he joined the Packers late in 1948 as a free agent from Detroit, wearing number 18 and appearing in three games.
From the outside his pro career looks modest. He never led the league in any category, never made an All Pro team, and never played in a title game. Yet his presence on those rosters matters for Appalachian history. He is one of the relatively small number of players from eastern Kentucky to have reached the NFL in that era, and he did it after losing key college years to military service. Auburn’s own “All Time NFL Players” list still includes him among Tigers who made the leap to the professional ranks.
Home Again In Birmingham
By the time his football career ended, Cremer had deep ties in Alabama that went beyond the gridiron. Pro Football Archives and Wikipedia both give his death as November 20, 1980 in Birmingham, Alabama, the same city where his father’s obituaries placed the elder Cremer as a retired railroad mechanic a generation earlier.
State death certificates held by Alabama vital records and referenced indirectly in modern databases confirm the date and location. At sixty one he was old enough to have seen the NFL transform from the small postwar circuit he entered into a national television spectacle.
We know less about his post football working life than about his playing days. The paper trail that survives in open digital sources cares most about rosters and statistics. What we can say with confidence is that he remained rooted in the city his family had chosen decades earlier, part of a Birmingham that was reshaping itself in the years after steel’s decline.
An Appalachian Story In Shoulder Pads
Viewed from an Appalachian angle, Ted Cremer’s life illustrates several overlapping patterns. He was born in a small southeastern Kentucky rail town that, even today, is framed by Cumberland Falls, Daniel Boone National Forest, and the long legacy of the L and N. His parents followed work out of the mountains to Birmingham, part of the broader movement of mountain and plateau families into southern industrial centers during the early twentieth century.
In Birmingham he came of age in city schools, yet his official records never stopped identifying him as “born: Corbin KY.” High school historians in Alabama and NFL databases alike still anchor him to that origin. Corbin, in turn, quietly claims him in its lists of notable people alongside Rodger Bird, Roy Kidd, and George McAfee.
His college years at Auburn show how Appalachian born athletes navigated the changing South of the late 1930s. He arrived as part of a wave of tall ends who were asked to do everything from catching passes to punting. Campus papers cast him as a “star flankman,” and one unforgettable blocked punt against LSU left him in the end zone with the ball and a story that would be retold decades later.
Then the war came and his name moved from sports pages into the vague category of “lost to Uncle Sam.” His service in the Army Air Forces fits the wider pattern of southern and Appalachian men who left farms, mines, and mills for flight lines and training fields, then returned with new experiences and, sometimes, new possibilities.
Finally, his pro career and later life connected Corbin and Auburn to the early NFL and to Birmingham’s mid century history. To see his name in box score compilations is to be reminded that the league’s growth rested in part on men whose roots lay in small towns and working class families far from the big media markets.
Today his story rarely surfaces outside specialist football sites and the occasional Corbin trivia page. For Appalachian readers, though, it offers one more thread in the region’s tapestry. A child born in a mountain rail town, raised in a southern steel city, catching passes in Detroit and Green Bay, then coming home to Birmingham. In an era when Appalachia is still too often imagined as isolated and static, the life of Theodore Roosevelt “Ted” Cremer sits as proof that mountain families have long been on the move, leaving their mark in places far beyond the ridgelines.
Sources & Further Reading
The Auburn Plainsman, September 5, 1939. Season preview noting that ends L. T. Faulk, James Samford, Herbert Lamb, Theo Cremer, and Jesse Mauldin would be heavily counted on with only two lettermen returning. content.lib.auburn.edu
The Auburn Plainsman, October 27, 1939. Article describing “Theo Cremer, another star flankman” in contention for a starting role and mentioning a punting duel dating back to his freshman year. content.lib.auburn.edu
The Auburn Plainsman, August 15 and September 16, 1941. Wartime pieces stating that Auburn had “lost two lettermen” including end Theo Cremer “to Uncle Sam” and that letter winners Henry Monsees, Theo Cremer, and Bill Yearout had been lost to the Army and defense projects. content.lib.auburn.edu+2msdev.newspaperarchive.com+2
Hilltop News (Birmingham Southern College), September 15, 1939. Roster listing “Theo Cremer, 199, end” for the Birmingham Southern vs. Auburn game coverage. Internet Archive
“Two Auburn Footballers Are Named After Presidents,” syndicated sports note quoted in The Sheridan Press, May 6, 1940. Identifies halfback Woodrow Wilson McNair and end Theodore Roosevelt Cremer by name. wyomingnewspapers.org
“LSU Pivotal Football Moments: 1940 Auburn Game,” goldenrankings.com. Retrospective describing James Samford’s blocked punt and “Theo Cremer” falling on the ball in the end zone for Auburn’s first touchdown. Golden Rankings
Alabama Department of Archives and History, AlabamaMosaic catalog entry “Theo Cremer, football player at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama,” photographic portrait held in ADAH collections. alabamamosaic.org
Alabama High School Football Historical Society. “Phillips Birmingham NFL Players” and “Alabama High School Players in the NFL,” listing Ted Cremer as born in Corbin, Kentucky, a Phillips High alumnus, Auburn player, and NFL end for Detroit and Green Bay. ahsfhs.org+2ahsfhs.org+2
Pro Football Archives, “Ted Cremer.” Player card giving full name, birth and death data, height and weight, high school and college, year by year Auburn status, NFL seasons, and military service in the United States Army Air Forces. Pro Football Archives+1
StatMuse and The Football Database, “Ted Cremer Stats.” Aggregated statistics confirming that he played three NFL seasons with 28 receptions for 296 yards and one touchdown for the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. StatMuse+1
NFL.com, “Roster – Detroit Lions 1947” and Packers history pages listing Ted Cremer among Detroit’s receivers and as an end wearing number 18 for the 1948 Green Bay Packers. NFL.com+1
AinsworthSports, “Top Ranked Auburn Tigers Football Players of All Time.” Ranking list that includes Ted Cremer among Auburn players and helps situate his college career. Ainsworth Sports
Kiddle Encyclopedia, “Corbin, Kentucky Facts for Kids.” Overview of Corbin’s geography, history, and notable residents, including a list that names Ted Cremer among the city’s famous faces. Kiddle
“Alabama Inventors Bibliography,” Jefferson County Public Library. Entry for “Cremer, Theodore Haller” with birth in Saxton, Pennsylvania, death in Birmingham, and description as a retired railroad mechanic, used here to contextualize Ted Cremer’s family background. cobpl.org
Wikipedia and Justapedia, “Ted Cremer” and category pages for “People from Corbin, Kentucky.” Short biographical entries summarizing his NFL career and reinforcing the linkage between Corbin, Auburn, Detroit, Green Bay, and Birmingham. justapedia.org+3Wikipedia+3Wikipedia+3