1. John Joseph "Jumbo" Yonakor was an American professional football defensive and offensive end in the All-America Football Conference and National Football League for the Cleveland Browns, New York Yanks, and Washington Redskins.
31 Facts About John Yonakor
1. 2.
John Yonakor instead signed with the Browns of the upstart AAFC.
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John Yonakor spent four seasons playing primarily as a defensive end for the Browns as the team won four league championships between 1946 and 1949.
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John Yonakor then spent a season with the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League.
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John Yonakor worked in Cleveland's steel industry for several years after leaving pro football.
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John Yonakor settled in Euclid, Ohio in the early 1960s and was an assembly-line worker making diesel engines for White Motor Company.
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John Yonakor's son Rich was a star athlete in Euclid and went on to play one season for the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs.
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John Yonakor grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest son of immigrants from Lithuania.
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John Yonakor was too embarrassed to tell his mother about the injury and hoped it would go away, but it worsened to the point where he could no longer walk.
10.
Doctors drained fluid from his body by puncturing his toe, and John Yonakor spent a year as an invalid; doctors told him he might never walk again.
11.
John Yonakor went on to play three seasons of football at Mechanic Arts High School, and spent one year at Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson, Connecticut at the prompting of Frank Leahy, then the head football coach at Boston College.
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John Yonakor was set to go to Boston College, but chose the University of Notre Dame instead when Leahy became head football coach there in 1941.
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At Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, John Yonakor played on the football team as an end beginning in 1942, when he was a sophomore.
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John Yonakor was a starter at right end in 1943, when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team won the national championship under Leahy.
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John Yonakor was named an All-American by news outlets that year.
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The Browns won the AAFC championship in each of the four years John Yonakor played for the team between 1946 and 1949.
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John Yonakor started out as primarily a pass-rushing defensive end in 1946, but was used as an offensive end when receiver Dante Lavelli was injured in 1947.
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John Yonakor had just six receptions for 95 yards and two touchdowns in 1947 and was shifted back to working mostly on defense in 1948.
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John Yonakor completed coursework at Notre Dame between seasons with the Browns and got his degree in 1948.
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John Yonakor got into contractual disputes three times with Paul Brown, the Browns' head coach and general manager, and frequently held out for raises.
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John Yonakor was sold before the 1950 season to the NFL's New York Yanks.
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John Yonakor played a season for the Yanks before signing with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League in the summer of 1951.
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John Yonakor was used by the Redskins as an end and a tackle.
24.
John Yonakor went back home to Boston after ending his football career and worked in several sales jobs he found unsatisfying.
25.
John Yonakor planned to go to California to find work, but stopped off in Cleveland on the way to make some money for the journey onward.
26.
John Yonakor worked briefly in the structural iron business before getting a job in 1956 at Republic Steel, then one of the country's largest producers of the metal.
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John Yonakor was promoted in 1959 to superintendent of Republic's general labor department and oversaw more than 500 workers.
28.
John Yonakor got married and settled down in Cleveland, attending Browns games as he worked at Republic.
29.
In 1961, John Yonakor began working for the White Motor Company in Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland where he lived.
30.
John Yonakor made diesel engines on an assembly line in a White Motors plant there.
31.
John Yonakor's son, Rich Yonakor, was a star athlete in Euclid who played basketball in Italy and one season for the San Antonio Spurs in the early 1980s.