By Frederick N. Rasmussen, The Baltimore Sun
Victor “Vic” Turyn, a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond official who had been an outstanding quarterback at College Park in the late 1940s, died Aug. 11 of heart failure at his Ellicott City home. He was 91.
Victor Turyn was born in McRoberts, Tenn., to immigrant parents. His father, Jan Poltorovski was from Poland, and his mother, Anna Zablocki Poltorovski, was from Russia.
While he was attending preflight school in North Carolina, his roommate was recruited to play for the Navy football team there.
“The coach asked his roommate if he knew any other players, and knowing that my father was an outstanding natural athlete, he said that my father was a player,” said Ms. Stempkovski. “He had not played football in his life, but thanks to his roommate’s little white lie, he was recruited for the team.”
At the first practice, their coach, the legendary Paul William “Bear Bryant,” asked Mr. Turyn what position he played and he answered, “Quarterback.”
“The coach worked him out, saw he was a good fit and kept him as quarterback,” his daughter said. “Eventually, he told Coach Bryant the truth, and they had a good laugh about it.”
When the war ended, the team decided their coach’s future.
“Georgia Tech and Alabama had offered Bryant assistant’s jobs, and Maryland offered a head coaching position,” Mr. Turyn told The Evening Sun in a 1971 interview.
“He asked me to call a team meeting of the players, and 25 of us said we preferred Maryland because we wanted Bryant to be a head coach. We were discharged in Norfolk, Va., enrolled at Maryland the next day, and six days after that, opened the season with a 60-6 victory over Guilford College.”
Mr. Bryant, who left College Park after a year and went to the University of Kentucky, was recalled by Mr. Turyn as “having the uncanny ability to motivate players, making them believe they could beat any team — and getting them to exceed their capabilities.”
When Mr. Turyn and his wife, the former Eileen Dorothy Simpson, whom he met at Maryland and married in 1946, had their first child while they were students, Mr. Bryant sent a savings bond.
Mr. Turyn later played under Maryland coaches Clark Shaughnessy and Jim Tatum. He played in the 1948 Gator Bowl against Georgia, which ended in a 20-20 tie.
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