George Terlep

Who was George Terlep?

George Rudolph "Duke" Terlep was an American football player, coach, and general manager who was on a college national championship team at Notre Dame in 1943 and won another championship while playing for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference in 1948. Terlep also won two Grey Cup championships in the Canadian Football League, once as an assistant with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and once as the general manager of the Ottawa Rough Riders.

Terlep grew up in Indiana and was a star on his high school's football team. He went on to play as a backup quarterback at Notre Dame in 1943 under head coach Frank Leahy, but left the following year to serve in the U.S. military during World War II. He played briefly for a team at a military base in Illinois coached by Paul Brown. After the war, Terlep joined the Buffalo Bisons of the newly formed AAFC, playing quarterback there for two years. He then joined the Browns in 1948, when Cleveland won all of its games and a third straight AAFC championship.

Terlep ended his playing career in 1949 to pursue coaching.