I didn't know of this card until a year ago. I stumbled upon the footballcardgallery.com function to filter by school. The West Virginia University search turned it up, revealing one of the five oldest cards picturing a former Mountaineer. I searched ol' feeBay and while none were listed, there was one in the completed listings. It gave me hope that I'd both be able to run across a copy, and find it at a price I was comfortable with.
Fast forward until today...and this beauty is FINALLY mine.
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| 1952 Parkhurst #71 John Bovey |
I was convinced that this card back was just, as Beckett used to list them, a "UER" (uncorrected error).
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| 1952 Parkhurst #71 John Bovey (back) |
However, while doing a quick search on the interwebz for this post, something struck me as odd. This story from ottawacitizen.com on Moe Racine refers to "Rough Rider middle wing John Bovey" suggesting that Racine try out for the Rough Riders. Is it possible there was a John Bove and John Bovey both on the Ottawa team in the 1950s? I doubt that.
This article on the Ottawa RedBlacks site, posted a little more than a year later, quotes Racine as saying "I was getting ready to play junior football in Cornwall, Ontario. Our coach, John Bove, had played with the Ottawa Rough Riders. Given my size at 6’3 and 250 pounds, he encouraged me to try out for the Rough Riders."
It certainly seems odd that two stories about the same man would list someone that convinced him to play football with two different names. It's even more odd that they are the two names associated with the latest addition to my WVU collection.
