Blozis Was A “Giant” In The Shot

“Giant” was a term often used to describe Al Blozis of Georgetown.

That could have been because of his massive size – about 6 foot, 6 inches and 250 pounds – or perhaps his dominance in the shot put ring.

For three years (1940-42), Blozis had no peer in the shot put. He had margins of victory of more than two feet in all three of his wins at the NCAA Championships (1940-42), the best collection by any of the seven men to accumulate three titles in this event (No one has yet to win four).

Amazingly, those were some of the closest victories in his major meets. He added three consecutive AAU and IC4A titles during the same stretch by even larger margins (His closest in a national competition was 2-4¼” (71 cm) at the 1942 NCAA Championships).

Blozis was clearly the best in the world between 1940-42, according to track & field historian Dave Johnson. His best mark – 57-0¾ (17.39m) – was a close second only to the world record of 57-1 (17.40m), set by LSU’s Jack Torrance in 1934.

Blozis, who grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, missed a likely gold medal at the canceled 1940 Olympics due to World War II and never competed in track & field after the 1942 season. After graduating from Georgetown, Blozis became an All-Pro tackle for the New York Giants in the National Football League (NFL). That career was also cut short when he enlisted in the U.S. Army, finally being accepted in December 1943 after an exemption for his size, since the military had previously considered him too big.

The website HoyaSaxa.com has a chapter of Georgetown football history especially for Blozis – “The Greatest Hoya of Them All.” It reports, among the many accomplishments of Blozis’ career, of his untimely death on his first patrol during WWII in the Vosges Mountains of France during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1945.