(1909-1970)
Inducted to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, 1988
Mush Dubofsky began his football career at Weaver High School in the mid-1920s under coach Fred Stone. Dubofsky’s friend Sam Hyman encouraged him to go to Georgetown University and helped to arrange an athletic scholarship. At Georgetown, he was considered one of the outstanding guards in the school’s history. He played under Coach Jack Hagerty and was captain of the team his senior year, 1931. Judge Saul Seidman referred to him as “probably Hartford’s most outstanding contribution to the national football scene.”
Upon graduation in 1932, he was signed by the New York Giants and played for one year while attending law school, receiving $100 a game. He also played for several other teams in 1936 and 1937. He signed on as line coach at Georgetown, working again with Coach Hagerty from 1933 to 1948, an era when the school played big-time football against many of the strongest teams in the nation. Dubofsky served as the defensive coordinator for 14 seasons in what many consider the pinnacle of Georgetown football, as the Hoyas carried a 23-game unbeaten streak and a #10 rating through the tail end of the 1940 season, earning an Orange Bowl bid. Eighteen players coached by Dubofsky would go one to NFL careers.
Although he graduated law school and was admitted to the bar, he devoted virtually his entire career to coaching football, including his four years of service in the U.S. Navy.
After Georgetown discontinued intercollegiate football in 1950, Dubofsky coached the Bolling Air Force Base team, and went on to coach St. John’s High School in Washington, D.C. to nine Catholic League championships. He coached at South Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, and returned to Georgetown in 1968, where he was head coach of the club football team. There, “Dubofsky’s experience and stern approach won him the loyalty of his teams, which carried the Hoyas to back to back winning seasons in 1968 and 1969.”
Sportswriter Art McGinley of the Hartford Times described Dubofsky at a tribute dinner as “a big gruff and boisterous Jewish fellow who spent most of his life playing and coaching football at Catholic schools.” He was elected to the Georgetown University Hall of Fame in 1953, and in 1980 the school instituted the Dubofsky Award to the outstanding student-athlete on the team.