John Prchlik
American football player (1925-2003)
John George Prchlik (July 20, 1925 – December 31, 2003) was a professional American football defensive lineman in the National Football League (NFL).
Early life
Prchlik was born the eldest of four siblings in Cleveland. His brother, Richard, became a politician and professor in Colorado. Raised in a Czech immigrant community, he did not learn English until he went to school. After graduating from Cleveland West Technical High School, he was nominated for an officers training program at Yale University, where he was a classmate of George H. W. Bush and William F. Buckley Jr.
College
He served as an Ensign on the aircraft carrier, the USS White Plains in the Pacific War in the middle of his college career. After the war ended, he returned to New Haven, Connecticut, where he lettered in football, wrestling. As a college All-American, he played in both the 1948 East West Shrine game and the College All Star game.
Career
After playing college football at Yale, Prchlik was drafted by the Boston Yanks in the 30th round (277th overall) in the 1947 NFL draft. He played five seasons for the Detroit Lions including their 1952 and 1953 Championship seasons and in the 1951 and 1952 seasons was defensive captain.
The public source identifies “John Prchlik” as american football player (1925-2003). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around John, Prchlik and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1701468. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2003, 1948 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Prchlik” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.