May 7, 1945 marked the end of World War Two. My grandfather, Alfred Cappellini was sent to Germany in 1946 as part of the United States 3rd Constabulary Station. He had just been released from the motor pool and was in Stuttgart Germany. He was in charge of a special service program were he had to organize teams for whatever sport was in season for the United States troops.. He was also in charge of organizing a special German youth training program where they taught the German children different sports. This is his story.
Cara Cappellini
"We were in Stuttgart Germany and we were in charge of the special service program where we had to teach the German children how to play different sports. American Football was one of them. We were at Century Stadium and all the German children around came to be in this program. We were supposed to teach them how to play American Football and since soccer was their number one sport, this was kind of difficult. It was going smoothly until we had to teach them how to punt. They put the ball on the ground like in soccer and they would always try and kick it instead of running. We finally taught them how to punt and block and then we decided to scrimmage.
A few of us picked the teams. There were two teams of Germans and I was the coach of one team. There were a lot of big kids but there was one kid in particular on the other team that was running all over the little kids. So I told a small little boy on my team that next time this guy comes around, don't try and tackle him, give him a body check. Sure enough the same big kid came running down the field pushing all the little kids away. The little boy on my team ran up to him and pushed himself into the big boy and he lost the ball. The little German boy just turned to me and smiled to see if I had seen what he had done. I really enjoyed teaching the German kids. They were fun and they liked learning American sports.
Alfred Cappelini
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