For Purdue fans, Tony Butkovich has long been more than a name buried in record books. Now, “Touchdown Tony” is stepping onto a much bigger stage.
Butkovich, whose 16 rushing touchdowns in seven games still share Purdue’s single-season mark with Kory Sheets, is one of the central figures in “Mosquito Bowl,” the new feature film that opened in AMC theaters Oct. 30. The movie tells the story of a Christmas Eve football scrimmage between two Marine regiments stationed at Guadalcanal Island, and Butkovich’s path from Boilermaker standout to Marine gives the film one of its most powerful threads.
His story had been sitting in Purdue’s archives for decades before Cory Palm started digging into it. Palm, now Purdue’s director of broadcast services, first came across Butkovich while working on his master’s degree in public relations and sports management in 2004. What began as a graduate project turned into years of research, and eventually a book published in 2023: “Perfect Warriors: Touchdown Tony Butkovich and the 1943 Purdue Football Team.”
Palm said Butkovich’s decision to step away from football and serve stood out as much as anything he did on the field.
“He made the choice to put his life on hold,” Palm, Purdue’s director of broadcast services, said. “That selfless nature was pretty amazing.”
Butkovich’s lone season in West Lafayette came in 1943, when he and 32 other players transferred to Purdue to take part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program. That influx of talent helped transform a team that had gone 1-8 the year before, according to a writeup from Purdue’s David Ching. Palm dug through game film, letters and personal keepsakes to piece together the full picture, and what emerged was a player who was gentle and easygoing away from football but relentless once the ball was snapped.
“He was a brute force on the field,” Palm said. “The more I learned about him and the more I learned about that team, I found that it was just a really special time at Purdue.”
The football part of the story ended quickly. The day after Butkovich finished that 1943 season with 16 touchdowns and helped Purdue improve to 7-0 by beating Wisconsin on Oct. 30, he and eight other V-12 trainees left for Parris Island in South Carolina to prepare for service in the Pacific theater. Nearly two years later, he was with the Marines in the 6th Division on Guadalcanal as the Allies closed in on Japan.
That wartime path connects directly to the real-life event behind “Mosquito Bowl.” On Christmas Eve 1944, members of the 4th and 29th regiments played a scrimmage to lift morale.
The game brought together 65 former college football players and ended in a scoreless tie. For many of them, it was the last game they would ever play.
Fifteen of the 65 participants, including Butkovich, died in the Battle of Okinawa the following April.
The film is adapted from Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 novel of the same name. Peter Berg, who wrote and directed the movie, contacted Palm during his research, and the two spoke at length about Butkovich. Palm said the finished film is “fantastic” and hopes it leaves viewers thinking about the “level and sacrifice and love for country” shown by the men involved.
For Palm, Butkovich still represents Purdue in a way that reaches beyond football numbers.
“What he represented is what we hope Purdue represents in the world,” Palm said, “A chance for men and women of all different backgrounds to come together and work together to achieve something great.”
“Mosquito Bowl” stars Ray Nicholson as Butkovich and Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård and Todd Francis as John McLaughry, Bob Baumann and David Schreiner, three other former college football players and Marines who were deployed with Butkovich. Former Indianapolis Colts punter and sports personality Pat McAfee also appears as a drill instructor.
The film premiered in select theaters Oct. 30 and will stream on Netflix starting Nov. 25.
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