Charles Gifford Leap Jr. was born May 1, 1921 in Ohio. He was one of 5 children by parents Esther and Charles Gifford Leap Sr. The family lived on Frank St. in Dayton.
“Giffy”, as he preferred to be called, was an outstanding tackle on the Stivers football team.
He, along with teammates Jim Hanby and Bill Zimmerman, made up the whole right side of the 1939 All-City 1st Team line. And Gifford was a unanimous choice.
The 1939 All-City 1st team included 4 Stivers players, the 3 above plus “Dutch” Davis. Stivers defeated Steele H. S. that year by shutting them down 13 to 0.
After graduating from Stivers, Leap played Freshman football for the University of Dayton Flyers. But after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted the next day in the U. S. Marine Corps. Charles G. Leap Jr. was killed in action in the Battle of Peleliu, in the Palau archipelago of Micronesia on Sept. 19, 1944, at the young age of 22. He is buried in the Manila American Cemetery.
