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Jim "Truck" Collum

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TRUCK CULLOM
PHS CLASS OF 1942

Jim Cullom (Class of ’42) was a two-year starter for Piedmont‘s great football teams of the early 1940’s, teams that were ranked #2 in in the country in 1940 and #1 in 1941. In in the wake of Pearl Harbor, it was not uncommon for young men in High School to skip Graduation to go to war. Cullom, along with six other Piedmont high school students, left school early. Cullom, selecting the Marine Corps saw service in the South Pacific as a Navigator/Gunner on a PBJ1-H (Marine Corps version of the better-known B-25). 

After the war, Cullom returned to the states in 1946 and attended Cal, where he played football and rugby for the Golden Bears. Cullom started three years at various positions on the offensive line and kicked extra points on Lynn Pappy Waldorf’s teams (’47, ’48 & ‘49) appearing in the Rose Bowls of ‘49 and ‘50. He would forever be known as one of Cal's legendary “Pappy‘s Boys”.

After college Cullom was drafted to play pro football for Washington and after a pre-season trade, he played one year for the New York Yanks football team, his career was cut short when he returned to the Marine Corp to serve in Korea where he was wounded by shrapnel from a landmine.

After returning from Korea, Cullom returned to Cal as an assistant coach helping the Bears’ rugby and the “Ramblers” freshman football team. Cullom’s history of playing and coaching for the Golden Bears lead to his induction into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995. Today a bench honors Jim Cullom’s service to Cal Rugby at the entrance to the Witter Rugby Field, on the Cal campus.

Returning to his hometown of Piedmont after Korea, Cullom and his wife Marty were very generous to Piedmont’s sports programs. In the ‘80s and 90’s they enthusiastically supported fundraising posters and game programs with ads for Piedmont office of Sather Gate Travel, located on Grand Avenue. After Jim’s passing in ‘98 at the age of 72 several articles were written in the San Francisco Chronicle about his life and career which are linked below. It’s pretty incredible that Cullom played on some of Piedmont‘s and Cal’s greatest football teams, a truly historic achievement and worthy of Hall of Fame induction.