Heisman’s First Trophy

by Sam Hatcher

  Most of the students knew George was the mastermind who crafted the strategy to field a team capable of beating Tech. Ah, but to do so in such an unforgettable fashion, now that was impressive. He had staged the event like a New York City impresario might present a fine theatrical play on Broadway.

  A revived spirit abounded on the school campus. A renewed pride in Cumberland thrived throughout the remainder of spring until graduation day when seniors marched and undergraduates returned to their hometowns for the summer break.

  With final examinations week approaching, George took a final stab at changing the administration’s mind about dropping football. His words proved futile.

  The law student had five classes in which he faced extremely challenging final exams. He had no time for frivolous activities at Horn Springs, a night out with a favorite co-ed, or an afternoon of downing beer at the Devil’s Elbow on the square.

  Winding down his first year of law school, George had to buckle down and take care of why he came to Cumberland in the first place.

  Cracking the books didn’t come easy for him. It wasn’t because of his intelligence but rather because of his choice of being involved in so many activities on campus.

  He practically ran Cumberland’s athletic department as baseball, basketball and football team manager. He headed the Kappa Sigma fraternity. And he spent a great deal of his free time practicing his budding skill as a raconteur, a talent that would lead him into relationships with four American presidents, numerous leaders of the British Parliament, movie stars, and other notable men and women. His life in the spotlight also landed him numerous appearances in some of the nation’s largest newspapers and nationally recognized magazines.

  Featured on the cover of Time magazine on August 12, 1946, George entertained the publication’s readership with stories about his life since childhood including the Cumberland vs. Georgia Tech debacle and a humorous account of his first case as a full fledge attorney in Mississippi.

  According to the Time story, his client was a lady who had fallen over her umbrella and injured herself at a rail station.

  In the account George says on her behalf he sued the railroad for $40,000 and settled for $10. “She got $5 and I got $5,” he concludes with a chuckle adding “I was in no mood to dicker.”

  Mature for his twenty years of age, George was light years ahead of his peers. Before he turned the age of thirty, he would hold key political and business leadership positions that would take him to international prominence.

  But this week his focus turned to his law classes, specifically the study of contracts, torts, criminal law, evidence, and domestic relations.

  After completing his exams, George had a few final chores to finish before he would make the arduous twelve-hour drive home to Baldwyn. His plans for the summer included working in a family friend’s law office in nearby Booneville, Mississippi. There he would have the opportunity to see and practice for real what he had been experiencing in Judge Green’s classroom.

  Ramping down football

  One of his last assignments before departing the campus was to bring final closure to his beloved football team. George had been instructed by university officials to clean out locker rooms, get rid of the football equipment, and do whatever else necessary to ring the death knell on Cumberland’s football program.

  School administrators thought it best to handle these matters after students had left for the summer. George agreed. Once he had said his final good-byes, he went to work. In two days he was done with the dirty work and reported to President Hill that he had completed his task.

  Among his duties related to shuttering the football program was that of notifying schools on next fall’s schedule that Cumberland would not be fielding a team. Thus, he wearily wrote letters to the colleges, alerting them of the predicament. He then left for Mississippi, ready for the summer break and already anticipating his return to campus.

  But there was one letter he failed to write.

  Driving home

  George left campus a little before two o’clock in the afternoon. He wouldn’t reach Baldwyn until several hours past midnight.

  The marathon drive home presented him ample time to digest the end of the school year, whether he had missed a case problem question on divorce on his domestic relations final, and if he’d locked the frat house and completed the work assigned him by the administration with respect to closing down the football program.

  Getting to Baldwyn, a two-hundred-and-twenty-five-mile winding excursion from Lebanon was no simple matter. George would drive to the western edge of Nashville and take Highway 100 south to Linden. From there he would motor along state route 128 to Clifton and on to Savannah. From Savannah he would meander along back roads that curved back and forth between Tennessee and Mississippi until he arrived in Corinth. From Corinth, Baldwyn was a straight thirty-two-mile shot.

  Along the route, he knew every barbecue smokehouse, beer joint, and off-the-road bootlegger where one could purchase Tennessee or Mississippi moonshine or corn liquor.

  George looked forward to getting home and applying some of what he’d learned in the classroom to work in a small-town law office that took on cases that ranged from defending a twelve-year-old youth accused of stealing a couple of apples from a general store to a black man indicted for flirting with a prominent white woman.

  A short summer

  This summer, between stints in the law office, most often on the weekends, George would explore some of the region’s large cotton farms. He had always been fascinated by agriculture.

  His interest in husbandry proved a helpful factor in growing his friendship with Eisenhower, who been raised in the midst of the cornfields of Kansas in a poor Mennonite family that raised everything they ate.

  Most of the summer George labored in the law office Monday through Thursday, but the other three days he spent on a large cotton farm.

  By August he was anxious to get back to his more glamorous life on campus. His earnings for the summer would be applied to tuition, books, board, Kappa Sig dues and, of course, making a portion of his budget for an ample social life.

  By Labor Day his bags were packed and the Chevy loaded. He was on the road again, motoring toward Lebanon and Cumberland University.

  Never in his wildest dreams could he imagine the turmoil and excitement the fall term would lay squarely at his feet.

  Back at Cumberland

  “I’m back,” George shouted as he entered the frat house front door and threw the first of a collection of suitcases, boxes, and bags on the entrance foyer floor.

  Two of his Kappa Sigma brothers had beat him to campus for the fall semester.

  George gave his best buddy, Gentry Dugat, a bear hug before darting to the ice box for a bottle of beer.

  “So, how was your summer?” asked George as he stretched out on a worn couch and sipped his brew.

  Gentry had migrated to Cumberland from Beeville, Texas, a small town about forty miles from Corpus Christi and about a thousand miles from Lebanon.

  Gentry would be the first recruit George would nab when he began to fill a roster of volunteers for the battle against the gridiron giant in Atlanta.

  CUMBERLAND’S LAW SCHOOL

  * * *

  Cumberland University attracted a number of students from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and other states west of the Mississippi during the early 20th century. Its reputation made it a school of choice for young scholars wanting to pursue the study of law. Viewed by many as an equal to Harvard, students who lived in the Southwest found it far more convenient than making the trek to Boston.

  Among those was T. Boone Pickens, Sr., father of the billionaire oil tycoon, who came from Oklahoma to study law at Cumberland in 1921.

  Stepping into the room from an adjoining bedroom came another fraternity brother and bosom pal, Morris Gouger.

  Morris had ridden back to school with Gentry. Morris claimed Robstown, Texas, as his home. Located in the extreme south
east part of the state, about one-hundred and thirty miles from San Antonio and just over one thousand miles from Cumberland, Robstown boasted a population of four thousand souls.

  Morris snatched a bottle of beer from the ice box and sat down with Gentry and George, and the trio recapped their summer highlights. They discussed the work they did, the girls they swooned, and talked excitedly about the upcoming school year.

  Presidential visit

  The reunion was interrupted by a knock on the front door of the fraternity house.

  George arose from the couch and peered through the screen door to see Cumberland president Homer Hill standing on the front porch. He wore a three-piece suit that surrounded a white heavily starched shirt with tab collar and a subdued striped neck tie.

  It was one of those early September days in Middle Tennessee that more resembled the middle of July. The thermometer on the wall, advertising a local funeral parlor, read ninety-six degrees. The humidity was overwhelming, thus Hill sweated profusely as he stood and waited for one of the boys to come to the door.

  It was a rare event for the school president to drop by a fraternity house, and typically the cause was not advantageous to those occupying the premises. The last time a top school official paid their respects to the frat house was on an early Monday morning to chew the lads out about a weekend of partying that had run amuck and disturbed residents on neighboring West Spring.

  George’s mind raced ninety miles an hour, and his pulse zipped to one hundred. He and his buddies scrambled to hide their bottles as they cleared a path so the president could walk inside. George knew this was no social visit.

  “Let’s go, boys. Open the door,” Hill pleaded.

  Making a quick sweep of the room and making a few final adjustments, the three were as prepared as they could be in two minutes.

  Gentry went to the door and greeted the president.

  “President Hill, what a great surprise,” he exclaimed as if he didn’t know who had been knocking.

  “Please come into our humble abode,” he offered.

  Hill entered and his eyes darted about the room. The three stood nervously with their hands stuffed in their pockets and prayed silently that he would not get a whiff of the beer on their breath.

  In a corner, not fully concealed behind a floor lamp, a beer bottle rested horizontally on its side. It had been there for some time, likely all summer. It had been overlooked in the frantic house cleansing only minutes earlier.

  Hill spied the bottle, frowned and said sternly, “George, would you come with me? We need to talk.”

  George thought, “Oh, crap. I haven’t even been back an hour and now I’m being called on the carpet by the president but what in the hell for.”

  The boys recognized that President Hill’s demeanor seemed worried. They knew he was a man who abhorred alcohol and constantly preached its evils, so it was telling that he did not scold them over the discovered empty bottle.

  They begin to walk

  George and the president strolled across the front lawn and stopped beneath a giant oak tree that offered some shade from the hot afternoon sun but little relief from the humidity. They were far enough away from the frat house that they could speak in private.

  Hill immediately directed his comments to the heart of the matter.

  “George, when you canceled the football games that were set for this fall, did you contact all of the schools?” he asked.

  “Yes sir. I’m pretty sure I got in touch with each one,” responded the young man in a somewhat shaky voice.

  “George, this is of immense importance. I want you to think carefully. Are you positive that you mailed cancellation letters to each school?” the president pressed.

  Puzzled by Hill’s query, George’s confidence began to wane as he reflected on whether he had, indeed, written every college and alerted them that Cumberland would not be fielding a football team this fall and was canceling its entire schedule.

  “President Hill, I get the impression that there may be a problem. Am I right?” George asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Hill said, but “I’ve received a letter from Georgia Tech stating that they understand from conversations with other universities that Cumberland is not playing football this season and has dropped the sport from its athletic program.

  “According to the letter, Georgia Tech never received notice that we were canceling our game with them in October,” President Hill explained.

  Looking for a quick solution, George told Hill that he would get a missive off to Georgia Tech the next day with the appropriate notice about the situation.

  “That may or may not do the trick, George, but from what I gather they’re awfully upset and where this goes from here I have no idea,” said Hill.

  “Go ahead and get letters in the mail first thing in the morning to the president of Georgia Tech as well as to their football coach, John Heisman. Let them know that we inadvertently failed to give them proper notice of our decision to suspend the 1916 season. Tell them that we genuinely regret this oversight and that you, the one responsible for arranging the schedule, and myself, the president of the school, offer our most sincere apologies.”

  Hill then informed George that in the same letter he received from Tech, there was reference to a contract the two schools had signed for a game to be played October 7, 1916, in Atlanta.

  “If they plan to enforce this contract, we may be in hot water. We must get this resolved,” the president concluded.

  George knew perfectly the mission that had been laid before him. He had to write a convincing communiqué claiming total responsibility for the foul up. His letter must express how remorseful he and President Hill were about the matter, and it had to be worded in such a way as to remove the slightest doubt of any impropriety.

  Assuring the president he was up to the task, George walked slowly back to the frat house.

  His first night back on campus would prove to be a long one. Putting the premium words on paper would be as difficult a challenge as any of the complex legal issues he studied in the classrooms of his rigid law professors.

  Giving it their best shot

  By two a.m. the next morning, George found the words coming agonizingly slow. He found it nearly impossible to pen an acceptable apology for what was an honest mistake.

  At five o’clock he dueled with himself over the closing paragraph. It had to be spot on as it would serve as the final touch on how to best state “We’re sorry.”

  Dotting the final “I” at seven a.m., George rushed to take a shower, shave and dress, and then sprinted to the president’s office where Hill was waiting. He had been there since five o’clock.

  George handed over his letter.

  Hill slowly read it to himself, then reread it aloud. He pondered each word and studied how every phrase might be interpreted. He tried to put himself in the shoes of those for whom the letter was intended.

  After the longest ten minutes of his life, George heard Hill say, “I think this is excellent. This is our best shot. We’ve got to hope and pray that it will be sufficient.”

  With that shot of verbal adrenalin, George recused himself from Hill’s office and walked as fast as he could for the Lebanon Post Office. He deposited the letter and trudged back to campus. Now all he could do was wait. It would probably be a week before the plea arrived in the hands of the Georgia Tech president Kenneth G. Matheson and Coach Heisman.

  George thought it might take two to three weeks before they heard back from Tech.

  Not good news

  To George and President Hill’s surprise it was less than a week before Tech responded. It was not an answer to their prayers. Their best shot, a long shot, had not hit the target.

  From Coach Heisman came the words that Cumberland University must play the game as scheduled or pay a fine of three thousand dollars for breach of contract.

  That three thousand dollar penalty in 1916 would be the equal of about $100,000 today. The loss w
ould be a devastating blow to Cumberland’s stressed financial state.

  Hill sent word via a student messenger from his office for George to report to him pronto. The note was succinct. It read: “George, as soon as you are out of class, report to my office.”

  George was stuck in a class with fifty law students as two of his peers argued a moot court case. An hour remained before all would be finished, and Judge Green, 89, the professor and dean of the law school, was adamant about attendance. He would not tolerate a student missing a day of moot court, and he certainly would not allow an early leave before a session ended.

  CARUTHERS HALL

  * * *

  The Cumberland Law School was housed in Caruthers Hall on West Main Street in Lebanon until the early 1960s when the school was sold to Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Commonly recognized by students and townspeople as the “Law Barn,” the structure closely resembled Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. Funds for the building, erected in 1878, were contributed by Cumberland’s first president, Robert L. Caruthers, a governor of Tennessee for the Confederacy, justice of the state Supreme Court, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

  Cumberland’s Caruthers Hall, the “Law Barn”

  The class took place in what was commonly referred to as the Cumberland “Law Barn” on West Main Street. George sat pretending to be engaged but in truth his mind was some five blocks away at the main campus wondering what news President Hill held.

  Judge Green adjourned class at noon. George sprinted for Memorial Hall on the main campus, and once inside slowed to a quick walk down the long hall to the president’s office.

  Since the door was open, George entered and shuffled slowly toward Hill’s desk.