Heisman’s First Trophy

by Sam Hatcher

  War raged in Europe, a revolution was taking place in Mexico, and much of the U.S. was focused on a presidential election set for the first Tuesday in November.

  Woodrow Wilson, the incumbent Democrat, was campaigning to keep the White House, while his Republican opponent, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, was campaigning to have voters boot him out of office.

  Cumberland University had a role in the election in that Hughes had been a colleague of Cumberland graduate Justice Horace Harmon Lurton, who served with him on the U.S. Supreme Court. While campaigning in Tennessee and Kentucky, Hughes capitalized on their relationship as a point of reference in many of his stump speeches and introductions. Despite his attempts to attract voters in Tennessee and Kentucky by sharing anecdotes about his time on the bench with Lurton, both states went for Wilson.

  Wilson won the election with a 600,000 popular vote margin; however, the vote in the Electoral College was much closer. He edged Hughes by only 23 votes, 277–254.

  The incumbent’s win was not necessarily a good omen for football in the South and certainly not for Georgia Tech.

  Wilson, a football fan who had coached at Wesleyan University, had also served as president of Princeton. His loyalty to the Ivy League remained solid, and that could pose another problem for John Heisman as he tried to crack the mindset that college football supremacy prevailed in the Northeast.

  Week five

  Tech would pass the halfway point of their nine-game season with the contest against Washington and Lee at Grant Field on October 28.

  Washington and Lee also had posted a record of 2–1–1. Although not a particularly strong team, they had garnered some national attention from their battles against Army and Rutgers.

  A very good Army team beat them 14–7, and they tied Rutgers 13–13 in New Jersey.

  There were a couple of interesting considerations surrounding the Tech game with Washington and Lee.

  It would be a game watched closely by sports writers across the nation since Washington and Lee had played its previous two games in the Northeast with mixed results.

  And frankly the jury was still out on Heisman’s Georgia Tech team.

  The decision would be made for the good if Heisman could blow out Washington and Lee as he had Mercer and Cumberland. But a Tech loss, tie or a win by a small margin would leave them in the dust.

  To really kick the team into high gear, Heisman had searchlights brought into Grant Field so that his team could practice at night. He practiced his boys hard and lectured them even more sternly.

  It was to no avail as Tech managed a 7–7 tie with Washington and Lee. If they had been a listing on the stock market, they would have dropped 50 points.

  At the bottom of The Washington Herald sports page on Sunday morning, the all-caps headline blared, “WASHINGTON AND LEE PLAYS TECH A TIE.” The capsule-like summary of the game covered only two column inches of type.

  Tech’s collapse sets stage for 1917

  Four games remained on the Engineers’ schedule, but for all practical purposes their shot at the national championship was gone.

  Heisman pressed forward, inspiring his team to finish the season with their best efforts, hoping that they might receive some honorable mentions and if nothing else lay the groundwork for 1917. He reckoned that if his squad could end the schedule with blue-chip wins, he could get a head start on next year.

  Georgia Tech’s final four games were with Tulane, Alabama, Georgia and Auburn. The quartet had fielded highly respected teams for the season and each ended the season with winning records.

  The Engineers responded to their mentor’s call for picking up the pieces by crushing Tulane, scoring 45 points and holding their opponent scoreless.

  The next week Georgia Tech topped Alabama 13–0.

  And the week following the Engineers collared the Georgia Bulldogs 21–0.

  Tech’s final game was against a touted Auburn squad.

  Auburn came to Grant Field with six wins and a single loss.

  The Tigers had been upended by Vanderbilt the week before the Tech game, but had whipped Samford, Mercer, Clemson, Mississippi State, Georgia and Florida.

  Heisman cautioned his boys that Auburn would not be easy. He believed they would be hungry after losing their first game of the year.

  Heisman had coached on the plains at Auburn from 1895–1899. He was 30 years young when he left his Auburn for Clemson but old enough to know the school nurtured a winning spirit.

  Georgia Tech answered his challenge and responded by clipping the War Eagles 33–7.

  In the end the sports writers were generous. Columnists wrote that it was a good season for Georgia Tech and its brainy coach, the man of innovation.

  Heisman was not elated, but he was satisfied that Tech had made a name for itself on college football’s national stage.

  Next year is here

  Disappointed but not discouraged, Coach Heisman began planning in the early summer for the 1917 version of the Golden Tornadoes.

  Several Tech players and almost all the fans that had crowded Grant Field in 1916 had adopted the battle cry of “Wait ’til Next Year.” Heisman didn’t like it, but nonetheless he had little control over what the fans did or did not do and over what might be going through the minds of his players. As a strict disciplinarian, he could dictate what his players said aloud but not even John Heisman could manage or audit their thoughts.

  Confidentially, he believed his 1917 team, at least on paper, looked terrific. One of the main factors leading him to that opinion was running back Strup Strupper.

  No defensive line could contain the lively lad who ran at will on Saturday afternoons. Strupper would be back a bit faster and a lot stronger. The senior was easily one of the finest running backs in the country.

  FIRST ALL-AMERICAS FROM DEEP SOUTH

  * * *

  Everett (Strup) Strupper was selected a consensus All-America in 1917 and also picked was teammate Walker Glenn (Bill) “Big Six” Carpenter. Their selection to the All-America team represented the first two players from the Deep South to receive the honor. Strupper, from Columbus, Ga., was a Tech mainstay in the offensive backfield for three years. Carpenter, a mechanical engineering major from Newnan, Georgia, played tackle and end.

  Complimenting Strup’s talent would be an offensive line packed with returning lettermen. These eleven were going to be explosive off the ball and would make good on their recently anointed nickname the Golden Tornadoes.

  Things to do

  College football head coaches during the early 1900s had added responsibilities that went far beyond designing offensive strategies and plotting defensive blockades. There were no administrative staffs, no athletic directors, no equipment managers and no outside financial help such as a booster club. The coach served as sole proprietor and caretaker of the team.

  Smaller schools like Cumberland would rely on student managers to arrange games and keep the locker room organized, while the coach was left with player personnel matters and the pure necessities of coaching.

  Looking forward to the fall, Heisman had a lengthy to-do list before he welcomed his team back to Atlanta.

  High on that list was the need to check, re-check and confirm the teams on the schedule. In order to have a championship season, Tech would need to win all nine games. A forfeit by an opponent would be a liability, and that was certainly a possibility with some colleges dropping the sport as the United States entered the war in Europe in April. Thus, the rosters of many college teams had been stripped of some of their athletes.

  Responding to the matter, the Walter Camp Football Foundation decided that it would not name a 1917 All-America team. Instead Camp, regarded as the father of college football rules and one of the most credible authorities of the game during the era, chose to announce an All-Service team which would be announced at the end of the season in Collier’s Weekly. Other organizations did name college All-America teams.

  A major conce
rn that attracted Heisman’s attention in the weeks before the new season was that of player safety.

  FOOTBALL DEATHS

  * * *

  Between 1910 and 1916 eighty athletes were reported to have died from football injuries. Seventeen of those were college players. The number of serious injuries recorded during the period were in the hundreds. The Associated Press reported a dozen football player deaths in 1917. All were college athletes except for one high school player.

  The often regarded terse coach, who would not tolerate less than one hundred percent effort from his athletes, cared greatly for their well-being. This concern was first noted when Heisman urged Camp to endorse and add the forward pass to the rules of the game. Heisman believed too many players were getting hurt because there was no option other than running the ball to advance it down the field.

  Keeping abreast of trends in the game, Heisman had heard of new head gear worn by football players that provided an additional safety feature to help reduce the number of head injuries.

  In 1917 football helmets were redesigned to include a padded cradle in the top center of the helmet which provided space between the skull and the helmet. Fabric straps formed the cradle which helped protect players by absorbing and distributing the impact created from direct collisions. The new design also allowed better ventilation.

  Heisman was aware of the new design during its early stages by sports industry giants Rawlings and Spalding. When the season began, he made sure his players were wearing the safer gear.

  Getting Penn to Atlanta

  Heisman had lined up nine opponents for the 1917 season including three perennial powers from the South and one anchor from the Ivy League, Pennsylvania.

  Scheduling Pennsylvania was an out-of-the box strategic move by the Tech coach. If Georgia Tech was going to get the recognition it deserved, it was going to have earn its way by playing schools firmly embedded in the top of college football hierarchy. Heisman resolved that Tech could keep the schedule it had been playing for the past several years, win eight or nine games each year, and still not receive consideration as a nominee for a national championship.

  He chose to recruit his alma mater Pennsylvania as Georgia Tech’s resume builder. It was a good choice for a variety of reasons.

  Pennsylvania possessed a football tradition as sacred as Dartmouth, Princeton and Harvard and attracted an impressive army of national sports writers that followed its games each Saturday. Penn began attracting the eyes of the national media and the nation’s passionate football audience in the mid-1890s when George Woodruff held the reins as the university’s football coach. From 1894–1898 Woodruff lost only two games and racked up 67 victories. His tenure at Penn served to put this university above all others in the Ivy League for a lengthy stretch of time.

  Penn’s success was highlighted again in the 1916 season under first-year head coach Bob Folwell when the squad posted a record of 7–2–1 and made a Rose Bowl appearance against Oregon.

  Although Pennsylvania lost 14–0, Coach Folwell and his Quakers were still touted by the national press as a one of the finest college football programs in the land.

  Transportation from Philadelphia to Atlanta was no easy matter. The Penn team would have to travel by rail more than 800 miles, a 26-hour excursion. Any way it was diced the trip to Atlanta would take two days each way. If Penn was to arrive on the Friday before the Saturday game, the traveling party could be away from campus for as many as five days.

  Heisman called on old friends, fellow alums, administrators he had known during his time at Penn and even some members of the press, including Grantland Rice, to persuade the Quakers that playing Tech in Atlanta could be a monumental event for the sport.

  Penn took the bait, and the match was set for Saturday, October 6, almost a year to the day that Tech had swamped Cumberland 222–0.

  The other eight

  Besides Pennsylvania, the Georgia Tech schedule included Furman, Wake Forest, Davidson, Washington and Lee, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Carlisle and Auburn.

  The collection of opponents who would begin play against Georgia Tech in late September was not necessarily a bastion of college football’s best. But the game with Penn was a must in order for Heisman to have a shot at his goal of a national championship crown.

  POINT-A-MINUTE

  * * *

  Vanderbilt Coach Dan McGugin in his 14th year at the Nashville university in 1917 was being compared, mostly in newspapers in the South, as another John Heisman because of his offense’s propensity to score points. In the seasons before playing Tech in 1917 Vanderbilt had an accomplished record of 16-2-1, which ranked among the best in the South and nationwide. In 1915 McGugin’s Commodores scored 514 points in 510 minutes of playing time earning them the title the “Point-A-Minute” team.

  Excluding Pennsylvania, the remaining eight opponents listed against Tech in 1917 had a combined record the previous year of 35–22–6.

  The three strongest teams on the schedule besides Penn were Washington and Lee, Vanderbilt, and Auburn.

  Reaching beyond Penn and Vanderbilt the next greatest threat facing Heisman’s Engineers in his championship campaign would likely come from Washington and Lee. The Generals, as Vanderbilt, had been winning consistently for the past several years and perhaps more importantly, due to its location in Lexington, Virginia, a bit farther north than many of the teams considered in the Deep South, its football schedule frequently included teams on the watch lists of many of the major sports writers.

  Washington and Lee finished the 1916 season 5–2–2, which included a win over Navy and ties against Georgia Tech and Army. The Generals were expected to be every bit as good in 1917.

  Coach Heisman would place a checkmark beside Washington and Lee’s name on the schedule tacked to the wall in his office as a reminder that this team could be the one to spoil the apple cart.

  Auburn, too, earned a checkmark as a team of which to be wary. A team with three nicknames, War Eagles, Tigers and Plainsmen, Auburn had posted an exceptional 44–8–3 record dating back to 1910. That included an undefeated 8–0 season in 1913 and an 8–0–1 run in 1914. Going into the 1917 season it had been 11 years since Auburn had seen a losing season.

  Heisman had good reason to believe the War Eagles would be formidable this fall.

  Engineers report in mid-August

  Heisman’s 1917 squad began reporting in mid-August. Practice sessions were as serious as games to the coach. Before classes would begin around the second week in September, Heisman ran his team through drills twice and sometimes three times a day. Practices were lengthy, punishing and exhaustive.

  When the players weren’t bumping heads in the ninety-degree-plus Georgia heat, they were sitting in a classroom, almost as hot as outside, bending an ear to Heisman lectures about what makes good football players and great football teams.

  Twelve years before his reign at Tech, Heisman had been criticized for his locker-room antics and coaching style at Auburn. He was said to be overbearing and that his authoritarian demand for perfection was not effective, although others claimed that his lack of success at Auburn was primarily because of the woeful talent with which he had to work.

  Heisman did not change. He continued to preach perfection and demand that his players think as they play the game. His team would hear the same speeches repeatedly.

  This, he told his charges, had every promise of being a golden season for the Golden Tornado. He insisted on no uncertain terms that the 1917 college championship was theirs for the taking.

  Opening weekend

  The first two games of Georgia Tech’s 1917 nine-game schedule were to be played on consecutive days in late September. They would be the season openers against independents Furman and Wake Forest. The Furman game was set for Friday, September 28, and Wake Forest, the stronger of the two, would tangle with them on early Saturday afternoon.

  The arrangement for the two games made for an interesting quirk, although not foreign in t
he early years of college football. Schools would line up games on consecutive days for a variety of factors.

  Heisman began his championship march with two resounding wins. Tech scored 58 points and did not allow their opponents a single crossing of the goal line. The Golden Tornado blanked Furman 25–0 and Wake Forest 33–0.

  THREE BIG WINS IN FIVE DAYS

  * * *

  In 1903, the year Cumberland University and Clemson, which was coached at the time by John Heisman, were name co-champions of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Cumberland pulled off three major victories in a five-day span.

  Traveling to meeting their opponents on their own home turf, Cumberland beat Alabama 44–0 on November 14, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; LSU 41–0 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, two days later on November 16, and Tulane 28–0 in New Orleans on November 18. Cumberland ended its season with a tie against Clemson in a post-season bowl game. The Bulldogs only loss, a 6–0 decision, came at the hands of Sewanee. All of Cumberland’s games in 1903 were played at the home stadiums of their opponents except for the bowl game against Clemson, an 11–11 tie, played in Montgomery, Ala. For the season Cumberland’s stone wall defense held opponents scoreless except for Sewanee and Clemson.

  Up next was the game that Heisman knew would either break or significantly enhance Tech’s opportunity for a national championship. His engineers would face a capable Pennsylvania team that would bring with it to Grant Field all the aura and pomp associated with Ivy League football.

  The event was far more than another game. It was an uncivil war that pitted the South against the Northeast.