The Opening Kickoff

by Dave Revsine

  Not everyone was buying the story, though—most notably Pat’s brother Andy, whose presence in Madison had prompted his brother to visit and eventually enroll at Wisconsin all those years earlier. “I don’t believe it’s Pat,” he told the United Press, saying that men claiming to be his brother had surfaced many times since the grid star’s disappearance in 1919. Andy, who was living in New York, added that he had no plans to try to verify the man’s identity.

  The Chronicle ran another piece the next day, this one penned by sports editor Harry Smith. In it Smith described the chaos that ensued in his paper’s newsroom after the story broke—with phone calls, wires, and requests for information on the O’Dea scoop pouring in. To those who might doubt the validity of Leiser’s piece, Smith spoke of the volumes of records, documents, and certificates that Mitchell had brought along to prove his identity.

  All doubts were put to rest the next day by Wisconsin State Journal sports editor Henry McCormick, who, with the help of some of O’Dea’s former friends and teammates, had compiled a list of questions to which “no imposter would know the answers.” Not only did “Charley Mitchell” respond to them satisfactorily, he added details that led one friend to conclude, “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that being Pat O’Dea.”

  There didn’t seem to be any doubt regarding the reasons for O’Dea’s disappearance, either—at least none that made their way into the mainstream press. Two days after he revealed his true identity, the New York Times asserted that it “is easy to understand the feelings of Patrick O’Dea, the Wisconsin football hero of long ago.” The Times recounted the words of Teddy Roosevelt, who once told the boys of the prestigious Groton School, “It is a mighty good thing to be a halfback on a varsity eleven, but it is a mighty poor thing when a man reaches 40 only to be able to say that he was once a halfback on a varsity eleven.” The Times asserted that, if the story isn’t true, “it ought to be.”

  Wisconsin’s La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press took a similar approach the next week, saying, “The Pat O’Dea case does emphasize the very great wrong which football can do to a young man. It hands him his life wrong-end to. The summit comes right at the beginning. Everything afterward must go downhill,” adding, “The game that attaches itself to an All-American halfback is a load no youngster ought to be compelled to carry through life.”

  In Madison a movement quickly grew to bring O’Dea back for the Badgers’ homecoming game against Illinois scheduled for mid-November. The former Wisconsin great immediately accepted the invitation.

  In the weeks leading up to his return, O’Dea’s story was told and retold throughout the country. The former footballer himself penned a newspaper article, where he said of his decision to disappear: “As Pat O’Dea I was a has-been. A football star at the University of Wisconsin once, with my name known everywhere—but now a has-been. It began to annoy me.”

  His explanation for his decision to disappear was universally accepted. There were a few quibbles with the details. The Kilmore Advertiser in his hometown in Australia mentioned that O’Dea’s “statement about his mother’s pre-marriage name is not correct,” but it failed to make the connection to opera star Dame Nellie Melba and never suggested that O’Dea had any intent to deceive.

  The United Press wrote a story that cast some doubt on Willis Walker’s claims that he was unaware of his staff member’s actual background: “Some say the Minnesota man knew O’Dea’s true identity and others say he had no idea that his employee was his famous opponent.” But no one mentioned O’Dea’s indictment or his troubled past.

  As for Andy O’Dea, he eventually admitted that his long-lost sibling had been found. Pat sent a letter to his brother in New York City, and Andy said he “recognized his writing instantly.” Still, Andy said that he had no plans to reunite with Pat, who he hadn’t seen in thirty-one years. Of the possibility of traveling to Madison for the big homecoming gala, Andy said simply, “That’s his celebration, and I do not want to interfere.”

  And what a celebration Wisconsin was planning. Upon learning that O’Dea had accepted the invitation to return to campus, Athletic Director Walter Meanwell couldn’t hide his excitement. “I think we should make this a great occasion,” Meanwell said. “We want to do the thing up right.”

  The anticipation in Madison was palpable. In the week before O’Dea’s arrival, the Wisconsin State Journal joked, “Pat O’Dea is sure selling them football tickets. The school should find Pat about every ten years. It sure brings them in the dough.” By the day of O’Dea’s scheduled arrival in town, the paper reported that “the Pat O’Dea hysteria which has been gathering momentum all these months is reaching a crescendo today.” The State Journal spoke of boys walking to school while chanting, “Hey! Hey! Pat O’Dea!” It told of a woman who, when asked who the first white man to come to Wisconsin was, answered, with complete earnestness: “Pat O’Dea.” And it spoke of a child who tried to soothe a screaming infant by saying, “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry. Pat O’Dea is coming.”

  The story continued to generate national coverage, too, with the New York Times previewing Wisconsin’s tribute to one of the “three greatest field goal kickers football has known” and the Los Angeles Times mentioning him alongside George Gipp and Red Grange “among the greatest middle western gridiron heroes of all time.”

  In fact, it was such a big story that the national press actually covered O’Dea en route. A quick stop-over in Omaha on his train journey warranted an AP story, with the reporter detailing that O’Dea “modestly recounted when he punted 110 yards against Yale,” while also criticizing the concept of the huddle—“How can you call a play in a huddle and know it’s the one?” The United Press reported that “crowds gathered at railroad stations to cheer him” along the way.

  O’Dea finally arrived in Chicago on Thursday morning, November 15,stepping off the Overland Limited in the Northwestern train station at nine o’clock. He was immediately swarmed by newspaper photographers, who lined him up against a wall reserved for visiting dignitaries and snapped their all-important photos. O’Dea then chatted with reporters, all the while greeting friends and former teammates who had gathered to welcome him.

  From there it was on to the sold-out Crystal Ball Room in Chicago, where a crowd of six hundred assembled to hear O’Dea speak—at a cost of $3.50 per person. The organizers were kicking themselves afterward for not charging more. They did manage to squeeze an extra $1,000 for the entertainment budget out of WGN Radio, which agreed to pay that amount in exchange for an exclusive interview with the famous Aussie. When O’Dea was finally introduced to speak at the banquet, “he received a thundering standing ovation” and spoke for about fifteen minutes—“a talk of quiet confidence, courage and modest pride in Wisconsin and her achievements.” O’Dea made a great impression. Wisconsin State Journal writer Henry McCormick reported to readers back in Madison, “You’re going to like Pat O’Dea, and you’re going to be glad he’s back when you see him.”

  O’Dea spoke at a similar function the next day in Milwaukee and then headed to Madison for several more receptions followed by the massive bonfire. There the crowd “uttered a frenzied cheer when he rose. The sky rocket of a thousand student voices echoed across the massed field and the band, too excited to bother about harmony, broke into a pealing serenade.” They played a new song, written specially for the occasion, with a musical arrangement prepared by the local orchestra leader. Fans left the bonfire singing the chorus: “For Pat O’Dea has shown the way to glory and to victory.” And the local papers reported with pride that in this, the first homecoming since the repeal of Prohibition, “only one person was arrested for drunkenness and he was not connected with the homecoming celebration.”

  Game day arrived. The threat of rain may have kept some fans away, but nearly 30,000 still piled into Camp Randall Stadium—considered a large turnout for a team that hadn’t won a conference home game in nearly two years. O�
�Dea received “tumultuous applause” in the pregame, as the Wisconsin band marched in, its formation spelling out the words “Pat O’Dea.” While facing the gridiron hero of yesteryear and his teammates, the musicians belted out renditions of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “Auld Lang Syne.”

  “For more than 20 minutes before the game he was photographed continuously, in virtually every imaginable pose,” the Wisconsin State Journal reported. He spoke for the newsreel cameras, was driven around the field in an open car, and was awarded a cardinal blanket and a lifetime membership in the Wisconsin Athletic Association. Even opponent Illinois got into the act, as mascot Chief Illiniwek presented O’Dea with an Indian headdress at halftime and dubbed him “Chief Four Leaf Clover.” The legendary star addressed the crowd at the half as well and was just as humble as he had been all weekend. “If it hadn’t been for these other men on the team,” O’Dea said, “I would have been no more than useless.”

  O’Dea and his teammates sat on a special bench at field level and watched the Badgers pull off a stunning upset, handing the sixth-ranked Illini what would be their only loss of the year—a 7–3 defeat. The return to Madison, O’Dea said, was “the finest thing ever to happen to me,” adding, “When I was in school, I came to expect honors. This was unexpected.” Afterward, he put off plans to return to California, instead choosing to stay in Madison for the season finale against Minnesota. Pat O’Dea was back in the public eye and loving every minute of it.

  The game O’Dea watched on that Saturday in 1934 was dramatically different from the one he had left behind. The forward pass had evolved considerably since its introduction in the early part of the century. Illinois’s coach, Bob Zuppke, was particularly noted for his ingenious use of aerial strategies. The Illini featured a play known as the “Flying Trapeze,” a series of handoffs, reverses, and laterals that culminated in a long pass to a streaking receiver. Wisconsin’s win was attributed in part to its ability to slow down that play and others like it.

  The rules weren’t all that had changed. Everything surrounding the game was bigger and grander than in O’Dea’s time. The battle with Illinois was played at the seventeen-year-old Camp Randall Stadium, which had replaced the wooden bleachers and grandstand of the 1890s. The current stadium had already been expanded three times since its original construction, and it now boasted a capacity of slightly more than 38,000. As massive as that would have seemed thirty years earlier, Camp Randall was fairly modest compared to the other concrete structures that sprung up across the country in the 1910s and 1920s. The Yale Bowl, built on land that Walter Camp bought out of his once-secret slush fund, boasted a capacity of 78,000. Ohio State drew 85,500 for star halfback Red Grange’s final game in an Illinois uniform, a 14–9 Illini win in November of 1925. Immediately after the game, Grange, who had played in front of nearly three quarters of a million fans over the previous three seasons, announced his intention to forego the rest of his education and sign a professional contract.

  Just five days later, Grange made his debut for the Chicago Bears. He did so in front of a crowd of 36,000 at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which, at the time, was the largest ever to see a professional football game. For years the pro game had been an afterthought, the province of small industrial towns throughout the Midwest. With Grange in the fold, though, the burgeoning National Football League threatened the monopoly enjoyed by the college game. On December 6, 1925, a crowd of 70,000 fans—including 100 reporters—crammed into New York’s Polo Grounds to watch Grange and the Bears top the Giants 19–7. The star back, who just weeks before had been playing in college, pocketed $30,000 in gate receipts.

  Grange was seen as the exception rather than the rule, and it was still tough to imagine the NFL ever eclipsing college football in popularity. College coaches, however, instantly recognized the challenge a successful pro game would provide. “I’d be glad to see Grange do anything except play professional football,” Michigan coach Fielding Yost had said while the Illinois star was pondering his football future. The coaching fraternity was simply horrified at the prospect that their amateur sportsmen might make money off the game. The hypocrisy of that stance was readily apparent, as the coaches themselves were earning huge salaries from their involvement with the sport. Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, for instance, was offered $25,000 to coach Columbia in 1925, more than $330,000 in today’s currency.

  Some of the players were profiting off the game, as well, although far more modestly than their coaches. The system of covert payments, like the ones made to Yale’s James Hogan around the turn of the century, became more widespread throughout the 1920s, a poorly kept secret that was revealed to the nation in October 1929. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an organization endowed by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, released a report entitled, rather innocuously, Bulletin Number Twenty-Three. Throughout the course of nearly four hundred pages, the report, which was the product of four years of investigations and interviews, exposed the sordid underbelly of college athletics. Its author, Howard Savage, alleged that 102 of the 130 schools that investigators visited illegally subsidized their athletes in some form. The subsidies varied from cash handouts to tuition waivers to jobs, both legitimate and bogus. It cited the involvement of the universities themselves, as well as booster clubs made up of alumni, many of which orchestrated underhanded recruiting efforts. The substance of the report was impressive. The timing of its release was not. The stock market crashed just days later, and the nation turned its attention from college football indiscretions to survival.

  After a significant attendance dip due to the Depression, the game rebounded in the mid-1930s, around the time of O’Dea’s return. The balance of power had shifted considerably in his absence. The first ever AP college football poll was released just two days before the Illinois–Wisconsin game that O’Dea witnessed in 1934. The Midwest, which had struggled for respect in O’Dea’s time, was well-represented, boasting three of the top nine teams, including number one Minnesota. Perhaps most startling, though, was the rise of the South, a complete afterthought thirty-five years before. Alabama was ranked third, Rice was twelfth, Louisiana State thirteenth, and Southern Methodist fifteenth. Alabama and LSU were part of the newly formed Southeastern Conference, which, a year later, rocked the college football world with the announcement that it would begin offering athletic scholarships, directly undermining what was left of the amateur ideal.

  Of the traditional “Big Three” of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, only the Tigers were listed among the twenty-two ranked teams, checking in at number five. Those schools were still major players in the game, though. For instance, in 1936, Yale sold its radio rights for $20,000, the first such deal in the history of the sport, and one that foretold the impact that TV money would have on the sport in later years. Still, none of the “Big Three” ever won an AP National Championship.

  But the decline of those schools paled in comparison to that of the University of Chicago. Amos Alonzo Stagg was forced into retirement in 1933. New president Robert Hutchins was far more interested in academics than athletics, overhauling the curriculum in a manner that made it virtually impossible to “hide” academically deficient student athletes. Though the team had a few successful years thanks to the remarkable exploits of Jay Berwanger, the first Heisman Trophy winner, its fortunes plummeted after his graduation in 1936.

  In 1938 Hutchins penned a scathing indictment of the sport for the Saturday Evening Post entitled “Gate Receipts and Glory.” College football’s ills were well known, he wrote, as they had been for the last fifty years. So, he asked, why has no one done anything to cure them? In his mind, the explanation was simple: “[N]obody wants to give up the gate receipts.” Nobody, that is, except Hutchins.

  At the end of the next season, one that saw the Maroons fall 85–0 to Michigan and 61–0 to Ohio State, Chicago dropped football. Appalled by the world it had helped create, the school that had hired its football co
ach before opening its academic doors and had played its first game just days after holding its first class left major college football behind forever.

  While the game lost a former powerhouse in the 1930s, it regained long-lost superstar Pat O’Dea. After his reappearance in 1934, he became a regular fixture on the college football scene—always available to lend his thoughts to a newspaper writer in search of a quote. Though associated with Stanford on the West Coast as that school’s former crew coach, O’Dea’s primary loyalty fell to Wisconsin. He was heavily involved in the school’s Alumni Association for the rest of his life.

  In 1935 O’Dea’s wife, Emma, began to develop health problems, and her doctor told her she should leave the altitude of Westwood. So, after sixteen years, O’Dea resigned his position with the Red River Lumber company and moved back to San Francisco, “the city I love second only to Madison.” He was given a warm send-off in Westwood, where the locals held a banquet in his honor and presented him with gifts upon his departure.

  Months later, with Wisconsin in search of a new football coach, O’Dea’s name briefly surfaced, but nothing ever materialized. Instead, Wisconsin hired Harry Stuhldreher, one of Notre Dame’s famed “Four Horsemen,” a pick that O’Dea quickly endorsed. In a message to Wisconsin fans, O’Dea urged the faithful to stand “solidly behind Harry and his boys by letting them know we believe in them.” O’Dea preached patience, a theme he emphasized again in 1940 when Stanford hired a new coach.

  When Wisconsin went to Berkeley to take on the California Golden Bears in 1946, O’Dea was not only there, but spent the months leading up to the game handling ticket requests for local Badger alums. Jokingly mentioning that he still had his 1899 football uniform, O’Dea even offered his on-field services, saying, “just let ’em know that Pat O’Dea is standing by, awaiting orders.” When the Badgers finally broke through and made their first-ever Rose Bowl appearance in the 1952 season, there was seemingly no Badger fan more excited than O’Dea, who told the United Press he’d be in the front row for the battle with USC. “I wouldn’t miss that fun for anything,” O’Dea said. When Stanford opened its season in Madison in 1959, the school flew the 87-year-old O’Dea out to Wisconsin with them, and the legendary star kept up a frenetic pace while at his alma mater. The Badgers made a return visit to the Rose Bowl that season, and “The Kangaroo Kicker” was once again in Pasadena for the game.