Milton Vucinich Combined
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p.1 STANFORD UNIVERSITY PROJECT: Bob Murphy Interviews INTERVIEWEE: Milton Vucinich Bob: [0:01] Well, hello again everybody. Once again we're visiting with one of the immortals, we're going all the way back to that fabulous 1940 football season at Stanford, The 41 Rose Bowl, The victory over Nebraska in the Rose Bowl and Milt Vucinich and Vuch number 32 if I got it right. [0:18] Miton. Milton: [0:18] 32. Bob: [0:19] Number 32 huh? Milton: [0:19] Bless you, that you remembered my number. You made my day. Bob: [laughs] [0:20] Milton: [0:23] You know that was only 60 years ago, I'm proud of you Murph. Bob: [0:26] We got a reflect on one of the great chapters in Stanford football history. First, before we really get into it, why all you guys got to Stanford? It was interesting you know because "Tiny" Thornhill and the Foul boys did a great job - 1933, 34 and 35 and then Tiny stayed on, and never had a winning season after that. Stanford football was really down and yet the greatest players in many respects that Stanford has ever had, all got together at Stanford and ended up in the 41 Rose Bowl. How'd you guys ever end up at Stanford? Milton: [1:03] That's a very good point, never thought about that. In my case, as a youngster I got to following Stanford, and for no good reason other than I think is that I like their red jerseys. Bob: [1:15] Local guy. p.2 Milton: [1:16] Local boy, living at San Francisco and so when I had the opportunity to come to Stanford, the year that I came in as a freshman, Stanford had lost all but one game, I think the only game they won was the last game of the season. Bob: [1:31] That's right. Milton: [1:32] And, so now they, they lose their coach, Tiny Thornhill leaves and they bring a man..., let me go back in there, in the mean time Clark Shaughnessy was coaching in the University of Chicago and they lost all their games there. Bob: [1:47] He was coaching them right out of football [laughs] . Milton: [1:49] That's exactly right. In fact, he gave up football and I remember my fraternity we were sitting around talking and somebody said you know it'd be just like Stanford to hire this fellow Shaughnessy to coach us. Well sure enough, there he is. Everybody was quiet upset about it, but amazing man actually. I can remember it as if it was yesterday, he walks in and meantime the sports writer right away start hitting on him calling him Soup, "Soup" Shaughnessy and so forth... Bob: [laughs] [2:19] Milton: [2:20] ...and when he walks in, he is ramrod straight, very distinguished looking, a big man, a powerful man, a very strong voice and he started talking and believe it or not, when he was through he really had us thinking, "Hey! Maybe, he is telling us the truth. Maybe we will win all our games." Bob: [2:43] You know, Vuc it's funny you mentioned the University of Chicago and of course I knew that that's where Shaughnessy came from but our old team doctor Bob Jampolis came from the University of Chicago, God level Jamp, one of our dear, dear friends, gone now but we still remember him so well and he was a quarter-back for Shaughnessy. [3:01] Shaughnessy was doing some funny things, he was thinking about that T-formation and the other factor about the University of Chicago, Jay Berwanger won the first Heisman trophy, he was the first Heisman trophy winner and he came from the University of Chicago whoever guessed that that school would drop football. p.3 Milton: [3:19] Yeah it's amazing. I remember that. I was a youngster at that time, I followed football over and I remember Berwanger winning that as you say the first title. What they call the... Bob: [3:31] Heisman trophy. Milton: [3:32] Heisman Trophy winner. Bob: [3:34] Well Vuc let's go back to how you all got together. It ended up with losing one of our dear pal who's gone Frankie Albert, Hugh Galerno, Norm Stanley and Pete [Inaudible 3:44] a back-field that will always be remembered, Frankie from Glendale. Shaughnessy had been playing around with the T-formation, he was very close to George Halas and the Chicago Bears. With the Bears and the University of Chicago, he had a very inventive mind. Can you talk about that, I mean he was way ahead of the pack. Milton: [4:04] Well, interesting enough that first year, you know when he came to Stanford, that's when he started out with the T-formation. Bob: [4:11] Yeah. Milton: [4:12] But, I don't think a lot of people remember this, we were still running some single wing stuff. In other words at that point in time he was a 100 percent convinced how we were going to go. Bob: [laughs] [4:25] If this doesn't works, we're going back to the old stuff. Milton: [4:28] The old stuff, that's right. Bob: [laughs] [4:30] Milton: [4:31] And, it was amazing, hardly anyone remembers that. But getting back to Mr. Shaughnessy, he had a way about him. You know, as the coach, people think coaches in different ways, like he wasn't a type of coach that if Oh, you are having trouble with your school work or you have any financial problems or something, you wouldn't go to Mr. Shaughnessy. [4:56] He wouldn't do things like that. But he had great assistant coaches like Marty Schwartz, Phil Bankston, Jim Lawson and if you were backfield man, p.4 you went to your backfield coachand so on and so forth. But he, Mr. Shaughs, I keep calling him Mr. Shaughs because that's what you call... Bob: [5:13] With a little respect. Milton: [5:14] A lot of respect. Bob: [5:16] ...lot of respect. Yeah. Milton: [5:18] Yeah. In fact, the first thing he told us, when he came in that day to meet us was "Now boys", he called us boys, he says "Now boys, you read some things in the paper, about this and that and so forth but I just wanted you to understand this, my name is Mr. Shaughnessy or Coach". So that, take care of that, we know we were going to call him "Soup." Bob: [5:40] Yeah. And no Clark either huh? Milton: [5:41] No Clark either. No, no, no. Bob: [5:43] No, not that stuff. Now you talked about some of the assistant coaches, Phil Bankston later became known as one of the great minds in the game of football, spent a lot of time with Vince Lombardi, with the Green Bay Packers and Jim Lawson of course was a great All American, played with Ernie Nevers at Stanford Wizard, great, great player. So... Milton: [6:01] Marty Schwartz? Bob: [6:02] Yeah. Marty became Head Coach at Stanford and had a lot of success before it ran out and... Milton: [6:06] I had... Bob: [6:07] ..that led to... Milton: [6:09] Do you know... Bob: [6:10] ...to all kinds of stuff. p.5 Milton: [6:11] Did you know Marty was kind of a kid's toy for me. I was about 12-13 years old living in Los Angeles, I was a native San Franciscan but for whatever reason, I was living in Los Angeles for a few years and everything was USC down there of course. So rather than going along with that, Marty Schwartz was playing at Notre Dame at that time. So for whatever reason they'd be talking about their USC pals, I'd say I think Schwartz in Notre Dame is better, Schwartz this, Schwartz... Bob: [laughs] [6:42] Milton: [6:43] P.S. They started calling me Schwartz. Well... Bob: [6:44] Marty was a great player in Notre Dame. Great. Milton: [6:47] Oh. All time great. A half-back. Bob: [6:48] Yeah. Milton: [6:50] He was [Inaudible : ] , I mean one time as the one of the all time great players. So the fact that I followed Marty at that crazy time living in Los Angeles, only because I didn't like USC. Bob: [7:01] Yeah. Milton: [7:02] Now Marty comes and becomes first of the assistant coach and he was my backfield coach and we became very close friends. He, and Rosemary and the kids, in fact I used to baby-sit and some of the fellows thought that I got to playing because I did a little extra on the side. Bob: [7:19] Vuc, lets get into the times, because I think it is interesting. There was trouble in the world then. Obviously in Europe, Hitler had shown a lot of people what he was going to do at the 36th Olympics. I mean I don't know why we didn't figure that out a lot sooner. We didn't know a whole lot about Japan and the Far East and the South Pacific, but it was a peaceful world in the United States then. The United States was coming out of the depression, everybody was looking good, feeling good, they were happy times.