Dutch Fehring, Paul Cardoza Combined
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p.1 Dutch Fehring, Paul Cardoza combined Murphy: [0:00] OK folks, this is April 29th. We're having a little conversation with Dutch Fehring and Paul Cardoza here and rehashing some memories and just having fun talking about one another. [0:12] Dutch Fehring is with us and Dutch, first let's talk a little bit. You delighted me by sending me a picture of yourself with John Wooten and this year you and John sat together down at Pauley Pavilion and watched Stanford defeat UCLA as a matter of fact and I love the picture a little note on it from you, a little note from John. Tell the folks a little bit. You guys were athletes at a place called West Lafayette Indiana. That goes back a few years coach. Dutch Fehring: [0:44] It goes back to 1931-32. Actually, John went to high school in Martinsville, Indiana which is only 35 miles from my hometown of Columbus, Indiana. Up until my sophomore year in high school we always played a home and home each year but there was an altercation between a Martinsville boy named Reynolds and a Columbus boy named Gilfus that ended up in real serious problems so the principals decide to not play for a while. [1:26] So as a result I didn't get to play against John Wooten until I went to Purdue. Then as a freshman he was a junior, I got to practice against him a lot. We didn't have a freshman schedule at the time so most of our practices were scrimmages against the varsity. So that's when I really got to know John of course as a sophomore he was a senior. I got to play with him one year. Murphy: [2:05] Well your friend Paul Cardoza is with you here today and we got to go back. Dutch of course came to Stanford we're going to cover that, but you and Dutch were in the travel business together and you led all kinds of Stanford tours to different parts of the country and I don't know who was the patron saint in this travel group [laughs] that you're in, but I know that the training methods were not always perfect. Paul Cardoza: [2:28] Not exactly perfect, Bob. But we got along very well together with Dutch and Edna was an integral part of things for a while, too- Dutch's wife. We had a lot of success stories of friendships and things that just never dissolved, they've been there forever. Murphy: [2:48] Well before we get through here today we're going to talk about our trips to Hawaii. We're going to talk about our trips to Michigan, our trips to Penn State and Army. We went to Army and we went to see Plunkett play his first game in the National Football League. We're going to get to that, Paul, but you're the guardian angel here so we'll get you in here every once in a while. Dutch you were at UCLA after the war. How about through the war and up to your time at UCLA? Can you tell the folks a little bit about that? Fehring: [3:20] Well I graduated in Berkley in 1934 and spent part of the summer with the Chicago White Sox and had the offer to become the head freshman football, basketball and baseball coach at Purdue, if I wanted it. That offer was made to me as a p.2 junior by my football coach and athletic director Noble Kaiser. [3:54] There was a terrible depression going on then. It was really hard to find employment. There were engineers and doctors selling apples on the street to make ends meet. So I had a chance to go to spring training with the White Sox the following year, but if I had done that I would have had to give up my coaching at Purdue. So I took a sure thing and for 10 years I stayed at Purdue and became the head baseball coach after three years and was coaching football varsity wise and it was a real nice set up for me. [4:39] Then I went into the Navy and spent three years in the Navy and came back out and couldn't find a place for Edna and the girls to live in Lafayette. Everything was booked up. Purdue had some experimental homes from the company called Rusk Aide Construction Company, the same name as the stadium. They were building homes that were pre-fabricated and they would build them in at the company and then bring the pieces out and put them up together. I had been promised one of those homes. [5:27] About that time Tim Tatum, who I met at the University of Iowa when I was there in the Navy, had taken a job as head coach of the University of Oklahoma. He called me and said, "Dutch I'd like for you to come down and help us with spring practice and bring enough clothes to stay for a month." So I went down and Bud Wilkinson was there as an assistant coach and Chap Haskell whom I'd succeeded in the Navy in Seattle was the athletic director so it was like going into old home week for me. Murphy: [6:08] Norman, Oklahoma Dutch. Norman Oklahoma. OK. Fehring: [6:12] So they offered me a job as assistant football coach and I took it and spent two of the happiest years of my life in Norman, Oklahoma. Tatum left after the one year and went back to coach at Maryland and he wanted the whole staff to go with him. We also had an interview with the track coach at Cal who became the acting athletic director, Brutus Hamilton. Brutus interviewed our whole staff in New York City at a coach's meeting. [6:55] He said that if Lynn Waldorf doesn't take the job at Cal and I don't think he will, I'd like to offer your staff, your whole staff the job. Well, I'd always wanted to live in California and I though well isn't this something. Murphy: [7:13] Did you get to California in the Navy, Dutch? Fehring: [7:16] I was stationed at Iowa preflight after indoctrination in North Carolina. Incidentally I was on watch duty with Ted Williams when he was a cadet down there and that was a thrill. From Iowa I was sent to San Diego and from San Diego, Bud Wilkinson and I were sent out at the same time. They had so many officers going through San Diego they didn't have enough Navy places for them so they took over a wing of the Del Coronado Hotel. Bud and I lived in one of the rooms down for about six weeks. Murphy: [7:59] That's pretty good living, coach. That's pretty good living [laughter] . Fehring: [8:02] That'll spoil you. One day I remember coming down that old elevator they had that went up to the third floor and came down slowly. A movie star, Claudette Colbert, and her husband who was a doctor in the Navy came down and I got to ride down the same elevator with her. That was really livin'. [8:32] But from there I was on a p.3 small carrier for a while. Then came back and became the athletic director at what is now Miramar Air Force Base which at that time was Camp Kearney. I thought sure that I'd be finishing my career there because the war had ended in August and now it's October. [9:09] Len Casanova was the head of the program I was in for all of the West Coast, and he wanted to get out so he called me up one day. He said, "Dutch, I'm getting out and I'd like to recommend you for my job. There's a house connected with it." [9:28] I said "Cas, I don't want to move." I said, "I've only got about three months left myself." And I had a nice place to live in San Diego County and was getting along fine. Two days later, I get my orders to go to Seattle. So, that's where I wound up, in Seattle. Murphy: [9:47] Not quite the Coronado Hotel up there. [laughter] Fehring: [9:50] No. But it was the Sand Point Naval Air Station, and they called it the Country Club of the Navy although I couldn't find a place with a family to live. They stayed in Carmel with my brother, Ted, and his family. I did have quite a bit of time in California when I was in the Navy. [10:14] I had a choice when I got out of indoctrination school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I had a choice of one of six pre-flight schools, three of which were in California: St. Mary's, Del Monte and St. Mary's. Anyway, there were three of them. Murphy: [10:39] Now, all those played football during the war, too. Fehring: [10:41] Yes, they did. Murphy: [10:42] They did. And Frankie Albert, as a matter of fact, played at St. Mary's Pre-Flight. Fehring: [10:45] Right. And Billy Alhouse played baseball there. That's how he got the bug for California.