Football Ups and Downs

Football Ups and Downs By HAROLD KEITH FOR 47 consecutive years now, the an- essary and beneficial part in promoting man right out on the prairie north of the nual autumnal mania known as football an over-all efficiency by relieving the present Fine Arts Building . Wearing has fevered University of Oklahoma stu- strains of war and work ." home-made uniforms, the University boys dents, faculty, alumni, and thousands of Football made its start at Norman were soundly licked, 0 to 34 . Harts outsiders as well to such a sweltry pitch back in 1895, twelve years before state- twisted a knee and had to retire, and be- of excitement that until the gridiron season hood. Then the country we now know fore it was over, the befuddled Norman ends in late November, all the ice in Ant- as Oklahoma was still in its frontier stage . boys were borrowing the Oklahoma City arctica probably could not cool them back On the west was the brash young Repub- subs so they'd have a full lineup . A to normalacy. lican upstart known as Oklahoma Terri- large crowd watched the fun with mixed Great holiday throngs of gay, smartly- tory whose prairies had been freshly emotions and wondered what devilment attired people sometimes numbering more peopled by a series of runs; on the east, the giddy Norman college boys would than 30,000 now move from all over Okla- struggling with the splendid tragedy of think up next. homa in a single golden October after- its doomed tribal governments was the In 1897 studious, be-spectacled Verne noon to the big red-tiled Sooner stadium much older Indian Territory. Bill Doolin, Parrington, a young modern language at Norman to see with bated breath and the outlaw, was still robbing territory professor from Emporia, Kansas, who had to cheer with shrill pealing that some trains and banks on horseback which played some football at Harvard, joined times carries several miles the skillful in- gives you an idea of how far back in its the Oklahoma faculty and was drafted tercollegiate version of this rough, clean chrysalis the modern state of Oklahoma to coach football. He met the challenge sport that is so deeply rooted in the state's was tightly tucked when football was brilliantly and before Governor Charles high schools and ward schools . born at the three-year-old territorial uni- N. Haskell booted him off the faculty in Even war hasn't killed it, probably be- versity down at Norman, O . T., in the 1908 and started him towards a notable cause football as a spectacle is so much autumn of '95 . teaching career at the University of Wash- like war without entailing war's tre- The game here was spawned in Bud Ris- ington and a Pulitzer prize in history, mendous causalities. Football at the Uni- inger's green-front barber shop on Nor- Parrington's University of Oklahoma versity lived through both the Spanish- man's West Main street where John A . teams of 1897, '98, '99 and 1900 won nine and tied one of the total of 12 games played those four years . Some of the better-known players of the Parrington regime were Fred Roberts, a 190-pound farm boy from Mayfield, Kansas, who Norman old-timers declare was the greatest back ever developed at Norman; two fine tackles in rugged Joe Me kle, another hard-twisted farm lad, and Ed Barrow, a mixed-blood Indian from the Chickasha country ; Jap Clap- ham, a plucky end who still lives at Nor- man; Tom Tribbey, a 230-pound young Goliath from the Pottawatomie country who had never ridden on a railroad train prior to the Texas game of 1900, C . C. Roberts, Clyde Bogle and others. In 1901 Professor Parrington felt the press of teaching duties and passed his TROPHIES WON BY O . U . ATHLETES coaching toga on to Fred Roberts . In 1902 and 1903 Mark McMahan, a Texas Shown here is a small part o f the trophies won through the years by the University's player who wore a walrus mustache, took . Represented in the impressive group of shiny gold and silver victorious athletes the coaching job to make expenses toward awards are major and minor sports included in O . U . 's athletic program . his enrolment in a law school. In 1904 the Sooner coach was Dr. Fred Ewing of American and first World Wars and prob- Harts, a long-haired expression student Knox college. ably will exist through the present all- from Winfield, Kansas, who had played That was the year the Sooners met the planet struggle as well . the game in his home state, organized a Oklahoma Aggies for the first time and President Roosevelt was shooting at the team at the University, spiking it with won, 75 to 0. However, the score won', reason for its necessity when he recently Fred Perry, who drove the prancing steeds be remembered nearly so long as will an told his press conference : "It has been that drew the Norman fire wagon, and incident of the game during which the proved beyond doubt that human beings other non-students. There was no both- Sooners scored a touchdown in a creek. cannot sustain continued and prolonged ersome Big Six conference eligibility com- The game was played at old Island park work for very long, without obtaining a mittee to plague the football set-up in in Guthrie . A harassed Aggie punter proper balance between work on the one those raw days. standing almost on his goal line, kicked hand and vacation and recreation on the This first University team ignominiously the ball straight up in the air . The rag- other. Such recreation may come by par- failed to score a point. Its only game ing north wind carried it back over his ticipation in or attendance at various was with the bigger, rougher -and vastly head. With both teams pursuing it, the sports, motion pictures, music, the drama, more experienced Oklahoma City Town leather bounded into flood-swollen Cot- picnics, et tetra . All of them have a nec- Team. The contest was played in Nor- tonwood creek . Both teams fearlessly 12 SOONER MAGAZINE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS OF 1915 One of the several great teams outstanding in the University of Oklahoma's football history . splashed in after it but while Sooner Tom almost as fast as Mexican presidential ad- handidaps. In 1908 he developed his B. Matthews ducked an Aggie who was ministrations after Diaz. Next to Owen, first formidable team at Norman, a big about to lay hands on it, Sooner Ed Cook the Sooner football coach who held his Sooner outfit that whipped Texas 50 to 0, captured it and swimming to the opposite job the longest was Ad Lindsey and his at Norman . Built around Willard Doug- bank, shiveringly touched it down for a stint, from 1927 through 1931, lasted only las and Ralph Campbell, greatest pair of score. five years . offensive tackles in the school's history, When the game was ten years old at At first, Owen met far more obstacles this Sooner team romped through its ten- Norman, the players began to look around at Oklahoma than he had encountered at game schedule, losing only to Kansas . for a permanent coach. Everybody's Bethany, due to lack of playing talent Tackles Douglas and Campbell not only choice was Bennie Owen, a soft-spoken and a schedule that took his club all over smashed enemy plays on defense, but their little Irishman from Arkansas City, Kan- the midlands. He struggled six years be- vicious ball-carrying on Owen's "tackle sas, who played quarterback under Field- fore defeating mighty Kansas, the scourge around" plays was murderous . In the ing H. Yost at Kansas in '99 . The Uni- of the old Missouri Valley in those days, Texas triumph Douglas and Campbell versity at Norman could personally vouch but he beat Texas 2 to 0 at Oklahoma not only scored four touchdowns but each for Owen's football coaching ability. In City the first year he coached . He had proved his speed afoot by catching fleet 1903 and 1904 Owen's hard-fighting Beth- financial worries, too . Trips were long Texas backs from behind after long any Swedes from Lindsborg, Kansas had and gate receipts light. To circumvent chases to prevent Texas touchdowns . met Sooner teams at Oklahoma City and this, Owen had to book as many as three The most convincing proof of Owen's expertly administered two drubbings, 12- games on one trek and his small, light greatness as a football coach lay in his 10 and 36-9. Owen had earlier been called squads would be simply too exhausted ability to adapt his offensive style to his to Michigan where he helped Yost de- to handle it. sketchy material . A comparison of his velop the famous point-a-minute Michi- For example, in 1905 Owen's squad four greatest teams, the Sooner aggrega- gan team built around the great Willie played Kansas, the Kansas City Medics tions of 1908, 1911, 1915 and 1920 whose Heston . and Washburn, at Lawrence, Kansas City combined record was only one defeat in In 1905 Owen was hired. The first and Topeka during a bruising five-day 35 games, illustrates this. two years owing to a reduced financial trip. In 1909 the Sooners rode a chair budget he came to Norman in the autumn car to St. Louis, defeating St . Louis Uni- The 1908 team, built around Douglas only, returning after the football season versity 11-5, then continued by rail to and Campbell, the salty ball-lugging tack- to Arkansas City to manage his restau- Dallas, Texas, where they were spanked les, was primarily a power outfit with a rant, but eventually the University Ath- four days later by the Texas Aggies, 0-19, large assortment of plays from the old- letic Association adjusted its finances so and that night entrained for Austin, Tex- style mass game.

Load more