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College Football Historical Society

VOL. XXX, NO. III MAY 2017 ROCKNE’S BOYS: CLIPPER SMITH

By Tim Hudak

The second article in my series about men who played for and then went on to coach at Catholic colleges deals with Maurice “Clipper” Smith. Legend has it that he received the nickname “Clipper” from his teammates because he had a knack for clipping opposing players without getting caught by the officials. Maurice Smith, who was bom on October 15, 1898, in Manteno, Illinois, was a halfback at Notre Dame in 1917, but did not get much playing time because the starter was a fella by the name of . Smith found his true calling by moving to guard for the next three seasons; sportswriter Allison Danzig referred to him as “one of the original Rockne watch charm guards.”

Upon graduation in 1921, Smith received a recommendation from Rockne that helped him to land his first coaching job at Columbia College, a small Catholic college in Portland, Oregon. Columbia College (now known was the ) was founded in 1901 as a prep school by the Holy Cross brothers, the same order that founded Notre Dame, becoming a joint prep school and college when the college division was recognized as such in 1923. Maurice Smith was hired on April 8, 1921, as both the Athletic Director and the head football coach. Smith replaced another Rockne man., his former teammate Edward “Slip” Madigan, who left Columbia to take over as the head coach at St. Mary’s College in California. During the 1921 and 1922 seasons Columbia played a strictly high school schedule and nothing is known of the results.

During the 1923 and 1924 seasons, when the school’s college division was finally certified, Columbia played a collection of non-high school opponents that included athletic clubs, major college freshman teams, small college teams, and even a seminary team. Under Smith’s direction Columbia enjoyed success against the varied collection of opponents, winning four and losing two in 1923, then going 7-1 the next year. (Few sources anywhere have information about Maurice Smith’s time at Columbia. Most of the information given here came from a listing provided by Rich Topp.)

After the 1925 season Maurice Smith left Columbia College, following another Rockne alum, , to , a Catholic school run by the Jesuits in Spokane, . While information is also scarce about Smith’s years at Gonzaga (an article about the school’s football past on the official Gonzaga sports website completely passes over Smith’s years), some information has survived. Maurice Smith started at Gonzaga the year following what is considered the school’s all-time best season for football. In 1924 the Dorais-led Bulldogs had the only undefeated season in team history, going 5-0-2 and posting five shutouts — both ties were 0-0 games. The Bulldogs of 1925 continued that PAGE 2 success as Smith led them to a 7-2-2 record, tying the mark for the most wins in school history against a slate of teams somewhat more potent than the last seven-win team of 1913. The two ties came against Montana and Washington State, while the losses were 22-0 at the hands of Oregon State and a slim 10-9 loss to the Haskell Indians. The next season Clipper’s team did well against another formidable schedule, this time consisting of just eight games. After opening with a pair of shutout victories over Eastern Washington and , Gonzaga dropped a 23-6 decision to Oregon State. They then rebounded to defeat the usually strong Multnomah AC, 55-0, and followed this by handing Montana a 10-6 loss. In a game against “Slip” Madigan’s St. Mary’s Gaels the two teams played a scoreless tie, after which the Bulldogs took a 41-0 decision over the Tacoma AC.

One of the highlights of the 1926 season, at least for the players and coaches, came about a week before the Thanksgiving Day season finale against Washington State, a game to be played in Spokane. On that momentous day none other than Babe Ruth visited Gonzaga, taking time off from his theatrical tour. Ruth donned a uniform (the biggest one they had for his 200 lbs. frame) and kicked a new punts around the football field. He then had a few words for the team, including a prediction that they would defeat Washington State in the upcoming Homecoming game. Unfortunately, the Babe was a better player that prognosticator as the Bulldogs lost that game, 7-0, finishing the season at 5-2-1.

The 1927 campaign would prove to be Smith’s worst at Gonzaga as far as wins and losses went, as his team was now playing a schedule of all college opponents, most of them western stalwarts of the day. The Bulldogs opened with a 74-0 win over Eastern Washington, but would only score a total of 80 points over their next eight games. In the second game of the season against Whitman College, Smith, taking a page out of Rockne's coaching book, started the game by using his reserve backfield for the entire first quarter like his old mentor used to do when opening the game with his second team “shock troops.” The strategy did not seem to work this time as the Gonzaga offense failed to score a single point the entire game. However, the Bulldogs did win the game 7-0 on a 70-yard return of an in the fourth quarter. After barely getting by Whitman the Bulldogs suffered through three consecutive shutouts, including their second in a row against St. Mary’s, a 12-0 loss at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium.With its record now 2-3-0, Smith’s team rallied to end the season with three victories and a tie for a final mark of 5-3-1.

1928 would produce another fine season for the Gonzaga Bulldogs, marred only by two close defeats. They opened the season with a 31-0 thrashing of Central Washington, but the following week dropped a 3-0 heartbreaker to Washington State. Following a 6-6 tie with Idaho, the Bulldogs ran off five consecutive victories, including their first ever over St. Mary’s, 20-7. They missed out on another seven win record when they dropped the season finale to Montana, 7-0. In 1929, the SPIRE, the Gonzaga yearbook, sang the praises of Maurice Smith and what he had done with the school’s football team by noting that he “.. .has brought Gonzaga to the front ranks of western football and made her an enviable figure in the athletic world.” The March 12 issue of the school paper had an article about the visit to the school’s campus of a most distinguished visitor, none other than Smith’s old mentor Knute Rockne. The article stated how “Rockne addresses the boys and mentions a few intimate details of his association with ‘Clipper’ Smith. Scores solid with the fellows.”

The same school paper had announced on March 5 that “Gonzaga rejoices to learn” that Smith had signed a five-year contract to remain at the school. However, such would not be the case. The May 18 PAGE 3 edition of the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported that Smith had received an offer to coach ; although he had completed negotiations with Gonzaga on a new five-year contract, that contract had never been signed. On May 30 the Daily Chronicle reported that Smith had signed a new contract with Santa Clara, and that he was in fact leaving that very day to take up his new post. In his four seasons at Gonzaga, Maurice Smith had posted a record of 23-9-5, the second most victories ever of any Bulldogs coach, while his winning percentage of .689 was the best of any coach who had coached more than 20 games.

In an era when Catholic was heavily influenced by Knute Rockne and his Notre Dame football grads, Santa Clara University went in whole hog with Notre Dame alums to coach its team. From 1925 thru 1942 the were coached by a trio of Rockne alums: Adam Walsh, 1925-1928; Maurice “Clipper” Smith, 1929-1935; Lawrence T. “Buck” Shaw, 1936-1942. (Shaw would actually spend a total of 14 years at Santa Clara, being an assistant coach under Maurice Smith from 1929-35.)

Taking the head coaching job at Santa Clara was a big step for “Clipper” Smith. It put him on a much bigger stage than that of relatively small schools like Columbia College and Gonzaga, and provided Smith an opportunity to coach against some big time rivals such as California and Stanford. And for Santa Clara that big time rival list also included St. Mary’s — which was the major rival as far as the Broncos were concerned. A major reason that Smith was chosen to coach the Broncos was the fact that at Gonzaga he had had some success against the Gaels, posting a win and a tie in three games. Santa Clara on the other hand, had not defeated St. Mary’s since 1923.

However, it was not simply his apparent success against St. Mary’s that attracted Smith to the Santa Clara people. “Clipper” was a football innovator who was highly respected as an offensive strategist (he even wrote syndicated newspaper columns on football strategy and tactics). With the help of , Smith greatly expanded the Santa Clara play book. Although he continued the use of the Notre Dame single wing “box” formations that Adam Walsh had brought to Santa Clara, Smith added his own wrinkles that became known as the “Smith-Notre Dame System.” These plays often had very colorful names like the King Alfonso Shift, the Double Distractor, the Multiple Reverse Spinner, and the Pogo Pass. Not only did these plays confuse opposing defenses, but quite often they were just as confusing to his own players. Smith did not neglect defense, however. Of the 64 games that he coached at Santa Clara his teams gave up nine points or less 53 times, including 24 shutouts. All seven of his Bronco teams finished among the school’s all-time top 13 for fewest points allowed in a season. Also, on a lighter side, like many athletes Smith had a superstition or two. He would spend time on game days looking for a white cat, thinking it was a sign of good luck. PAGE 4

Smith’s first season at Santa Clara opened with a squad of 40 players (out of a student body of about 400), most of those players being from the local area. The first game was on September 28, 1929, the now yearly encounter with the U. of California, a team that Santa Clara had been playing, and losing to, annually since 1922. Like those previous seven encounters the Broncos dropped this one, 27-6. The Broncos won two of their next three games, leading to their showdown with ’s St. Mary’s Gaels in that season’s edition of the “Little Big Game” as it was known around the Bay Area; the “Big Game” being the annual Stanford-California tussle. Santa Clara was a three-touchdown underdog to the Gaels, but the score was still 0-0 going into the fourth quarter before St. Mary’s scored the game’s only points on a 66-yard pass play for a 6-0 victory. St. Mary’s ended the season ranked at #9 in the country.

With their record 2-3-0 the Broncos now had to face Pop Warner’s Stanford Indians, 7-1-0 and ranked as the nation’s #7 team. Warner opened the game by using his second team, but the strategy backfired as the Broncos took an early 7-0 lead. Stanford tied the score early in the third quarter, but the Broncos came back late in the same quarter to regain the advantage, 13-7. Most of the final quarter was spent in the Santa Clara end of the field, putting the Broncos’ defense to the test. One Stanford drive was halted a foot from the end zone, another at the Bronco three yard line, while yet another, with just a minute to play, was halted at the five. The Broncos’ 13-7 victory was their biggest in years, the AP football writer calling it the biggest upset in the country that week. The Broncos then closed out the season by defeating Loyola of Los Angeles, 37-0, and then sailing west across the waves to defeat the U. of Hawaii, 25-0. Despite some tough times (two players had died during the season) and the loss to St. Mary’s, the win over Stanford made Smith’s first year a success and gave hope for the future.

And that success translated into some additional enthusiasm for football at the school as 55 gridiron hopefuls, a third more than the previous season, came out for the 1930 team. It would also mean big money at the gate for Santa Clara as the school’s football team continued to play well. With San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium as their “home” field, the Broncos under Maurice Smith would regularly draw crowds of 45,000-60,000, especially when they were playing the better teams on their schedule. During “Clipper” Smith’s seven years at Santa Clara the team’s schedule remained somewhat constant. Four opponents formed the core of every season: Stanford, California, St. Ignatius (which changed its name to the University of San Francisco in 1931), and, of course, St. Mary’s. As for the other teams on the schedule, Smith steadily upgraded the quality of those opponents until by 1935 the Broncos were playing a schedule comprised solely of quality western collegiate teams.

The results in both 1930 (5-3-1) and 1931 (5-4-1) were very similar to those of 1929. Despite playing close games, losses to each of the “big three” occurred both seasons. But the folks in the Bay area were starting to catch on to the overall quality of play by the Broncos. Perhaps the best example of this was the 1931 season opener at California’s Memorial Stadium. The Broncos led 2-0 on a first quarter safety until the Golden Bears scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter for a 6-2 win — before more than 70,000 spectators. Unfortunately, Smith’s team needed crowds like that to help offset the “crowd” of 25 who came out later that season to see them play the U. of Wyoming in Laramie, a game played in a blinding snowstorm with the temperature dipping to 10 degrees below zero. Those 25 in attendance were trustees from a nearby prison who had cleared the snow off of the football field.

In his first three seasons at Santa Clara, using players mostly recruited by his predecessor, “Clipper” Smith’s teams had posted a moderately successful record of 15-10-2. Starting with the 1932 squad these PAGE 5 would be Smith’s teams alone, and even though the school still had less than 500 students he would have to start showing some results against the big name teams — Cal, Stanford, and especially St. Mary’s. The Broncos had already defeated Stanford once, but now Cal and St. Mary's had to be taken down.

As Chuck Hildebrand wrote in his book about Santa Clara football entitled “Bronco Sundays,” in 1932 Smith continued “polishing some tactics of his own. Always a believer in misdirection plays, Smith had come up with the Multiple Spinner offense as a way of embellishing Santa Clara’s overall lack of speed. The offense ... was an offshoot of the Notre Dame box, but it placed an even greater emphasis on footwork, ball handling and isolating defensive players. Smith even used a flanker on occasion — a play that wouldn’t become commonplace in football for another quarter-century. The offense was almost as hard to follow defensively as it was to execute offensively.” It did not hurt their chances that the Broncos would go into the ’32 season with their best backfield in recent memory, led by “Diamond Joe” Paglia who “appeared capable of dominating games with his arm, ball-carrying, and especially his kicking leg.” It is Paglia’s punts during practice that gave birth to the term “coffin comer kicks,” as he practiced his punting by kicking into a coffin set near the front comers of the end zone.

In the season opener against California the Broncos took a 6-0 lead in the first quarter, and then turned to the punting of Joe Paglia to keep the Golden Bears buried deep in their own end of the field. All of Diamond Joe’s punts landed inside the Cal 10 yard line, “and the Bears incredibly did not cross that line once during the first 30 minutes of the game.” In the second half the Broncos continued their great defensive play and added a fourth quarter TD for their first ever win over California, 12-0. The Broncos were unable to immediately capitalize on this big win as they were shutout by both Oregon and Stanford in their next two games. They then defeated the San Diego Marines, 32-0, but lost to St. Mary’s, 14-13, after taking a 13-0 lead just five minutes into the game. With their record now 2-3-0 the Broncos closed out the season with four consecutive victories to finish at 6-3-0, the team’s most wins since 1921.

The 1933 season again opened against California with 50,000 looking on. As usual Smith’s Broncos were the underdog, but the SC defense and punting of Paglia kept the game a scoreless tie into the fourth quarter. Late in the game another of Paglia's great punts went out of bounds inside the Cal one yard line. As was the custom back then, the Golden Bears immediately punted, but a huge Bronco forced a poor kick that was downed at the Cal 15 yard line. On fourth and one from the six yard line, the Broncos went for it and made a first down at the two. Frank Sobrero then took the snap from center and went around the right side untouched for the touchdown. Paglia’s extra point gave the Broncos a 7-0 victory.

Like the previous year, Smith’s team could not generate any momentum from its big opening day win and dropped the next two games to Stanford and the San Diego Marines. Following those two defeats the Broncos rebounded to shut out both the Olympic Club and Rice, setting up the big annual showdown with St. Mary's in the “Little Big Game.” That game got off to a great start for the Gaels when Al Nichelini went 66 yards for a touchdown on the very first snap of the game. Santa Clara came right back and marched for the game tying TD on its first possession. Those early scores would prove to be the only points of a game which ended in a 6-6 tie before more than 50,000 fans at Kezar Stadium. The 1933 season ended with Santa Clara winning its last three in a row to give the Broncos six straight without defeat and a 6-2-1 record, Smith’s best season yet at the school. One of those late season victories was a 24-7 win over the U. of Hawaii in the New Year’s Classic Bowl in Honolulu. *** TO BE CONTINUED ***