PIGSKIN WARRIORS: COLLEGE FOOTBALL'S GREATEST TRADITIONS, GAMES AND PLAYERS
By STEVEN TRAVERS
Foreword by
Taylor Trade
A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
COPYRIGHT (2008) BY STEVEN TRAVERS
FRONT AND BACK DUSTCOVERS
Every true college football fan has experienced it; an alumni or student from another team wearing a T-shirt, breathlessly informing you and the world that his team has won “eleven national championships,” or was the “1932 national champions,” or some such variation on the theme. The fan scratches his head and thinks to himself, “Wait a minute . . . my alma mater was the national champion that year,” or “I thought that school had the most national championships . . .”
The media has picked up on it, reporting random and scattered bits of incomplete and often entirely incorrect intelligence as if it is fact. Now, for the first time, well regarded sports historian Steven Travers has sifted through the propaganda, the myths, the falsehoods and half-truths to deliver true, honest reportage on well over a century of the popular American pastime of collegiate football.
As we approach the 140th anniversary of college football in 2009, here is the bottom line when it comes to national championships; those that are legitimate, those that history now regards as bogus, and those that would have been awarded had fairness and accuracy been the overriding theme of the given day. Travers also compiles an impressive list of Heisman Trophy and Outland Trophy winners; All-Americans; bowl performances; all-time winning records; winning streaks, great runs, decades and dynasties; pro football representation; and a host of other detailed criteria. He combines his extraordinary research – legitimate versus illegitimate national championships, the modern versus the “leather helmet” era - giving weight and heft to storied tradition and panache. He tells a tale of the sport’s role in society, the growth of television, and of college football as big business, all outlined against a “blue, gray October sky” of American history.
The result? The author breaks down well over a century’s worth of the pigskin game, separating the great from the good, the elite from the great; the best from the rest; until in the end College Football’s All-Time Top 25 Traditions stand tall and proud in an Associated Press-style poll, telling the story not of a single year, but of an entire American century. At the top of this poll stands a single champion; a program, a tradition, a record that is so impressive they are adorned the title “national champions of college football history.” This title for the New Millennium is theirs to wear, and for future stars to try and defend with every ounce of energy, strength and pride they have, as we embark on the twenty-first century.
So here it is: the statistics, the stories and the lore of a game that has and will continue to dominate fall Saturdays for another hundred years to come.
BACK COVER
ABOUT STEVEN TRAVERS
(with photo)
Steven Travers is a USC graduate and ex-professional baseball player. He is the author of the best-selling Barry Bonds: Baseball’s Superman, nominated for a Casey Award (best baseball book of 2002). He is also the author of The USC Trojans: College Football’s All-Time Greatest Dynasty (a National Book Network “top 100 seller”); One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game That Changed a Nation (subject of a documentary and major motion picture); five books in the Triumph/Random House Essential series (A’s, Dodgers, Angels, D’backs, Trojans), The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Los Angeles Lakers, The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Oakland Raiders, The Good, the Bad & the Ugly San Francisco 49ers, The Last Miracle: Tom Seaver and the 1969 Amazin’ Mets (Globe Pequot Press), and A Tale of Five Cities: New York, L.A., San Francisco, Washington & Moscow in the October of ’62 (McGraw-Hill). Steve was a columnist for StreetZebra magazine in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Examiner. He also penned the screenplay, The Lost Battalion. Travers coached baseball at USC, Cal-Berkeley and in Europe; attended law school, served in the Army, and is a guest lecturer at the University of Southern California. Steve has a daughter, Elizabeth Travers and resides in California.
FRONT INSIDE COVER
Praise for Steven Travers
Steve Travers is the next great USC historian, in the tradition of Jim Murray, John Hall, and Mal Florence! . . . the Trojan Family needs your work. Fight On!
—USC Head Football Coach Pete Carroll
. . . Steve Travers tells us all about the exciting and remarkable football . . . . that not only changed the way the game is played; it . . . changed the world.
—Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump
Steve Travers combines wit, humor, social pathos and historical knowledge with the kind of sports expertise that only an ex-jock is privy to; it is reminiscent of the work of Jim Bouton, Pat Jordan and Dan Jenkins, combined with Jim Murray’ turn of phrase, Hunter Thompson’s hard-scrabble Truths, and David Halberstam’s unique take on our nation’s place in history. His writing is great storytelling, and the result is pure genius every time.
—Westwood One radio personality Mike McDowd
Steve Travers is a great writer, an educated athlete who knows how to get inside the player’s heads, and when that happens, greatness occurs. He’s gonna be a superstar.
—Dave Burgin/Ex-editor, San Francisco Examiner
Steve Travers is a phenomenal writer, an artist who labors over every word to get it just right, and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of sports and history.
—StreetZebra magazine
Steve Travers is a Renaissance man.
—Jim Rome Show
He is very qualified to continue to write books such as this one. Good job.
—Marty Lurie/”Right Off the Bat” Oakland A’s Pregame Host
Steve’s a literate ex-athlete, an ex-Trojan, and a veteran of Hollywood, too.
—Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton/XTRA Radio, San Diego
You’ve done some good writin’, dude.
—KFOG Radio, San Francisco
[Travers is] one of the great sportswriters on the current American scene.
—Joe Shea/Radio Talk Host and Editor
Travers appears to have the right credentials for the task.
—USA Today Baseball Weekly
A very interesting read which is not your average . . . book. . . . Steve has achieved his bona fides when it comes to having the credentials to write a book like this.
—Geoff Metcalfe/KSFO Radio, San Francisco
This is a fascinating book written by a man who knows his subject matter inside and out.
—Irv Kaze/KRLA Radio, Los Angeles
Travers . . . established himself as a writer of many dimensions . . . a natural.
—John Jackson/Ross Valley Reporter
Steve Travers is a true USC historian and a loyal Trojan!
—Former USC football player John Papadakis
Pete Carroll calls you “the next great USC historian,” high praise indeed.
- Rob Fukuzaki/ABC7, Los Angeles
You’re a great writer and I always enjoy your musings . . . particularly on SC football - huge fan!
- Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane
Also written by Steven Travers
One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game That Changed a Nation
A’s Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
Trojans Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
Dodgers Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
Angels Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
D’Backs Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real
The USC Trojans: College Football's All-Time Greatest Dynasty
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Oakland Raiders
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly San Francisco 49ers
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Los Angeles Lakers
Barry Bonds: Baseball’s Superman
The Last Miracle: Tom Seaver and the 1969 Amazin’ Mets
A Tale of Five Cities: New York, L.A., San Francisco, Washington & Moscow in the October of ‘62
God's Country: A Conservative, Christian Worldview of How History Formed the United States Empire and America's Manifest Destiny for the 21st Century
Angry White Male
The Writer’s Life
This book is dedicated to the memory of former Arizona State football star Pat Tillman, who embodied all that makes America great
Photo captions
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
O.J. Simpson, Marcus Allen, Mike Garrett, Charles White, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Carson Palmer, John McKay, Howard Jones, Pete Carroll, Ronnie Lott, Anthony Munoz, Anthony Davis, Ron Yary, Frank Gifford, Craig Fertig, Doyle Knave, Brice Taylor
NOTRE DAME
Angelo Bertelli, Johnny Lujack, Leon Hart, Johnny Lattner, Paul Hornung, John Huarte, Tim Brown, Joe Montana, Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Marchy Scwartz, "The Four Horsemen"
ALABAMA
Bear Bryant, Ken Stabler, Joe Namath, John Hannah, Dwight Stephenson
OKLAHOMA
Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Jason White, Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer
OHIO STATE
Vic Janowicz, Howard Cassady, Archie Griffin, Eddie George, Troy Smith, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel
NEBRASKA
Johnny Rodgers, Dean Steinkuhler, Dave Rimington, Bob Devaney, Tom Osborne, Mike Rozier, 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma game
MIAMI
Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Bernie Kosar, Michael Irving, Ted Hendricks
TEXAS
Ricky Williams, Vince Young, Earl Campbell, Darrell Royal, Mack Brown, Tommy Nobis
MICHIGAN
Fielding Yost, President Jerry Ford, Tom Harmon, Desmond Howard, Charles Woodson, Tom Brady, Bo Schembechler, Lloyd Carr
PENN STATE
John Cappelletti, Mike Reid, Franco Harris, Joe Paterno, Ki-Jana Carter
FLORIDA STATE
Deion Sanders, Bobby Bowden, Chris Weinke
TENNESSEE
Bob Neyland, Johnny Majors, Peyton Manning
LSU
Billy Cannon, Nick Saban, JaMarcus Russell
AUBURN
Bo Jackson, Shug Jordan, Pat Sullivan
FLORIDA
Steve Spurrier, Danny Weurffell
GEORGIA
Herschel Walker, Vince Dooley, Frank Sinkwich, David Pollard
PITTSBURGH
Jock Sutherland, Mike Ditka, Dan Marino, Hugh Green
UCLA
Red Sanders, Terry Donahue, Gary Beban, Troy Aikman, Ronnie Knox, Ken Norton Jr.
MINNESOTA
Bernie Bierman, Bruce Smith, Bobby Bell
CALIFORNIA
Brick Muller, Joe Roth
ARMY
Red Blaik, Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis, Pete Dawkins
WASHINGTON
Gil Dobie, Steve Emtman, Don James, Warren Moon
MICHIGAN STATE
Bubba Smith, George Webster, Duffy Daugherty
STANFORD
Jim Plunkett, Ernie Nevers, John Elway, Pop Warner, Clark Shaughnessy
GEORGIA TECH
Joihn Heisman, Bobby Dodd
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
College Football’s All-Time Top 25 Traditions
Introduction: The Quest: Recognition, Legitimacy and Historical Revisionism
PART ONE: The Elite Ten
1. Southern California Trojans
2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
3. Alabama Crimson Tide
4. Oklahoma Sooners
5. Ohio State Buckeyes
6. Nebraska Cornhuskers
7. Miami Hurricanes
8. Texas Longhorns
9. Michigan Wolverines
10. Penn State Nittany Lions
PART TWO: Saturday Spectacle
Why USC?
Whose Number One?
Don’t Lose Your Bowl Game and Call Yourselves a Champion
The Sweep of History
The West, the Game, and Societal Evolution
The South Rises Again
The New Centurions
Ranking Tradition
PART THREE: The Best of the Best
Top Single-Season Teams
Top Single-Season Teams of the Decades
Teams of the Decades
Dynasties
Top Two-Year Periods
Top Three-Year Periods
Top 5/6-Year Periods
Top 10/15-Year Periods
Top 20/25-Year Periods
“Close But no Cigar”
PART FOUR: The Best of the Rest
11. Florida State Seminoles
12. Tennessee Volunteers
13. Florida Gators
14. Louisiana State Tigers
15. Auburn Tigers
16. Georgia Bulldogs
17. UCLA Bruins
18. Pittsburgh Panthers
19. Minnesota Golden Gophers
20. California Golden Bears
21. Army Black Knights
22. Washington Huskies
23. Michigan State Spartans
24. Stanford Indians/Cardinal
25. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
PART FIVE: Conferences, Games, Players and Coaches
A City (Los Angeles), a School (USC), a Game (the Rose Bowl), a State (California), a
Region (the West) . . . and a Conference (the Pacific-10)
“Whoa, Nellie!”: the Greatest Games Ever Played
All-Time All-American Team: the Greatest Players
All-Time Mythical Heisman Trophy: the Greatest Seasons
Heisman Trophy winners
Maxwell Trophy winners
Walter Camp Award winners
Davey O'Brien Award winners
Outland Trophy winners
Lombardi Award winners
Doak Walker Award winners
Jim Thorpe Award winners
Dick Butkus Award winners
Bronko Nagurski Award winners
Pro Football's Player of the Year and MVP Awards
Field Generals: the Greatest Coaches
PART SIX: the Bowls, the Polls and the Honor Rolls
The Bowls: January Jamboree
Rose Bowl
Orange Bowl
Cotton Bowl
Fiesta Bowl
Sugar Bowl
The Polls
College Football Hall of Fame
NFL Draft
Bibliography
Index
Photo captions
Chapter
Description
Left page title: College Football’s All-Time Top 25 Traditions
Right page title: Steven Travers
Acknowledgments
I would like to first thank my literary manager, Peter Miller of the PMA Film and Literary Agency in New York City. I also thank Craig Wiley. Thank you to Taylor Trade, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.; my editor, Rick Rinehart, and his assistant, Dulce Wilcox. Further thanks to production editor Alden Perkins, along with Katherine Smith, Jen Linck, Jenni Brewer, Sabrina Sicard and Lauren Pogue.
Thanks to Bridget Dungan, Meredith DePaolo and everybody over at College Sports TV. I would like to extend my thanks to Kerry McCluggage of Allumination/Craftsman Films, the legendary Trojan Anthony Davis, my good friend Jim Starr, and Lloyd Robinson of Suite A Management in Beverly Hills.
Thank you also to Professor Dan Durbin of the USC Annenberg School of Communications, for inviting me to be the guest speaker in his class “Sports, Culture and Society.” Thank you so much to the other panelists that day: Craig Fertig, Willie Brown, Manfred Moore, Dave Brown, George Follett, and Rod McNeill. Thanks also to Dr. Patricia Dean and Professor Ken Sereno of the Annenberg School.
Thank you so much to the USC Bookstore and USC Collections at the South Coast Plaza in Orange County for rolling out the red carpet for me.
I wish to thank former University of Southern California sports information director Jim Perry, who also co-authored legendary Trojan football coach John McKay’s successful 1970s autobiography, McKay: A Coach’s Story. Perry has been an institution for years at Heritage Hall. He was the SID when I worked alongside Tim Tessalone during my brief student internship in the USC sports information office. My gratitude goes out to Tim, who after succeeding Perry has maintained the high standards that Jim set for the office. A further shout-out to Jason Pommier and Paul Goldberg of USC’s football media relations, plus Chris Huston, who has helped me many times over the years.
Thank you to the University of Alabama sports information office, in particular Barry Allen and Larry White. Also, thank you to Jan Adams at the Paul W. Bryant Museum, and particularly Ken Gaddy. Thanks go to Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump.
Thanks to: John Heisler of the University of Notre Dame sports information department, and Bob Rose of the University of California sports information department. Thanks to the sports information departments at the Universities of Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State and Texas.
Thank you: Rob Fukuzaki, Dave Smith, Pete Arbogast, 710/KSPN, Fred Wallin, Harvey Hyde, Chuck Hayes, Suzanne Dowling and Chris Bryant of the University of Alabama media relations department, the University of Alabama Alumni Association, the University of Tennessee sports information office, Jeff Dubinsky of ESPN Classic, the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Alabama, Art Spander, Tom Kelly, Brad Green of the Paul W. Bryant Museum, Shirley Ito and Wayne Wilson of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. Thanks also to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Thank you to Karen Peterson for technical support, and thanks to Alex Jacobs for insight and analysis.
I would like to extend my gratitude to the past and present pastors, as well as all of my fellow members, at Christ Lutheran Church.
My most sincere thank-yous are reserved for the end. This includes my parents, who gave me encouragement and support, as they always do, and to my sweet daughter, Elizabeth Travers. No acknowledgments are complete without naming my cousin, Bill Friedrichs, and his wife Jean, whose great help and support over the years can never really be repaid. I also want to thank seven close friends: Terry and Cecile Marks, Kevin McCormack, Jake Downey, Mike McDowd, Don Rasmussen and Bradley Cole.
Finally, my biggest thank-you is reserved for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is the source of all that is good, decent, and true!
Foreword
COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S ALL-TIME TOP 25 TRADITIONS
1. Southern California Trojans
2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
3. Alabama Crimson Tide
4. Oklahoma Sooners
5. Ohio State Buckeyes
6. Nebraska Cornhuskers
7. Miami Hurricanes
8. Texas Longhorns
9. Michigan Wolverines
10. Penn State Nittany Lions
11. Florida State Seminoles
12. Tennessee Volunteers
13. Florida Gators
14. Louisiana State Tigers
15. Auburn Tigers
16. Georgia Bulldogs
17. UCLA Bruins
18. Pittsburgh Panthers
19. Minnesota Golden Gophers
20. California Golden Bears
21. Army Black Knights
22. Washington Huskies
23. Michigan State Spartans
24. Stanford Indians/Cardinal
25. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Others receiving “votes”: Arizona State, Arkansas, Brigham Young, Clemson, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Princeton, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Texas Christian, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Yale
Introduction
THE QUEST: RECOGNITION, LEGITIMACY AND HISTORICAL REVISIONISM
On January 1, 2007 I was fulfilling family tradition.
My father, Donald E. Travers, used to sit in the sunshine of Pasadena, California watching the Rose Bowl when I was little more than a gleam in his eye. When I started to come of age, he began to take me to the Rose Bowl. As a lifelong fan, student and alum of the University of Southern California, I came to regard the Arroyo Seco as our “winter residence.” Eventually, I began to take my daughter, Elizabeth to Rose Bowl games. So, we were carrying on a family tradition on January 1, 2007, watching Southern California defeat Michigan. We are big on tradition.
Sitting a few rows in front of me was a man wearing a Michigan T-shirt. The back of his shirt read, “MICHIGAN: 11 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS.” Hmm, eleven national titles, huh? Well, there was that co-national title they shared with Nebraska in 1997; the one that inspired the Bowl Championship Series and was supposed to end the awarding of co championships.
Okay, there was 1997. There was 1948. Then there was . . . there was . . . wait, there must be . . . more? Well, yes. There was 1918, 1923 and 1933. That was five. But where were the other six? Had they won six before World War I?
Then the public address announcer asked the mammoth throng to provide a “moment of silence” for recently deceased President Gerald Ford, “an All-American on Michigan’s national championship teams of 1932-1933.”
After that, I turned to the guy next to me, a USC man, and said, “Now that’s funny. How could Michigan have been the national champion of 1932 if USC was the national champion of 1932?” He was not exactly a historian, but he had certainly seen enough Trojan propaganda to possess at least vague knowledge that in 1932 Southern Cal coach Howard “Head Man” Jones led the greatest of his “Thundering Herd” teams to an unbeaten, untied season, something like nine shutouts (eight, actually, and only thirteen points allowed all year; including a 35-0 Rose Bowl victory over Jock Sutherland’s national powerhouse Pitt Panthers), and the national championship of college football!
Well, the truth is in 1932 there were more organizations awarding national championships than there were lobbyists in Washington, D.C. At least it seems that way. In almost any given year between 1920 and 1945, a host of polls, organizations, and computer systems ranging from the respected to the obscure were awarding “national championships” to various college football teams. Any team that might be considered among the top five, or even the top ten, could find a friendly group proclaiming them the nation’s best team of the year. It was like politics; baseline federal budgeting, debating, editorials. All you needed was to spin the facts, the figures, the story, shroud it in a little mystery, hope the audience did not know all the details, and put forth the proposition that this university or that was “number one!”
In 2006 I wrote The USC Trojans: College Football’s All-Time Greatest Dynasty. As the title suggests, this book carried the premise that Southern California was a champion for the ages above all other dynasties, East, West, North or South. In the back of that book I list all the national championships won between 1869 and 2005. As I investigated a little further, I came to realize that I like so many others had been bamboozled by some of the illegitimate “national championship” claims of various programs over the years. As we approach the 140th anniversary of college football (1869-2009), I decided there needed to be a book unshrouding the mystery once and for all. Here you have a work that describes every national champion, legit or not; peels away the façade of championship status from the undeserving (read: those unfortunate teams that lost their bowl games after being awarded premature national titles); and in the end allows you to decide.
This is not revisionist history. Every title is listed. There is no attempt to hide the past in the manner of Joseph Stalin murdering the census takers who described the failures of Communism. I have listed the Associated Press winners, the United Press International winners, the consensus champs, the co-champs, the winners of “other” polls; the teams that lost bowl games, did not play in bowl games, and even the “revised” winners who, if logic had ruled their respective days, would have been able to call themselves champions.
What is fascinating about college football is that it is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in American society, a true culture in and of itself. Despite the importance we place on it, and the rabid yearly battles to determine who is “number one,” a true way of deciding this very thing has never really been arrived at.
<ED: THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK I HAVE PLACED SIDEBARS SUCH AS THIS ONE. THESE SIDEBARS ARE MEANT TO BE PLACED MORE OR LESS WHERE I PLACE THEM WITHIN THE TEXT, BUT OF COURSE THE ACTUAL PAGE PRODUCTION WILL DETERMINE THEIR PLACEMENT. EACH SIDEBAR IS IN 11-POINT TYPE IN ORDER TO DIFFERENTIATE IT FROM THE TEXT. THE SDIEBARS USUALLY WILL BE DOUBLE-SPACED. SOME LONG LISTS WILL BE SINGLE-SPACED. THERE MAY BE SOME SIDEBARS, LISTS AND INFORMATION IN THIS BOOK MEANT TO BE PLACED IN BETWEEN CHAPTERS, NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF TEXT PAGES. THOSE SIDEBARS WILL APPEAR AT THE END/IN BETWEEN CHAPTERS>
Did you know . . .
That Yale coach Walter Camp is considered the “father of college football?” He began the naming of yearly All-American teams in the nineteenth century, which led to the popularization of the game and the countrywide desire to determine the “best,” whether players, teams or eventually national champions. All-American teams are now named in every men’s and women’s college and high school sport, plus other athletic endeavors. Furthermore, the term “All-American” has come to connote a certain kind of wholesomeness, unique to this nation’s character, indicative of our quest for excellence.
We have had systems, rankings, polls, computer analysis, multiple polling, and now the BCS. We have never had a true play-off, such as basketball’s “March Madness,” the College World Series, or the NFL play-offs leading to a Super Bowl. Most of the time, people arrive at the conclusion that the team awarded the national championship is indeed the best of the best. Some years, this is debated. In other years, gross injustice is done. Passions are inflamed. Anger is stirred.
The current system has its critics and its defenders. Many state that a play-off would award a hot team at the end of the season, which certainly has explained more than its share of upset winners in other sports. College football fans seem to place more value on non-conference games and early season records than any other sports supporters do. The BCS undoubtedly keeps people interested and talking. It has arguably produced some great non-championship bowl games that some say would not have been so exciting had they been part of a play-off format (in particular the 2007 Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl). Even its greatest “failure,” the co-national championships won by USC and LSU in 2003, satisfied some who liked the fact the Trojans were able to win their title in the traditional manner of all previous USC titles – victory in the Rose Bowl over a Big 10 opponent – without denying the Tigers their deserving shot.
Over the years, determining the national champion has at times made the 2000 Florida presidential recount look uncomplicated. Anybody can award a title. Some guy with a computer and some letterhead can claim this authority. If the Touchdown Club of Columbus decides the Ohio State Buckeyes are that season’s national champions, even if they got smoked in the Rose Bowl, then by golly who is to stop them? Some titles are seemingly awarded in a manner almost as secret as a Mossad assassination order. To publicize it at the time is to open the award to scorn and derision.
Then one day a few years or decades later a T-shirt is made, a media guide is published, a press release is produced, claiming this “national championship.” The unsuspecting fan reads it and is duly impressed that this school or that school has won a slew of such things, and therefore is worthy of great imprimatur as a grid tradition.
These championships go forth, like toothpaste squeezed out of the tube, synapses in the air, words in the wind, sticking like graffiti or hot dog wrappers against the wall. There are no asterisks, nobody attaching caveats to Alabama’s claim that they were the “national champions of 1973,” or Texas’s proud assertion that 1970 was their year, despite the fact that in both of these cases the season ended in abject bowl defeat at the hands of the victorious Notre Dame Fighting Irish!
Until now!
Did you know . . .
That due to 18 deaths and 159 serious injuries in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt created rule changes, allowing for a “more open game,” including the establishment of a neutral zone along the line of scrimmage and creation of the forward pass?
Some claims are more outrageous than others. Ohio State’s media guide carries a section on Buckeye “national champions.” One of these is of the 1970 team, complete with a team photo and the assertion that in that year the team was named national champs by the National Football Foundation, or that the 1961 Bucks won the “football writer’s” version. How misleading. Were these “titles” awarded in a dark room disclosed to nobody? The 1961 “football writer’s” title, for instance, leaves the impression that they were the AP champs, a perfectly legitimate title, albeit one that came with a co attached to it if the UPI had not seen it that way.
But what the Ohio State guide fails to mention (oh, let’s face it, they did not fail to mention it, they just plain do not want you to get the right idea), is that Alabama was the consensus 1961 champion, an unbeaten team that won their bowl game and captured the AP and UPI championships, while Ohio State was saddled by a tie while not even playing in a bowl. (Not only did they not play in bowl, they turned down an invitation to the Rose Bowl, theoretically because if they played and lost they could not claim this “title.”) So who are the “football writers?” Traditionally, the AP (consisting of the media as opposed to the UPI “coaches poll”) make up the football writers, but not in this case. So who were they?
Well, apparently some football writers. They awarded something called the MacArthur Trophy, and in fairness it was a fairly prestigious honor, but one can take the term “football writers” and use it as broadly or as narrowly as you like. Ohio State is happy to take it, leading unsuspecting, unknowing members of the media and fandom into hearing it, repeating it in stories about their cherished history; to be further repeated and made into T-shirts, coffee mugs, hats . . .
Not on my watch.
Did you know . . .
That the first major football stadium was Harvard’s 42,000-seat stadium, built in 1903 on the shores of the Charles River in Boston?
College football, we are told, was begun in 1869 by Rutgers University in New Jersey. Two teams, Princeton and Yale quickly dominated it. Other schools played football. It became more and more popular. By the 1890s, most colleges fielded a team, but Princeton and Yale were almost without exception the best.
By the 1900s, the game had spread and was being played well throughout the country. However, it was a dangerous sport. The so-called “Yale wedge” and the “flying wedge” caused serious injuries, even deaths. President Theodore Roosevelt got involved and legislation was passed to effectuate safety measures.
Over the next decade or so, the game was an irregular affair. Some schools took to playing rugby instead of real football. World War I reduced the number of students, players and games. It is for these and other reasons that judging college football history must be done by separating the “modern” era, which begins after the soldiers came home from the Great War with the 1919 season, and the fifty years that came before that.
In the Roaring ‘20s, everything changed in America. Sports craze enveloped the country. Babe Ruth and the Yankees dominated baseball. Huge arenas were built, great throngs filling them up. Radio brought these events to coast-to-coast audiences. Football went pro, college fans thrilling to the exploits of Red Grange; the “Four Horsemen of Notre Dame”; and to the first great rivalry.
When Notre Dame and Southern California began to play each other, in combination with the annual Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the sporting public looked at the landscape of college football and ask itself, “Who really is number one?” These two teams represented the gritty Midwest and the growing, sun-splashed golden West. Regional pride shadowed the assertions that “Eastern football” was or was not better than what was played in Dixie, or out on the coast.
With this came the ranking systems, which in essence were mathematical formulas looking at a team’s strength of schedule, the scores of its games, and other factors, in order to determine the national champion. The most respected of these was the Dickinson System, begun in 1926. This was the first and most widely reported, but it was followed up by the Houlgate System (1927), the Dunkel Index (1929), the Boand System (1930), the Williamson System (1932), the Poling System (1935), the DeVold System (1945), and others.
In the late 1920s, these systems began to assert that there were national champions of each season. They were irregular, sometimes arriving at more or less of a consensus (as in 1927, when Illinois was number one), other times not so clear cut (as in 1930, when Notre Dame and Alabama “shared” honor). In any given year, three or four schools might claim the title from somebody.
Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne thought the system created by Frank Dickinson, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, was the most accurate. Rockne knew that the term “national champion” carried great weight. He realized that the concept of tradition, or great past performance, worked in his team’s favor. It helped recruiting, ticket sales, and the school’s image.
Rockne asked Professor Dickinson to gather the data of past football seasons, arriving at a list of national champions. Of course, Rockne knew that his Irish would be awarded the lion’s share of these championships, thus increasing his and his program’s growing national prestige. While it may be easy to say that because Rockne instituted this backdating process, thus assuring a favorable outcome for Notre Dame, the truth is it was generally fair.
After Rockne’s death following the 1930 season, the Dickinson System came to be known as the Dickinson/Rockne System. After the AP poll began in 1936, it was for about eight years the only system other than the AP that was considered valid and, therefore, worthy if they happened to produce a champion other than the poll, which did happen in 1939. Over time, as the other systems were instituted, history has accorded national championships going all the way back to that first season, 1869. Naturally, since college football supremacy generally rested on who won the Princeton-Yale game most of the years between then and 1900, the national champions were most often . . . Princeton or Yale.
Truth be told, these programs were competitive on a national basis into the 1930s. Princeton even won the 1919 national title by consensus and as recently as 1951 produced the Heisman Trophy winner, Dick Kazmaier. If an alien came to this country (think Spock from Star Trek) and were asked to determine the “greatest of all college football traditions,” a look at the raw numbers may well determine that in this person’s logical mind Princeton, winner of twenty national champions, or Yale (with twelve) is the answer to this question.
Logic and historical perspective, however, tell us that neither of these teams has maintained in the modern era the remotest amount of success, in comparison to the great programs that have withstood the test of time since the boys came home from World War I. Only baseball allows the historian to go back before the war – which lasted from 1914 to 1918, re-shaped Europe and transformed America from a modern power into a superpower – and make legitimate comparisons with today’s teams and superstars. Baseball’s nature, rules, dimensions and schedule permit some commonality of comparison. Despite the obvious differences between Barry Bonds’s 73 home runs in 2001 and Frank “Home Run” Baker’s twelve in 1913; between George Brett’s .390 in 1980 and Ty Cobb’s .420 in 1911; and between Roger Clemens’s 24-4 of 1986 versus Walter Johnson’s 36-7 of 1913; mentioning Christy Mathewson in the same breath with Greg Maddux, or Honus Wagner alongside Cal Ripken, is a fairly easy concept. With the possible lone exception of the legendary Jim Thorpe, football players of the early century are regarded as an entirely different breed, almost a separate species from the Lawrence Taylor’s and Joe Montana’s of recent memory.
Before 1920 there was no NFL, no NBA, and for that matter no NCAA. College football had evolved from a club sport of sorts into an Ivy League pre-occupation for the “bowler hat and raccoon coat” crowd, but it was not until the 1920s that it caught on as an American craze. California became the first team to really recruit football players. Coach Andy Smith established a pipeline through his assistant, Nibs Price, a former San Diego high school coach with strong Southland connections. He picked off top players who otherwise might have gone to Southern California, and even “stole” some of the Trojans, who transferred to Berkeley and helped the “Wonder Teams” become the first dynasty of the modern era.
The names became established in the national mind: the Irish, the Trojans, the Fighting Illini, the Wolverines . . . the alumni, the public imagination, wrapped itself around these new heroes. Today the exploits of their predecessors still resonates when trying to understand the tradition of college football on dozens of campuses, where by the way the school never re-locates and the players are not lost to free agency. Even a school like the University of California, which de-emphasized football in the 1960s when Berkeley allowed itself to become the de facto staging grounds of American Communism, still clings to the ancient glories of Brick Muller and Pappy Waldorf in hopes that whatever magic there was, there might still be enough stardust by the bay to bring back one more national title.
In the 1920s and 1930s, in particular, the varying systems – Dickinson, Houlgate, the National Football Research organization, the Helms National Championship Foundation, and others – awarded enough titles to go around. In 1936, the Associated Press began to conduct their poll, but they made the grave error of awarding the regular season winner championships before the bowl games were played. The UPI came into being in 1950. Instead of learning from the AP’s mistake, they also awarded their winner before the bowl games. This caused immediate embarrassment when in 1950 Oklahoma was awarded a “consensus” title before losing to Kentucky in the Sugar Bowl; in 1951 Tennessee screwed it up for everybody by getting waxed by Maryland in the Sugar Bowl; and in 1953 Maryland lost to the Sooners in the Orange Bowl.
Did you know . . .
That coaches Earl “Red” Blaik of Army and Fritz Crisler of Michigan were the first to institute widespread division of offensive and defensive units in the 1940s?
In the first eleven years of the AP and UPI polls, there were only four truly “legitimate” champions. Michigan State won both polls in 1952, but they did not play in the Rose Bowl. In 1954, the Pacific Coast Conference’s “no-repeat” rule either saved the day or ruined it. The AP already decided Ohio State was number one. The UPI said it was UCLA. But the Bruins never made the half-hour drive to Pasadena, where the Buckeyes pasted USC instead while settling for a “tie” with UCLA.
Oklahoma left no doubt, going unbeaten with a bowl win (1955), then going unbeaten again in 1956 (without a bowl due to their conference “no-repeat” rule). In 1957 Ohio State and Auburn split the polls. The fact that they were awarded prior to the bowls too often destroyed the credibility of the two polls and the teams that wore their championships. In 1958 and 1959, Louisiana State and Syracuse were legitimate national champions, but in 1960 Minnesota won both polls only to lose to Washington in the Rose Bowl.
Trivia
Who were Fordham’s “Seven Blocks of Granite?”
A: Defensive linemates Vince Lombardi, Alex Wojciechowicz, Nat Pierce, Ed Franco, John Druze, Leo Paquin, and Al Bartbartsky.
Alabama would like everybody to believe that they are the national champions of 1964, and of course if the Associated Press and United Press International are to be believed and respected, they are. Tell that to their quarterback, Joe Willie Namath, who to this day states that his most disappointing moment in sports was January 1, 1965, when he left the Orange Bowl field on the losing end of a 21-17 heartbreaker with Texas. Pictures of his long, tear-stained face are not pictures of that year’s national champion, regardless of what any plaque, list or proclamation might state.
The AP seemed to come to their senses in time to award Alabama the 1965 title after beating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. The UPI looked stupid when Michigan State’s upset at the hands of UCLA illegitimatized their “title.” The question is asked, What were they thinking? in reference to the AP’s inexplicable decision to revert back to the pre-bowl award between 1966 and 1967 (finally awarding the national championship once and for all after Ohio State beat USC in the 1969 Rose Bowl, continuing the practice henceforth). The UPI stuck to its dumbellionite practice right through the 1973 season, by which point two of the all-time bad polling blunders ever perpetrated had happened. On January 1, 1971 UPI “champion” Texas lost to Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl, and on December 31, 1973 Alabama lost a true national championship battle with unbeaten, untied Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. Again, the Crimson Tide walked off the field in abject New Year’s (Eve) defeat, their UPI title clinging to their necks in infamous mockery (none of which stops them from promoting 1973 as one of ‘Bama’s “twelve national championships”; they have nine legit championships at best). This is done in the hope that lack of knowledge will attach greater prestige to their program. In the meantime, while Notre Dame of course was the AP winner in ’73, they are not allowed to call themselves a consensus champ, as if beating Bear Bryant’s squad in a contest that was closer to war than football, was some kind of exhibition game.
The fact that “anybody” can award a title did not end with the UPI poll. Historians recognized several years in between 1936 and the end of World War II in which a team other than the AP champion was at least worthy of legitimate co-national championship status. The systems usually tended to award a national championship after bowl games, which made sense. Notre Dame and Michigan dominated the years between the war and the UPI, although the difference between them was at times so razor thin that controversy continued to reign.
Since Maryland’s loss in the 1954 Orange Bowl, at least the two polls produced one legitimate winner with the exception of 1960 and 1964. While the two services awarded bogus titles to Minnesota and ‘Bama, there were still in existence rating systems left over from the pre-AP era which were broken out of mothballs. This allowed the true 1960 (Mississippi) and 1964 champion - unbeaten, untied Cotton Bowl winner Arkansas - to be given the title and the historically “revised” championship of that season.
At least in 1965, 1970 and 1973, enough changes had been made to award one legitimate titleholder in each of those years (Alabama ’65, Nebraska ’70, Notre Dame ’73). The UPI finally came to their senses and in all the years since they and their successors (USA Today/ESPN, the BCS, and others) have named their champions when the bowl dust cleared. There continue to be disputes and co-national champions, but no illegitimate ones.
Best college football movies
Knute Rockne: All-American (1940)
Something for Joey (1977)
Everybody’s All-American (1988)
Triumph of the Heart: The Ricky Bell Story (1991)
Necessary Roughness (1991)
Rudy (1993)
The Program (1993)
The Waterboy (1998)
The Junction Boys (2002)
Other football-themed movies
All the Right Moves (1982)
Varsity Blues (1997)
Friday Night Lights (2004)
The continued existence and creation of ranking systems other than the human polls have continued, with the Sagarin System being the most well known, but these computers have in the BCS era (1998-present) demonstrated a shocking lack of “common sense.” They have rated one-loss teams ranked seventh or eighth ahead of unbeaten juggernauts. The fact that anybody can award a title has allowed some schools to pad their statistics.
Most egregious examples include the aforementioned Ohio State claim to the 1961 and even 1970 championships (the latter most laughable in light of the Buckeye’s 27-17 loss to Stanford in the Rose Bowl). The Big 10, once the premiere football conference, lost year after year after year to Pacific-8 and Pac-10 Rose Bowl opponents. Michigan, like Ohio State, tried to hide all their Pasadena misery, using their conference titles, their great pipeline to the pros, and their all-time victory mark (much of it achieved while other schools were still playing rugby, were small time or not even in existence yet) to spin their history in a desperate attempt to hold themselves up as a tradition on par with the USCs, the Notre Dames, the Alabamas; to no avail. Their media guide states that they have won eleven national titles. They have won eight (1901, 1902, 1918, 1923, 1933, 1947 and 1997). A fair historical analysis concludes that their claims to the 1903 (Princeton), 1904 (Minnesota), 1932 (Southern Cal), and 1947 (Notre Dame) national championships are just words on paper. Fairness is not always part of the equation; their 1947 team was unbeaten with a 49-0 pasting of USC in the Rose Bowl, but that year’s Notre Dame team is viewed as one of the five best teams ever assembled. Even without playing a bowl game, they were the legit consensus national champions of 1947.
The fairness angle works for and against most everybody. Notre Dame may well have been the AP’s only “three-peat” champion in 1948, but the voters this time went for Michigan, even though they played no bowl game due to the “no-repeat” rule. The 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide was unbeaten, untied and a Sugar Bowl winner over Nebraska, but denied the national title that was so ridiculously awarded them two years earlier. It is believed to this day that disgust not only over that 1964 ranking but their segregationist status in 1966 cost them against Notre Dame’s “Catholic vote.”
The argument that social pathos dominated voting motivations, however, does not hold up particularly in light of the fact that Texas, the last all-white national champions, was awarded the 1969 championship ahead of an unbeaten, untied, integrated Penn State team that had neither lost nor tied a game in two years. No less an authority than President Richard Nixon declared Darrell Royal’s Longhorns to be number one. Everybody was happy to honor another segregated Texas team in 1970, at least until Notre Dame beat them in the Cotton Bowl.
As for Alabama, things turned around on their behalf twelve years after the 1966 “Catholic vote.” In 1978, Alabama was once beaten with a Sugar Bowl win over number one Penn State. USC was once beaten with another in a seemingly endless list of Rose Bowl triumphs over Michigan. The split decision of the AP (Alabama) and UPI (USC) seemed logical, except in consideration of the fact that in September of that very season the Trojans had traveled to Legion Field in Birmingham, pasting the Tide 24-14. The rare opportunity of the voters to decide between two close contenders in favor of the team that beat the other in an actual head-to-head match-up on the other team’s field did not result in the correct vote. The AP (writers) now saw Bear Bryant as a sympathetic legend, in part for finally integrating his team, which now looked like everybody else but played better. Their vote reflected this.
The Alabama media guide informs the reader that their beloved Tide has won twelve national championships. At least one ‘Bama web site lists thirteen. In the section detailing their national champions, no mention of the January 1, 1965 Orange Bowl or December 31, 1973 Sugar Bowl losses are made to provide the right idea. Minnesota, unbeaten with Heisman winner Bruce Smith, was the consensus 1941 (AP) champ. This does not stop ‘Bama from calling the 9-2 Tide (who did not even win the Southeastern Conference championship captured by Mississippi State) the 1941 winners.
They do list the fact that Michigan, Ohio State and Oklahoma were the “other” 1973 national champions according to sources that never even made the newspaper (National Championship Foundation, Poling, FACT, Billingsley, DeVold, Dunkel, Sagarin). The only reason for doing this would seem to be to dilute the impact of Notre Dame’s legitimate title, coming on the strength of victory over the Tide. It is as if by opening a “can of worms” in the form of different champions it makes their bogus UPI award look . . . legit.
In truth, Alabama has won nine deserving national championships (1925, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1961, 1965, 1978, 1979, 1992). What goes around comes around. The two illegitimates (1964, 1973) are matched by unbeaten seasons (1945 and 1966) in which the Tide was denied titles that they well could have deserved but did not win. So it goes.
Oklahoma may be the most irresponsible. Their media guide lists no less than sixteen national championships! Somebody needs to tell the 1949 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the 1957 Ohio State Buckeyes and the Auburn Tigers, the 1967 USC Trojans, the 1973 Irish, the 1978 Trojans and Alabama Crimson Tide, the 1980 Georgia Bulldogs, the 1986 Penn State Nittany Lions, the 2003 Trojans and even the LSU Tigers (who beat OU in the ’03 BCS title game) that, like a politician who is losing a campaign but manipulates the polls to create the appearance of winning, the Sooners were number, uh, well . . . one?
Oh, and get this. In any given year from 1950 to 1995, in which there existed both the AP and the UPI polls, and in which OU won both polls, they count that (when they think they can get away with it) as two national championships. As in for instance 1975, when they were a legitimate consensus winner of both polls, but they would have you read it as two titles in a single year. Slick work. The way they do it is to create columns. Column A contains AP titles. Column B contains UPI titles. Throw in a little deception and then they list “TOTALS.” This is especially rich considering the 1950 season, the first year of the UPI in which the Sooners won both pre-bowl polls only to lose their bowl game. The Sooners’ legitimate national championships? 1954, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975, 1985 and 2000. They also can make a solid claim on the 1915 title, but Washington State’s Rose Bowl win over Brown gives the unbeaten Cougars claim to that season’s actual national championship.
Did you know . . .
That the term “Ivy League” did not materialize until New York Herald-Tribune sportswriter Caswell Adams referred to the loose, yet independent, affiliation of Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale as the Ivy League in 1937?
Oklahoma’s incredible series of streaks, which mark the Bud Wilkinson 1950s, the Barry Switzer 1970s and 1980s, and later the Bob Stoops 2000s, combined with a long list of Heisman, Outland, Lombardi and other award winners, tells the story of excellence personified, but this excellence is also pockmarked by NCAA probation.
Various schools promote their legacy as “eight-time Associated Press national champions,” or some such variation on the theme, but most avoid real scrutiny of their national titles, because to do so leaves the diligent researcher with knowledge that the number of titles claimed is greater than the number of titles really earned. The AP is a fine organization. The great majority of championships under their banner are legitimate and worthy. But there are enough exceptions to lump AP championship imprimatur with the Nobel Peace Prize, or the Academy Awards. If terrorists can win the Nobel, if clowns can claim Oscars, if tyrants can be named Time’s “Man of the Year,” then the AP can list their share of mistaken “winners,” too.
A close reading of the top college football schools demonstrate that the two programs who in the end stand out above the rest – ancient rivals Southern California and Notre Dame – are the most honest in their respective assessment of themselves. I mentioned the forthrightness of Notre Dame’s description of its rich history to a close Catholic friend of mine.
“That’s because their Catholic,” he stated, and he was not kidding. Belief in God does indeed keep one honest. Perhaps because USC was once considered a “Methodist school” before becoming a “private, non-denominational institution,” their history is not filled with falsehoods, misinformation and outright lies. The fact of the matter is that some system named the Trojans national champions of 1929, 1933, 1976, 1979, and 2002, but instead of counting these and calling themselves the “sixteen-time national champion Men of Troy,” USC like Notre Dame dutifully states that these are not recognized titles, that they do not recognize them, and so they do not count.
Notre Dame provides a very helpful historical analysis of all the years in which they won national championships or came close. History considers them consensus champions in 1924 and 1929, co-champion with Alabama in 1930, and of course they have eight AP titles (1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1988). Their media guide carefully lists “other” national champions in the years in which the Irish won (Penn in 1924; Pitt and USC in 1929; a tie with ‘Bama in the 1930 Parker H. Davis Ratings). However, Notre Dame notes that in 1919, 1920, 1927, 1938 (and later years after the AP), while they “won” titles according to the Davis, the National Championship Foundation, and other systems, these are not “qualified” title teams. In 1919 and 1920, Notre Dame dutifully does not claim titles that, upon historical retrospect, they could claim. They were unbeaten both seasons, but in 1919 Harvard’s win in the Rose Bowl made them a consensus winner. In 1920, the first of Cal’s “Wonder Teams” was unbeaten, won the Rose Bowl, was into a 50-game unbeaten skein, and in fact is considered a three-time champion (1920-22). Notre Dame might have tried to sneak the 1926 Irish in as a national champion on the strength of their 9-1 record, 13-12 win at USC, and the subsequent tie between unbeatens Alabama and Stanford in the Rose Bowl, but they do not. The eleven titles they claim are the real deal.
USC also has eleven actual national championships. They are tied with Notre Dame, but have some strong arguments in their favor. For one, nine of their championships came in years in which they won in the Rose Bowl, either against a sterling Big 10 foe or a great Eastern or Southern team prior to the conference arrangement. One came in the BCS Orange Bowl against Oklahoma (2004 season). None are marred by defeat. While Notre Dame never slipped in the “back door” with a bowl loss, seven of their eleven titles came in years in which school policy prevented them from playing in a bowl game. USC was their last game almost every year until the South Bend contest was switched to October in 1961. The “Trojan wars” were thought of as their “bowl game.” Logic stands to reason that had they played in bowl games, in at least one or two of those seven years some opponent would have beaten them. That said, they earned two national championships (1973, 1977) when they beat the prior number one team in a bowl game.
USC also has the modern edge. Seven of their eleven championships come from 1962 on; all within the period that is considered modern, integrated, an era of national TV, scholarships, refined recruiting, training and equipment. All seven of their Heisman Trophies are from this era. Seven of Notre Dame’s national championships and five of their seven Heisman winners are products of the “leather helmet” or “no face mask era” that, in retrospect, is just that: retro.
The reason some schools fudge their facts a little bit in order to create the illusion of more national championships than they deserve may very well come down to how very difficult it is to win the darn things. It could be easy to say that Notre Dame has an advantage because they are a “national school,” benefiting from the “Catholic vote,” or that USC has the edge because they are in the media capital of the world.
The truth is, the national championship of college football is an elusive goal. There is probably nothing harder to win, at least among sports that are played every year. Obviously, an Olympic Gold medal or a soccer World Cup is up for grabs only every four years. But in college football every single game is for the national title. A non-conference loss in September has the immediate effect of possibly knocking a team out of the hunt. Certainly they are no longer in control of their own destiny. If the teams ahead of them stay unbeaten until the end, forget about it.
The BCS has created a scramble for number one like never before. Under unusual circumstances, a team might be able to grab the AP co-national championship, but it is not likely. The necessities of going unbeaten with a bowl win, which has been the requirement in seven of nine BCS seasons between 1998 and 2006, creates an atmosphere of pressure and alumni expectations that are greater even than professional sports, with very few if any exceptions. It has come to the point where the expectations at a Miami, an Oklahoma, a Notre Dame, a USC, are as great as those placed upon the Yankee manager by George Steinbrenner.
Compare and contrast the Yankees with Notre Dame and USC. The Yankees won their first World Series in 1923, the year that Yankee Stadium was built and the Trojans moved into the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. It was a demarcation point in American sports. In the state of California, Stanford Stadium, Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena were all built within a few years of the Coliseum’s erection (which drew the 1932 Olympics nine years later).
Yale’s 64,000-seat Yale Bowl, built in 1914, had once been the largest of all football arenas, but after World War I huge stadiums went up throughout the country, leading to the Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls. Football became spectacle, America the new Rome, these grid warriors the new gladiators of the twentieth century. In 1924, the Irish legend was made when they defeated Army at the sold out Polo Grounds, prompting New York sports columnist Grantland Rice to dub their backfield the “Four Horsemen of Notre Dame.”
In 1927, 120,000 fans crowded Soldier Field in Chicago to watch Notre Dame beat Southern California. Two years later another 112,000 came to see the same two teams in the same stadium. Crowds of close to 80,000 watched the Irish and Trojans play in Los Angeles. Between 1924 and 1931, the “Big House” was built in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the “Horse Shoe” in Columbus, Ohio; “The Swamp” in Gainesville, Florida; “Death Valley” in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and finally Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. After years forced to play many games as a “barnstorming team” on the road, the Irish finally met the attendance needs of their adoring public with a home field.
While Babe Ruth’s New York Yankees won the 1923 World Series, and Knute Rockne’s Irish captured their first national title in 1924, the respective feats apparently were much easier accomplished by the pin stripers. They won world championships in 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000. They have twenty-six overall world championships and have come very close on numerous other occasions, compared to eleven for Notre Dame and USC apiece.
The Boston Celtics sport sixteen NBA crowns. Between 1972 and 2002, the Lakers won almost as many titles (nine) as USC football has won since 1888. In the first six years the Dodgers played in Los Angeles, they won three World Series to quickly close the gap with USC, who by 1965 had won only five national championships. To this day, true Los Angeles sports loyalty is reserved not for the Lakers, Clippers, Angels, Bruins, Kings, Mighty Ducks or the since-displaced Rams and Raiders, but for the Dodgers and Trojans.
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