Indiana Second Team to Go 16-0

 

The Undefeated Yale Bulldogs of 1894

The 1894 Yale Football Team won 16 games and lost none. 

The "Y" Sweaters: The men in the dark blue sweaters with the large white "Y" are the varsity starters.

The Canvas Jackets: You’ll notice some players wearing quilted or canvas-fronted vests; these were the primitive "pads" of the era, designed to help players slide through tackles and provide a small amount of rib protection.

It’s a shame S. Brinkerhoff Thorne and his Yale football teammates aren’t still around. They would surely march around campus cheering “Rah, rah, rah for Indiana” just as they marched around the campus in 1894 cheering the election of Thorne as captain of the team.

You see without Indiana’s amazing charge through the just-ended college football season, culminating in a perfect 16-0 record and the national championship, no one would be talking about that 1894 Yale team.

Indiana was the first team to match Yale’s matchless record of perfection of 16 wins. No team before Yale had won 16 games in one season. And Yale did it in a mere three months, winning their 16^th and final game on Dec. 1, 1894 by a score of 24-0 over Princeton in the mud and slush of a New York City field before 20,000 fans. It took Indiana almost five months to complete its 16-0 season.

Ah, but things were different in 1894, you say. Yes they were but some things were strikingly similar.

The differences first. No Yalie, not even S. Brinkerhoff, wore a helmet. The protective device –called a head harness - had only been invented a few months earlier by George Barclay, a halfback at Lafayette College, who was known for his vanity (he didn’t want a cauliflower ear from a game injury). Forward passes were not allowed in 1894; the offense was mostly just spinning and handing off and lateraling and running and kicking field goals. That’s why they called it foot ball. A field goal was worth 5 points while a touchdown counted for only 4 points – FOOT ball. (A point after a touchdown was two points, same as a safety.) The system had been developed by the legendary Walter Camp, coach at Yale for nine seasons, before taking the coaching position at what was then known as Leland Stanford University. (His student manager at Stanford, who organized the team and handled the finances, was Herbert Hoover, yes, that Herbert Hoover.)

Now for a few similarities that may surprise you.

 

Betting was big.

It wasn’t called FanDuel or DraftKings but betting on college football was widespread and not at all secretive.

The New York Tribune reported before the final game of the 1894 season, “Princeton insists upon odds of 2 to 1, and Yale men, with a sad recollection of the money lost at those terms a year ago, refuse to offer more than 5 to 3, and few takers are found at the odds. A bet was made between two prominent alumni of Princeton and Yale, of $100 to $10 that Yale would not score, the short end being taken by the Princeton man. A few bets of $100 to $75 on Yale were also made at the Fifth Avenue and other hotels.”

The New York Telegram went so far as to name names:

“The football fever was rampant about the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Collegians and city enthusiasts gathered in the corridor and barroom, but the crowds of last year were not in evidence. There was some betting, the odds being about 2 to 1 on Yale. Frank McKee, the theatrical manager, made the only attempts to get money on. He bet $100 to $50, $150 to $75, $80 to $40, and $100 to $50 in quick succession before leaving. Billy Edwards was the stakeholder in all these bets, the small end being taken by Princeton students as a rule. "I hold about $2,000 in bets only," said Edwards. "The betting is unusually light, the odds ranging from 2 to 1 to 100 to 60 on Yale."

 

There was even an early version of “prop bets” in 1894.

For the gambling novice a prop bet (short for proposition bet) is a wager on a specific event inside a game that isn’t the final score (and often isn’t even “football,” strictly speaking). Think: first player to score, will there be a safety, coin toss result, how long the National Anthem lasts, even what color will the Gatorade be?

Witness this “prop bet” story from the Dec. 13, 1894 edition of the Hartford Courant:

“General Benjamin Butterworth, whose son was a member of Yale's football eleven at the recent games, said without reservation, that the injury which his son encountered at the game between Harvard and Yale was the result of a deliberate assault upon him by one of three Harvard men. The blow was intentional. There were several bets made prior to the game that Frank Butterworth would not play in the second half of the game.”

A prop bet.

 

Football was rough.

It still is: a Miami player took a swing at an Indiana player only moments after the end of the national championship.

Here’s how rough it was in 1894 as outlined in this story that was carried by more than 50 newspapers on the morning of the Yale-Princeton game:

“POLICE WILL INTERFERE.

“There Will Be No Slugging in the Princeton-Yale Football Game.

“NEW YORK, Dec. 1. - Police Superintendent Thomas F. Byrnes announced today that no exhibition of brutality would be permitted at the Yale-Princeton football game on Manhattan Field. He has instructed Inspector Colton to stop the game if it should prove to be anything but a purely scientific contest.

“The superintendent said that he would not allow the players to act like a lot of prize fighters and publicly maim each other for life. The game would be stopped at the first exhibition of brutality.”

The fact that New York had sent police inspectors to the game to ensure no slugfest so incensed Yale men – who prided themselves on playing the “scientific” game - that the next week the school’s football players and professors vowed never to play another game in Manhattan.

 

Who’s Number One?

You would think that a team that won a record-setting 16 games, while losing none, would easily be declared national champions.

Not so, fast. This was 1894, long before the AP and UPI Polls, even longer before computer models and the College Football Playoffs. Championships were more like barroom arguments. And in this case there was another pretender to the crown, a school that had won 14 games while losing none, and felt it had played the tougher schedule.

Here's how the Rochester Times-Union described the situation:

“CHAMPIONSHIP UNDECIDED.

“Question Will Not be Settled as Yale and Pennsy Won't Meet.

“NEW YORK, Dec. 15. - Pennsylvania still feels aggrieved because Yale refuses to meet her eleven on the gridiron. There is really no eastern champion. (Wisconsin had been declared the “western champion.”) It is known that neither Princeton nor Harvard had the best team. Between Yale and Pennsylvania there is no basis for forming a choice. Yale men think the blue-legged warriors are unbeatable: the warriors of the red and blue feel confident of the abilities of Capt. Knipe's team to wallop anything, while non-partisans are divided, all saying that a Yale-Pennsylvania game would be a ‘corker.’

“Yale has played Trinity, Brown (twice), Williams, Dartmouth, Lehigh (twice), West Point, Tufts, Harvard, Princeton and the Crescent, Orange, Boston, Chicago A. A. and Volunteer Athletic Association, and has scored a total of 485 to her opponents' 13 points.

“Pennsylvania has met Franklin and Marshall, Swarthmore, Georgetown, Lehigh, Crescent Athletic Club (twice), University of Virgina, Annapolis, Lafayette, Warren, Camden Athletic Club, Cornell, Princeton, and Harvard, and has scored a total of 352 to her opponents' 20 points.

“Yale has averaged 30.31 points per game, to her opponents' .81 points; Pennsylvania, 25.14 points per game, to opponents' 1.42 points. In the big games with Princeton and Harvard, when each team played its full strength, Yale scored 36 points to her opponents' 4, and Pennsylvania 30, to her opponents' 4.”

Let me interject here that neither of Yale opponents, the Volunteer Athletic Association or the Orange, took the train up from Knoxville.

In 1894, the Volunteer Athletic Association of New York and the Orange Athletic Club from New Jersey were prominent independent athletic clubs, serving as strong, semi-professional teams where former college stars provided tough competition for Yale and Pennsylvania and other college teams before the rise of fully professional leagues. These were basically social clubs with high-level football teams, featuring players starting careers in law or business.

These teams were part of an era in football where club teams filled out schedules for colleges like Yale, creating challenging games and showcasing top talent outside of just college campuses

The Orange Athletic Club won the American Football Union (AFU) championship that season. Yale beat them 24-0 on October 20, 1894

The Pennsylvania schedule was similarly sprinkled with these semi-pro social club teams.

While Pennsy fans were denigrating Yale’s strength of schedule, “the New Haven people cannot see why University of Pennsylvania has an exceptional team,” according to the Chicago Tribune. “The best the Quakers could do to Princeton was to win by twelve points, while Yale doubled that figure. It is considered that Pennsylvania failed to score against Harvard Thanksgiving day as long as the Harvard players were not disabled, and failed to cross the goal line till Capt. Emmons and the Harvard backs had retired. Pennsylvania barely escaped being shut out by Cornell and won by a single touchdown. Yale’s score over Princeton makes Yale people think that Yale would have won from Harvard by twice as big a score had the slugging, the off-side, and the momentum play rules been enforced as strictly as against Princeton.”

There was obviously only one way to settle this debate: a challenge match. And Pennsy was ready to issue just such a challenge.

Only one problem.

As Yale team manager Benjamin Cable told the Philadelphia Enquirer before the Princeton contest, “(After the game) the football eleven is to disband. Our examinations begin next week and further play is out of the question.”

They really were student-athletes.

 

 

 

"Brinck" Thorne (left): He was a star halfback who would go on to lead the team as captain the following year and eventually became Yale's head coach in 1896.

Frank Hinkey (Captain in 1894): He was known for his slight build (around 150 lbs) but ferocious tackling, which earned him the nickname "The Silent Scotsman."

 

 

 Famous Players on the 1894 Yale Bulldogs

• Frank Hinkey (Captain): His fame cannot be overstated. He was a 4-time All-American and is widely considered the greatest "small" player in college football history. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in its inaugural 1951 class.
• Sam "Brinck" Thorne: After being a star in the 1894 game, he captained the 1895 team and was later a successful head coach at Yale. Like Hinkey, he is a College Football Hall of Famer.
• George Adee: The quarterback of the 1894 team. Beyond football, he became a major figure in American sports as a Tennis Hall of Famer. He served as the president of the U.S. National Lawn Tennis Association (now the USTA) and was instrumental in the early years of the Davis Cup.
• Anson McCook Beard: He became a prominent and wealthy New York lawyer, and grandfather of the photographer Peter Beard (who married model Cheryl Tiegs).

If a Butterfly Could Sing...

 

If A Butterfly Could Sing, It Would Sound Like Dolly Parton

 

Dolly Parton celebrates her 80^th birthday on January 19^th. I interviewed her fifty years ago for the Kingsport Times-News, only a couple of months after her 29^th birthday and barely a year after her break up with her longtime singing partner Porter Wagoner. She had just finished headlining a country music show (there were three other acts who preceded her) and then spent a good half hour signing autographs for everyone waiting in line. It was almost 1:00 in the morning when she boarded her bus for our interview. She was as cheerful as if she had just woken up. She answered my questions for almost an hour, never looking at her watch, never signaling to any of her entourage to rescue her from this inquisitive writer. The interview only ended after her bus driver came back and said, “Miss Parton, we have to go.”

Here is a story about the young Dolly Parton based on my notes from that March 14, 1975 interview. She was very much then like she is today, half a century later.

 

 

The blonde hair piled toward heaven frames a petite face distinguished by large Spider Lady eyelashes. A tight cowgirl pantsuit gets your attention.

She looks outlandish but in a pretty “more is more” kind of way.

Then she opens her Revlon lips to begin her part of the show. If a butterfly could sing, it would sound like Dolly Parton.

The near capacity crowd at the Dobyns-Bennett Dome had waited patiently for three hours, through three other acts (Hank Williams, Jr., Billy “Crash” Craddock, and Ronnie Milsap) and three interminable intermissions to see her. They'd cheered her every song. And when she finally finished her act, a hearty band of loyalists had kept her signing autographs until past 12:30 a.m.

Dolly Parton had come back home, to East Tennessee.

And on such an eventful day: just that morning, she'd learned that her latest single, "The Bargain Store," had climbed to the number one spot on the country charts, her fifth solo number one.

It was less than a year since the celebrated Dolly-Porter split, an amicable parting of the ways of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner after seven years of success. And it was a scant six months since she'd put together her new act - The Dolly Parton Show featuring the Traveling Family Band.

It was a chance she took, leaving the success and security of Porter 'n' Dolly for a solo career as a singer-songwriter. But the gamble seemed to be paying off.

 

Dolly Parton is country music's reigning sex symbol, an outlandishly dressed woman whose exterior belies a sensitive soul, a songwriter of restraint and taste. It is the heart of a poet trapped inside Mae West's body.

"All I ever wanted to be was a star," Dolly Parton told me about her childhood aspirations. To a girl growing up in a rundown house in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, stardom had an image. Stars wore the finest clothes, drove the biggest cars, owned the nicest houses.

She became the Dale Evans of country music, the bright, sparkly partner of country music’s most flamboyantly dressed country boy, Porter Wagoner.

And by 1974, she was, as they say, doin' good.

A member of the Grand Ole Opry. On TV every week on the popular "Porter Wagoner Show." Every record they released in the Top 10. And acclaim as Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association.

There was even growing recognition as a songwriter. Merle Haggard was recording her composition "Kentucky Gambler" (it would later make it to No. 1 on the country charts). Maria Muldaur had included her "My Tennessee Mountain Home" on her million-selling "Midnight at the Oasis" album. Everyone from Linda Ronstadt to Mac Davis was singing Parton's praises. And songs.

At 28 in 1974, Dolly Parton was at the top of her profession.

That's why country music was shaken nearly to its cowboy boots when she and Wagoner announced they were splitting up. Amicable was the word they used at the time.

"We're still friends," Parton says. "We have a publishing company together, and we still record our duets. The break was as much his idea as mine. When Porter first asked me to join his show, I told him that some day I wanted to have my own show, and he understood that."

Even in 1975, it was clear that she just outgrew him. As long as she remained with him, she would just be the back half of Porter 'n' Dolly.

 

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on a cold Saturday in January 1946 in Sevierville, Tenn., a tiny mountain town on the periphery of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Dolly was one of six daughters and six sons in the poor, but deeply religious Parton clan.

She grew up without a radio or television in the house so most of her early musical training came at church and in school.

"I was singing a lot before I heard anybody but my family and the people at church. We didn't have electricity until I was 9. Our first piano didn't even have any ivory on it. But it sure helped me write some songs.”

She told me she wrote her first songs at the age of five, a pair of ditties called "Little Tiny Tassel Top" about a corn cob doll and "Life Doesn't Mean Much To Me."

"Here I was all of 5 years old singing 'Life doesn't mean much to me,'" she says with a laugh.

Since then she estimates she has written thousands of songs. "I have boxes and trunks of songs that like a little bit being finished and others that are complete, but I haven't recorded because I keep writing new stuff. I write all the time."

By the time she was ten, she was a regular on Knoxville grocer Cas Walker’s programs, making twenty dollars a week for appearances on the morning "Farm and Home Hour" TV show, his noon radio show, and the Wednesday and Thursday night TV shows. In between school and the Cas Walker shows, Dolly appeared on the famous WNOX Midday Merry-Go-Round and sang in country music shows all over east Tennessee.

At Sevier County High School, she was a member of the Future Homemakers of America and a snare drummer in the marching band.

Dolly as a senior in high school.

She picked up her high school diploma and her bus ticket to Nashville the same day. When she arrived in Music City that hot summer day in 1964, it was like a Hollywood movie. She met future husband Carl Dean in the Wishy Washy Laundromat the first day in town. And within two weeks, she had signed a contract with Monument Records.

The next three years were for laying the groundwork. She started putting out records, some of which climbed onto the lower echelons of the country charts.

All the while she was pursuing her songwriting career, writing when she could, and collaborating with her uncle Bill Owens on other songs. (She lived with her uncle Bill and aunt Christina when she first moved to Nashville.)

In 1967 Porter Wagoner caught Parton on one of those nameless country music shows that populate Saturday afternoon TV. He was searching for someone to replace his longtime partner, Norma Jean, and he thought Parton would be perfect. Her signature on a contract sealed it, and for the next seven years, Porter 'n' Dolly were as synonymous as George 'n' Tammy and Conway 'n' Loretta.

Then in 1974 came the announcement that shook the country music world: Porter and Dolly were breaking up. Their fans were dismayed - what had gone wrong? Could they no longer get along?

"'Course we've had business problems,” she told me. “Anybody who works together does. Like somebody said the other day, if two people are in business and they don't have no trouble, one of them ain't doing their job. If you don't have an opinion, you ain't much of a partner.”

Her first backup group, the aptly-named Traveling Family Band, was composed of Dolly's brother, Randy, two cousins, Dwight Puckett and Sydney Spiva, and a no-relation guitar player named Bill Reary.

 

Performing is one thing. But to Dolly songwriting is special. “Writing is such a part of me. It's such a natural thing for me to rhyme words. It's just a God-given talent: I've never had any trouble rhyming words. There are certain situations that remind me of things and I start putting words together into a song. Every writer writes different. For me the words and the music just seem to come together. I can't ever remember writing one without the other."

Her favorite song that she has written is "Coat of Many Colors," a ballad about a patchwork coat that her mother made for her when she was a little girl. "It's a true song and a personal song. It means a lot to me because I know how much I put into it."

She says she has a new song coming out that deeply affected her when she wrote it. "It's a sacred song and I got this strange feeling when I was writing it. I cried and that's something I'd never done after writing a song. But the words just started coming and I had it written in a few minutes. When I got through writing, I felt unburdened."

That song, “The Seeker,” was released on May 19, 1975 – two months after my interview - on RCA Victor.

Dolly Parton's records have changed in the past year or two and her music is being played on more than just country radio stations. In fact, her summer 1974 hit, "Love is Like a Butterfly," made the complete crossover and was played on a number of so-called Top 40 stations, even climbing onto the pop charts for a time. But Dolly says it isn't a reflection of any changing style within her, merely that she's braver now and willing to try newer variations on her records. "My writing hasn't changed much over the years, but record styles have changed and I'm getting to do more things now. Music is venturing out in new areas. Used to if they thought you were hard country and you did something a little uptown, they thought you were trying to get out of the category. But now a lot of people are trying new things."

Not that she’s happy about all those new ways. "I like a lot of the things that are being done in country music today, but I hope there will always be true country. Like Hank Williams and Porter Wagoner and Ernest Tubbs. I'd hate to see that die away. I hope there will always be a market for it."

She likes the new contemporary country rock sound, particularly the music of the Charlie Daniels Band, Goose Creek Symphony, Barefoot Jerry and Willie Nelson. Especially Willie Nelson.

"I loved Willie Nelson when he was just plain country. When I first moved to Nashville, he was on Monument Records and I was too. I remember I used to set on the floor of the studio over there for hours and listen to him sing and play. He didn't have much going record-wise then - you couldn't give him away because of his odd phrasings - but I just loved it. He was way ahead of his time and I'm real glad to see him getting the recognition now."

Country music is a traveling road show. Dolly Parton and her group play 120 nights a year, mostly on weekends, in all parts of the country, from Portland, Oregon to Miami, Florida. After her post- midnight interview with me in Kingsport, Dolly's bus headed out for an all-night ride to Raleigh, North Carolina where she would be performing on Saturday night. In Raleigh it would be much the same thing - last on the bill, an after-concert autograph session, and another all-night bus ride, this time to Norfolk, Virginia for a Sunday show. From Norfolk, the Dolly Parton bus would head back to Nashville for a few days of rest before heading out on the road again the next weekend. All total, Dolly and her crew will travel 200,000 miles this year, most of it via bus.

The hours on the road are long, slow ones. Often Dolly will travel eight hours. just to give a one-hour show. What does she do to entertain herself on the road? “We play a lot of games, like Password. And I'll listen to tapes and do a lot of the paperwork concerning the band. Sometimes I write songs."

It used to be the Porter 'n' Dolly Show.

But now it's just the Dolly Parton Show. Dolly Parton has come to the front. Her solo career is booming. Appreciative audiences. Hit records. And finally, recognition as a top-notch songwriter.

Still, in her heart, past all the rouge and the mascara and the hairspray, Dolly is just a starry-eyed country girl.

The Boy Who Tried to Fight Elvis

 Elvis Would Turn 91 Today

In Sept. 1955 he came to Kingsport where he performed at the Civic Auditorium, the middle act on a country show - although he was a long ways from country. 

Billie Mae Smith wasn’t exactly an Elvis fan in August 1955. She was a year out of high school and managing Huddle’s Record Shop. “A salesman came in with records that Elvis had recorded. I had never heard of Elvis but after hearing the recordings, I ordered some to sell. The salesman said, ‘Here are some tickets to an Elvis show that will be at your Civic Auditorium in September.’”

Billie Mae Smith in 1955

So when September 22nd came, she grabbed two of her friends and they were among the 270 folks who didn’t exactly fill the auditorium that night.

Elvis came on second, after the Louvin Brothers, and when he finished his set, he went out to the concession stand near the Stadium side exit, selling photos and talking up the young girls who were crowded around.

He flirted with Billie Mae’s friend Darla Hodge, then led a group of admiring girls out to show off his new Caddy. And the next thing Billie Mae knew, she was piled into Elvis’ Cadillac heading to Jimmie’s Steakhouse at the Upper Circle for club sandwiches.

From there they headed downtown to cruise Broad.

“I remember I kept looking at his hair because he had a permanent in it so that when he shook his head a curl would fall in his eyes.”

Wayne "Booge" Allen in 1955 yearbook

They were stopped at the red light at Center and Wilcox when Fate would arrive: Booge Allen pulled up next to them.

Booge – real name Wayne – was driving down Center Street in his green and white Chevy Bel Air.

Booge was a recent D-B grad and in a week he would be starting classes at ETSC – as ETSU was known at the time.

He was sitting at the red light at Wilcox when he heard a familiar voice. It was his girlfriend Billie Mae Smith and she was riding in the car next to his.

She called out, “Come over to my house later, I’ve got someone I want you to meet.”

Wayne would tell me years later that he remembered looking over and his girlfriend was in the car with Elvis Presley. “And I remember thinking, I don’t want to meet Elvis.”

And that was the night that Booge would acquire the label that would stick with him the rest of his life: The Boy Who Tried to Fight Elvis.

You see, while Booge didn’t particularly want to meet Elvis, he wasn’t too keen on Elvis cozying up to his girlfriend.

So he drove around and then headed over to Billie Mae’s house on Catawba.

Billie Mae and Elvis had beaten him there. They were inside at the kitchen table having coffee.

One of Elvis’ bandmates met Booge and told him, “You’re not wanted here.”

Booge didn’t take this too well. “I said, ‘The hell with you; two can play this game.’” He raced down to the Texas Steer Drive-In - it was on Center just before you got to Kingsport Press - picked up two of his friends, and returned to Billie Mae’s.

“I told the guy outside that if he wanted trouble there was more than one of us now.”

Elvis and Billie Mae heard the commotion and came out. Billie Mae introduced Booge and Elvis. But they didn’t shake hands.

Booge remembered, “Elvis said, ‘I’m breaking this guy’s heart. Maybe I’d better leave.’”

Billie Mae took Booge aside, told him everything would be all right and sent him home.

Elvis didn’t stay much longer. It was the last night of the tour and he was anxious to be back to Memphis. Just one thing before he left.

“When he went outside to leave, he reached out and pulled me up close to him and kissed me. My knees went weak. He had the softest lips I have ever kissed.”

It was a goodnight kiss for all time. “It was very thrilling.”

Booge came back later and circled the block but Elvis had gone.

Booge and Billie Mae later went their separate ways. But every year they would call each other on their birthdays.

Billie Mae didn’t get to call Booge in 2016. He passed away before his 80th birthday.

I like to think Booge and Elvis are in the same place now. Maybe they’ve finally shaken hands. I doubt it.

Photo that Elvis later mailed to Billie Mae