November 9, 1912: Carlisle Upsets Army

Jim Thorpe. In this case, the C doesn't stand

for his college team, the Carlisle Indians,

but for his pro team, the Canton Bulldogs.

The picture is colorized, but otherwise real.

November 9, 1912: The biggest upset that college football had ever seen to that point takes place. In hindsight, though, it shouldn't have been considered an upset.

The football team at the United States Military Academy, at West Point, New York, usually called just "Army" in the newspapers, played their home games on The Plain, essentially a parade ground, which it still is. It would take until 1924 before they built a proper football facility, Michie Stadium.

But they were one of the top teams in the country, along with Ivy League schools Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania; and Midwestern schools Michigan, Minnesota, and the University of Chicago.

Not considered one of the top teams in the country was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, established in 1879 as America's top boarding school for Native American teenagers. One of these was a member of the Sac and Fox tribe of Oklahoma, named Wa-Tho-Huk. No, that doesn't mean what it sounds like. It means "Bright Path." His "white man's name" was Jim Thorpe.

Thorpe was the greatest athlete in America. He had already showed his prowess on the football field at Carlisle, taking them to an 11-1 record in 1911, their only loss a 12-11 defeat away to Syracuse. They had beaten Harvard, Penn, Brown, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Before the 1912 season, he went to Stockholm for the Olympic Games, and won the Gold Medal in the decathlon and the pentathlon. When the Games' host, King Gustav V of Sweden, gave him his medals, he said to Thorpe, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world." Thorpe said, "Thanks, King." Ever since, the winner of the Olympic decathlon has been granted the unofficial title of "the world's greatest athlete."

In 1912, Carlisle went into their game away to Army at 10-0-1, having beaten Pittsburgh again, avenged their defeat to Syracuse, and come away with just one blemish on their record, a 0-0 tie against Washington & Jefferson University.

No one expected them to beat Army at West Point. But they did, 27-6. Thorpe scored 3 touchdowns, and kicked 3 extra points, missing 1.

It was called the biggest victory of Indians over the U.S. Army since the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

Legend has it that Dwight D. Eisenhower, later the leading General of World War II and the 34th President of the United States, broke his leg trying to tackle Thorpe in this game. It's not true: He played in Army's next game, against Tufts University, and that's when he sustained the injury that ended his playing career -- though, fortunately, not his Army career.

Ironically, just 7 days after their greatest victory, Carlisle would suffer their greatest defeat, losing their undefeated season by losing to Penn 34-26 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Army would also lose at Franklin Field that season, to Navy, and had already done so the previous season.

Thorpe, already the greatest track & field athlete in the world, became the 1st great player in pro football. He also played Major League Baseball, famously getting the only hit in the only MLB game whose 1st 9 innings had no hits, the "double no-hitter" by Fred Toney of Cincinnati and Jim "Hippo" Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs in 1917, won as Thorpe singled home a run for the Reds in the top of the 10th inning. And he played in an early pro basketball league.

But it was discovered that he had played minor league baseball under an assumed name, and the International Olympic Committee took his medals away. In 1950, the Associated Press named him the greatest athlete of the 1st half of the 20th Century. He died in 1953. In 1982, the IOC restored his medals to his family.

The Army would get its revenge on Carlisle in only 6 years. In 1918, with America having gotten into World War I, the federal government, which already ran the school, closed it, and transferred control from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which since its creation has run "Indian Affairs," to the U.S. Department of War (renamed the Department of Defense in 1947). The property is now part of the U.S. Army War College.

How good a football player was Jim Thorpe, by today's standards? Hard to tell, although the college award for the best defensive back is named the Jim Thorpe Award. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 88th on its list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.

In 2010, 57 years after his death and 82 years after he last played so much as a down in the pro game, the NFL Network ranked him 37th on the list of the 100 Greatest Players. I don't know what happened in the ensuing 11 years to make him jump 57 places in spite of new players making the list. Maybe some old film was discovered, providing previously lost insight.

*

November 9, 1912 was, naturally, a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Basketball was still a new sport, and not played professionally. Hockey was at the dawn of its professional era, and its season usually started in December. Football had begun to go professional, but it usually played on Sunday so that it wouldn't interfere with the college game on Saturday. So it was all college football on the day:

* Did I mention that Franklin Field in Philly was a tough place to play? On this day, Penn beat Michigan, 27-21. That version of Franklin Field was built in 1895, and the site has hosted America's greatest track meet, the Penn Relays (the University of Pennsylvania Relay Carnival) ever since. The current stadium on the site was built in 1922.

* Harvard beat Vanderbilt, 9-3 at Harvard Stadium in Boston. Both teams came in with 6-0 records, and Vanderbilt had outscored its opponents 342-3. Two weeks later, led by star runner and kicker Charley Brickley, Harvard beat Yale to complete its undefeated season. When National Champions were retroactively named for the pre-poll era (1869 to 1935), Harvard were named the 1912 National Champions.

* In a "crosstown" matchup, the University of Chicago beat Northwestern University, 3-0 at Marshall Field in Chicago. Yes, it was named after the leading department store in Chicago, which was named after its founder, Marshall Field. I suppose they could have called it "Marshall Field Stadium," but they didn't.

* In another North vs. South matchup, Wisconsin wrecked Arkansas 64-7 at Randall Field, in Madison, Wisconsin. Camp Randall Stadium would be built on the site in 1917.

* Princeton University hosted New York University, and beat NYU 54-0.

* Rutgers College beat Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, New York, 21-0 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey. What became Rutgers University moved across the river to Rutgers Stadium in 1938. In 1953, the school's main library was built on the site of Neilson Field.

* Fordham beat Albright College of Reading, Pennsylvania, 13-6 at Fordham Field in The Bronx.

* For a reason I can't find, Columbia University did not play football between 1906 and 1914.

And Woolwich Arsenal lost to West Bromwich Albion, 2-1 at The Hawthorns in West Bromwich, outside Birmingham in England's West Midlands. The 1912-13 campaign remains the worst season in the history of the team that would become simply Arsenal Football Club, the one and only season in which they have ever been relegated. 

October 17, 1967: The Death of Don Holleder

October 17, 1967: Major Don Holleder, U.S. Army, is shot and killed by a Viet Cong sniper while attempting to rescue a wounded soldier and bring him aboard a helicopter, in the Battle of Ong Thanh. He was 33.

The Buffalo native was a star athlete at Aquinas Institute in Rochester, and was recruited to the football team at the U.S. Military Academy by Vince Lombardi, then an assistant to their head coach, Colonel Earl "Red" Blaik. He was an All-American end in 1954, but was moved to quarterback in 1955, and led the team to a 6-3 record, including an upset of Navy that made him the 1st athlete from any of the service academies to be shown on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He graduated the following Spring, and one of his classmates was Norman Schwarzkopf, later field commander of all allied troops in the Persian Gulf War.

Although drafted by the New York Giants, he would have had to sit out his military commitment. (Which might have worked out, because Charlie Conerly would have retired as quarterback by then, but the Giants got Y.A. Tittle instead.) He stayed in the Army until his death, including a tenure as an assistant coach at West Point, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1974, his high school's football stadium, Aquinas Memorial Stadium, was renamed Holleder Memorial Stadium. Professional soccer's Rochester Lancers played there, including their home leg of the 1970 North American Soccer League Final, in which they beat the Washington Darts, before surviving the D.C. leg to be named NASL Champions.

Holleder Stadium was torn down in 1985, and Holleder Technology Park is now on the site, on Holleder Parkway. That same year, he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, and West Point's arena was named the Donald W. Holleder Center.

*

October 17, 1967 was a Tuesday. On the same day, the musical Hair opened at the Public Theater in New York. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball season had ended 5 days earlier, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the World Series. Football was in midweek. A new hockey season was underway, but no games were scheduled.

There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks open their season, their last at the old Madison Square Garden, where they beat the San Francisco Warriors 124-122. In his 1st professional game, Walt Frazier -- not yet nicknamed "Clyde" -- does not play. Walt Bellamy leads the Knicks with 16 points, but will be traded for Dave DeBusschere, in what turns out to be a title-making trade.

Their last game at the 49th-50th Street and 8th-9th Avenue Garden was on February 10, 1968, and they beat the Philadelphia 76ers 115-97. Their 1st game at the 31st-33rd Street and 7th-8th Avenue Garden was on February 14, and they beat the San Diego Rockets 114-102.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Cincinnati Royals, 131-108 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Dave Bing scored 35 points for the Pistons. The arena was named for Albert Cobo, Mayor of Detroit from 1950 to 1957. Bing would serve as Mayor from 2009 to 2014.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 107-105 at the Chicago Stadium. Bob Boozer scored 36 in defeat.

* And, in only their 2nd game ever, the San Diego Rockets lost to the St. Louis Hawks, 123-105 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena). The Hawks moved to Atlanta the following season. The Rockets moved to Houston in 1971.

And there was 1 game in the brand-new American Basketball Association: The Houston Mavericks beat the Denver Rockets, 102-85 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. This was the 2nd game for the Rockets, who, in anticipation of being admitted to the NBA, and with that league already having a team named the Rockets in Houston, changed their name to that of the long-defunct first Denver team in the NBA: The Denver Nuggets.

June 15, 1877: The 1st Black Graduate of West Point

June 15, 1877: The Class of 1877 graduates from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, 50 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. Among the newly-commissioned Second Lieutenants is the Academy's 1st black graduate.

Henry Ossian Flipper was born on March 21, 1856 in Thomasville, Georgia, and lived 9 years in slavery until the Confederacy was rightfully destroyed. He grew up to attend Atlanta University, where he and 4 other black students were appointed by Representatives James C. Freeman to attend the U.S. Military Academy. Flipper was the first of them to graduate.

He was assigned to the 10th Cavalry Regiment, an all-black unit whom Native tribes, due to their color, called "Buffalo Soldiers." He became the 1st black officer to command regular troops in the U.S. Army.

In 1880, he was appointed quartermaster of Fort Davis in west Texas. The following year, the new commanding officer, Colonel William R. Shafter, asked Flipper to keep the quartermaster's safe in his quarters. In July, upon counting the money in the safe, he discovered he was $2,000 short -- about $58,000 in 2022 money. He concluded that the likeliest reason was an attempt to sabotage his career, so he attempted to hide the discrepancy, which failed.

Many people agreed that it was a setup, and others soldiers and nearby civilians came up with the money to replace what was missing within 4 days. But the damage was done, and Shafter convened a court-martial on September 17, 1881. In December, he was found not guilty of embezzlement.

But, as would later be said of many criminal defendants, "It's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up." And so, he was found guilty "of conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman," and sentenced to be "dismissed from the service of the United States." Appeals went all the way to the desk of President Chester A. Arthur, but were denied. On June 30, 1882, Flipper was drummed out of the army with a dismissal, at the time the officer equivalent of a dishonorable discharge.

He became a civil engineer, wrote two acclaimed memoirs, retired to Atlanta, and died there on April 26, 1940, at the age of 84. He had been successful at everything he tried, except getting his conviction overturned. In 1976, descendants and supporters applied to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records on behalf of Flipper. The board, after stating it did not have the authority to overturn his court-martial conviction, concluded the conviction and punishment were "unduly harsh and unjust," and recommended that Flipper's dismissal be changed to a good conduct discharge, effective the date of his sentence being carried out, June 30, 1882. This was done.

This was not considered good enough, and in 1997, an appeal was filed with the Secretary of the Army. It made its way to President Bill Clinton, who formally pardoned Flipper on February 19, 1999. This done, the Academy acted as though his dishonor had never happened, and honored him as though it it hadn't. A bust of Flipper was unveiled on the Academy grounds, and an annual Henry O. Flipper Award has been granted to graduating cadets at the academy who exhibit "leadership, self-discipline, and perseverance in the face of unusual difficulties."

*

June 15, 1877 was a Friday. The only professional sports league in America at this point was baseball's National League, but no games were scheduled for this historic day.