Tom Benjey's Weblog

The Friday, December 11 Sporting section of The Salt Lake Herald was more definitive as it led with “Date Settled for Big Game.” Other headings included, “Carlisle and University to Meet One Week from Tomorrow,” Varsity Will Strengthen,” and “Holmes Picks Several Stars to Play with team.” The article started “The big football game between the Carlisle Indians and the state university will come off one week from tomorrow on Cummings Field. This was definitely settled yesterday, when Coach Holmes received a telegram from Coach Warner stating that it would be agreeable for the Indians to play on this date and that they would probably arrange a game for Christmas to be played in San Francisco.” The reporter mentioned that this news was received well by University of Utah students because those who planned on going home for Christmas would then have the opportunity to see the famous Carlisle Indians play the local squad.

The rest of the article dealt with Coach Holmes’s plans to strengthen his team for the game against Carlisle. His Utah team had only gone 3-4 for the regular season. Wins were over Ogden High School, the Fort Douglas soldiers, and the 12^th Infantry. Losses were to the four college teams they played that year: Colorado, Utah State, Denver and Colorado State. These results did not portend good things for them against the Indians. To give Carlisle a little better competition, Holmes added “Fat” Robbins, Utah’s greatest center to that time, Fred Bennion the old line-smashing fullback, Paul Nelden a high school tackle, and Joe Anderson former University tackle.

An article titled “Why Not Play Christmas?” appeared further down the page. In it, Coach Gay of the 12^th Infantry team was reported as saying that he was going to Logan to arrange a game with Utah State in Salt Lake City on Christmas Day now that the date was open. He thought the local fans would enjoy seeing the 3-0-0 championship team play. That game did not materialize as the Christmas edition of The Salt Lake Herald mentioned Carlisle’s game to be played that day on the West Coast but was silent about any local game.

To be continued….

Tags: 12th Infantry, Coach Gay, Coach Holmes, Cummings Field, Fat Robbins, Fort Douglas, Fred Bennion, Joe Anderson, Paul Nelden

This entry was posted on May 3, 2011 at 10:34 am and is filed under Carlisle Indian School, Football, Pop Warner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.