Last week a reporter from the local newspaper called asking if I knew anything about August Lookaround for an article he was putting together. About all I knew was that Gus had played on the Carlisle Indian School football team but not much more. Expecting to find enough for a 300-word blog posting I agreed to do a little research and get back to him. 2,000 words later, I have too much for a blog post and don’t have a book in work into it could fit neatly. So, I’ve decided to serialize it on my blog.
August “Gus” Lookaround from Keshena, Wisconsin arrived at Carlisle in April 1912 at twenty years of age. His deceased father was full-blood Menominee and his still alive mother was half-blood. Prior to coming to Carlisle, Gus had attended Keshena Indian School through the fifth grade. After that he attended Tomah Indian School in Tomah, Wisconsin, where he graduated after completing eighth grade. At five feet ten inches tall and weighing one hundred seventy-eight and a half pounds, Gus was a prime candidate for the athletic teams.
He was first mentioned in print in mid-September when head football coach Pop Warner said of the new men trying out for the team, “the most promising of whom are [Joe] Guyon and [Gus] Lookaround, two good-sized fellows who have entered the school since last season.” He got some playing time in the early warm-up games against local small colleges, playing right tackle against Albright College and Lebanon Valley College right guard against Dickinson College. When Sam Burd, the previous year’s captain was called home to Montana, Warner had a vacancy to fill at left end. He tried Lookaround against Villanova and Syracuse. Roy Large eventually got the position but Gus had made a good impression for a first-year man.
At the start of the 1913 season, wags at out-of-town papers had some fun at Gus’s expense. The Meriden Journal said: “Carlisle has a tackle on the football team whose last name is Lookaround. Suppose his first name was Taka.”
He started the 1913 season at right tackle but was shifted the left tackle for the Dickinson game. Last year’s tackles, Guyon and Calac, had been moved to the backfield, leaving both tackle positions open. Gus was back at right tackle the rest of the schedule. Monty placed Gus on his All-American Tenth Team at season’s end.
<end of part 1>
Tags: Lookaround
Tom Benjey's Weblog 
August 22, 2022 at 2:12 pm |
I would love to talk with you about Gus. I knew him as a coach at the Montvale school and have notes on him and his background, much of which conflicts with what you have reported here. Still, he was an interesting person and I would like to know more, if I may. I also understand there is a Gus Welch groupie somewhere in Bedford. Is that you?
August 23, 2022 at 8:28 am |
This week and next are really bad for me. I will try to get in touch with you after that. I am not the Gus Welch groupie but have heard of him before. However, I don’t know who he is or where he lives.