Archive for the ‘Charles Guyon’ Category
November 9, 2012
Follows is the short article I was asked to write for The Torch, the monthly magazine of the U. S. Army War College, to commemmorate the 100th Anniversary of the 1912 Carlisle-Army football game:
The Cadets of West Point took the field on The Plain November 9, 1912, aiming to avenge their 1905 loss to Carlisle Indian School in the two schools’ only previous battle, also on The Plain. Missing from the second battle were the players and coaches from both 1905 teams and Major William A. Mercer, Carlisle Superintendent and Calvary officer, who had arranged that game by gaining permission from the War Department. Also AWOL in 1912 were the large crowd, dignitaries, and media interest the first game attracted. Present in 1912 were Jim Thorpe, Gus Welch, Joe Guyon, Pop Warner, Leland Devore, Dwight Eisenhower, Babe Weyand (in the bleachers), and Pot Graves, a cast surely destined for a movie.
Ominous clouds filled the sky and a cold wind blew across the field, making passing and punting risky businesses. Both sides’ emotions ran high as the combatants craved a victory. Carlisle arrived undefeated, the only blemish on their record a scoreless tie with Washington and Jefferson College, a month earlier. Army was 3-1 with a 6-0 loss to Yale. Holding the Eli of Yale to only four first downs and a low score gave the Cadets hope for success over the Indians.
Newspaper accounts after the game never considered its outcome in doubt, but those looking only at the scoreboard, at least for the first half, may have thought otherwise. The Indians bested the Cadets for most of the first half but didn’t score due to errant forward passes in the end zone. The turning point of the second quarter came when Carlisle fullback Stancil “Possum” Powell was expelled from the game for punching Army quarterback Vern “Nig” Pritchard. The 27-yard penalty combined with Powell’s ejection dampened the Indians’ spirits. Army then moved the ball forward the remaining 27 yards with fullback Geoffrey Keyes pushing the ball across the goal line. Pritchard missed the kick after the touchdown.
Momentum shifted in the Indians’ favor on the kickoff opening the second half when All-America tackle and team captain Leland Devore jumped on Joe Guyon, who had been getting the better of him all day, getting himself thrown out of the game. Army defensive backs Dwight Eisenhower and Charles Benedict knocked each other out of the game for the rest of the quarter in a failed attempt to sideline Thorpe. The Indians scored 27 unanswered points to lick Army worse than any opponent had beaten them in many years.
Tags:1905, 1912, Babe Weyand, Eisenhower, Ike, Leland Devore, Nig Pritchard, The Plain, West Point
Posted in Alex Arcasa, Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Frank Mt. Pleasant, Gus Welch, Jim Thorpe, Joe Bergie, Joe Guyon, Pop Warner, Stancil Powell | Leave a Comment »
June 20, 2012
Tex Noel recently sent me a link to a list of numerous books, programs and other football memorabilia that have been digitized and are available on-line. Included in the list was the program for the 1904 Carlisle-Haskell game which was held at the St. Louis World’s Fair, in part, for the entertainment of President Roosevelt who visited the fair but did not attend the game.
Page 3 of the program contains the proposed line ups for the two teams. At first glance, the Haskell line up looked similar to the one Steckbeck included in Fabulous Redmen,but the Carlisle line up was significantly different:
Program Steckbeck
Jude LE Rogers
Bowen LT Bowen, Gardner
Dillen LG Dillon
Kennedy C Shouchuk
White RG White
Exendine RT Exendine
Flores RE Tomahawk
Libby QB Libby
Hendricks RH B. Pierce, Hendricks
Shelden LH Sheldon, Lubo
Lube FB H. Pierce
Jude, Kennedy and Flores didn’t get in the game. Coaches Ed Rogers and Bemus Pierce suited up for the game. Hawley Pierce and long-time player Nikifer Shouchuk also played. The reason given for loading up the line up was that rumors swirled around that Haskell was even recruiting white ringers for the big game. That doesn’t seem to have happened. What did happen was that some of the best players ever to play at Carlisle could be found on both sides of the ball. Some, like Archiquette had previously played for Carlisle but were at Haskell in 1904 (and would return to Carlisle in 1905). Others like Charles Guyon (Wahoo), Pete Hauser and Emil Hauser (Wauseka), would star at Carlisle in the years that followed. The two line ups amounted to a who’s who in Indian football at that time.
Tags:Aiken, Charles Dillon, DuBois, Feliz, Fritz hendricks, Gokey, Lamott, McClean, McLean, Moore, Nikifer Shouchuk, Oliver, Payor, Scott Porter "Little Boy", Tomahawk, Warren, White
Posted in Albert Exendine, Antonio Lubo, Archie Libby, Arthur Sheldon, Bemus Pierce, Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Chauncey Archiquette, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Ed Rogers, Emil Hauser, Football, Haskell Institute, Hawley Pierce, Joe Libby, Pete Hauser, Wauseka, William Gardner | Leave a Comment »
June 12, 2012
While preparing the 1901 Spalding’s Guide for printing, I noticed that some future Carlisle players could be found in two photos on page 167. The first photo was of the 1900 Haskell Institute team but was mislabeled as being “Haskell Indian College,” in much the same way as Carlisle Indian Industrial School was often referred to as Carlisle College. Perhaps the whites who elevated these government Indian schools to collegiate status felt embarrassed that the Carlisle and Haskell Indians routinely defeated teams from the elite schools with players who had less education, money or experience playing football.
The first names to register with me were Archiquette and Guyon. I already knew that Chauncey Archiquette, captain of the 1900 Haskell team had played for Carlisle prior to coming to Haskell. He again played for Carlisle after returning from Haskell a few years later. I also knew that Charles Guyon played for Carlisle after enrolling there in 1905. However, as a joke, he went by the name Wahoo.
The list of players’ names under the photo included some other familiar ones but they weren’t Carlisle stars; they were Haskell players who battled against Carlisle in the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair game and later transferred to the eastern school. Steckbeck identified DuBois as another Haskell player who transferred to Carlisle along with several others who were on the 1904 team but not on the 1900 team. However, there were some players on the 1900 Haskell team that were also on the 1904 edition: Oliver, Felix, and Payer (or Payor).
Immediately below the Haskell photo is the Fort Shaw Indian School team photo. The person sitting in the first row, far left is Burd. Sampson Bird, captain of the great 1911 Carlisle team attended the Fort Shaw school before coming east, so this is probably him in the photo. An Indian agent probably spelled the name with a “U” instead of an “I” because the Burd family name was known to many.
Tags:DuBois, Felix, Fort Shaw Indian School, Oliver, Payor
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Chauncey Archiquette, Football, Haskell Institute, Sampson Bird | Leave a Comment »
April 26, 2012
I thought I’d continue with the theme of Carlisle Indians who played football in WWI by looking through the 1919 Spalding Guide for references to the Carlisle team or its players. Before starting that, I checked to make sure that I hadn’t done it before as my memory isn’t as good as it once was. In January of this year, I did a piece about the Carlisle students whose names I wasn’t familiar with who were playing on military teams. I recollect having mentioned that, although the 1918 Spalding Guide included Carlisle’s schedule for that year, none of these games were played because the school was closed shortly before the beginning of the football season in 1918. Fortunately, some names I do recognize can be found in the 1919 book, too.
Om page 22 is the photograph of the 1918 Georgia Tech “Golden Tornado.” Joe Guyon is #8 and John Heisman is #12. Charles Guyon (Wahoo) isn’t in the photo. Perhaps, Heisman got rid of him by then. Page 188 displays headshots of players and coaches for the 1918 Mare Island Marines team. Lone Star Dietz, #3, coached this team composed mainly of his former Washington State players. So may of them were on this team that this photo was published as part of the Washington State yearbook for that year. The New Year’s Day game in Pasadena on January 1, 1919 was the second one for those who had also been on the 1915 Washington State squad that had played in Pasadena in 1916.
Page 263 includes a write up for the Base Section No. 5 team from Brest, a major port of embarkation: “On January 19, 1919, a Base foot ball squad was organized under Lieut. W. C. Collyer, former Cornell half-back. This squad was composed of the above mentioned engineers, together with several stars gathered together from different outfits. Of these, the most prominent was Artichoke, a former Haskell and Carlisle Indian star.” Not being aware of anyone named Artichoke, I am confident that the player in question was Chauncey Archiquette, Jim Thorpe’s early idol. Unfortunately, a team photo wasn’t included to see that Artichoke was indeed Archiquette.
Tags:Artichoke, Base Section 5, Brest, Golden Tornado, John Heisman, Mare Island Marines, Rose Bowl
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Chauncey Archiquette, Football, Haskell Institute, Joe Guyon, Lone Star Dietz, Washington State University | Leave a Comment »
April 17, 2012
The photo on page 30 of Carlisle Indian School’s starting eleven for 1917, the last team that would represent the school, includes one player who would be heard from later, Nick Lassau. To learn more about Nick, aka Long Time Sleep, read up on the Oorang Indians of 1922 and 1923. Note that Carlisle’s uniforms had changed to include stripes across the midriff and the stripes that had been below the elbow were moved up above the elbow to align with the midriff stripes. Page 35 may contain the last thing written about a Carlisle team in a Spalding’s Guide: “Carlisle showed improvement over the previous year, but until they get a team of first rate caliber they will do well not to schedule so many matches with the big colleges.”
Page 41 begins the section on Foot Ball in West Virginia with the All-West Virginia Elevens selected by H. A. Stansbury, Athletic Director of West Virginia University. It was no surprise that Pete Calac of West Virginia Wesleyan headed the list. No other Carlisle Indians were on it, most likely due to not playing for a West Virginia school.
Page 50, immediately preceding the Foot Ball in the District of Columbia section, contains a photograph of the Georgetown University team on which the players are numbered but no legend is provided. Number 2, front row center in a sweater, is Georgetown’s Head Coach, Al Exendine, star end on the great 1907 Carlisle team. Georgetown was the class of DC college teams as had become the norm under one of Warner’s former assistants.
John Heisman, Head Coach of Georgia Tech, authored the Review of Far Southern Foot Ball. So, it is no surprise that he named Joe Guyon to his All-Southern Team at half-back. About his own team, Heisman wrote, “This team was considered by many as the best of the year anywhere. Whether it was or not need not here be debated. But certain is that in Strupper, Guyon and Hill it possessed three back-field men who were the equal of any other three that could be named the country over.” He said nothing about Guyon’s brother.
<next time—More Carlisle Players in The Great War>
Tags:Golden Tornado, John Heisman, Strupper
Posted in Albert Exendine, Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Joe Guyon, John B. Flinchum, Nick Lassa, Pete Calac, Pop Warner | Leave a Comment »
April 15, 2012
Beginning on page 7, Camp discussed three unbeaten eastern teams, two of which had ties to Carlisle. Carlisle’s former coach, Pop Warner, completed his third consecutive undefeated season at Pittsburgh since leaving Carlisle after the 1914 season. More on Georgia Tech later.
When discussing the state of Pacific Coast football on page 9, Camp gives a Carlisle alum high marks: “Washington State, with seven veterans of the previous season’s team, was again coached by ‘Lone Star’ Dietz, and under his guiding hand established a clear title to the Pacific Coast Championship…She [Washington State] would give many eastern teams a hard battle.”
On page 11, in lieu of his annual All America Team, Camp lists Honorable Mention college players. Ends selected included Pete Calac, formerly of Carlisle, then playing for West Virginia Wesleyan. Backs included Joe Guyon, formerly of Carlisle, then playing on Georgia Tech’s undefeated “Golden Hurricane” team.
Page 13 listed All-America selections made by other pundits. Dick Jemison of the Atlanta Constitution named Guyon to his All-America team as a half-back. Lambert G. Sullivan of the Chicago Daily News placed William Gardner at end on his The Real “All-Western” Eleven on page 17. The All-Southern Eleven picked by seven football writers in the South placed Joe Guyon at half-back. And Fred Digby of the New Orleans Item put Guyon at full-back on his All-Southern Eleven as did Zip Newman of the Birmingham News. “Happy” Barnes of Tulane did the same. Closing out the college all-star teams on page 23 was the All-West Virginia Eleven picked by Greasy Neale, coach of West Virginia Wesleyan. He selected his own player, Pete Calac, as one of the ends.
A photo of the Georgia Tech team appears on page 8 of the 1918 Spalding’s Guide. Figure number 1 is Head Coach John Heisman. That is no surprise. Neither is it that number 13 is Joe Guyon. The last person listed, number 22, is C. Wahoo. From previous research, I know that is Charlie Wahoo, Joe Guyon’s brother Charles Guyon, who also used the fabricated name of Wahoo. That all the other figures in the photo are numbered in order and that Wahoo is positioned out of order is suspicious. So is that his figure is smaller than the others. It’s well known that Heisman didn’t think much of him and that he used recruiting his brother for the team to leverage an assistant coaching position for himself. Could this picture have been “photoshopped” to include him using a primitive tool available at the time?
<next time—More Carlisle Players in The Great War>
Tags:Dick Jemison, Fred Digby, Georgia Tech, Golden Tornado, Greasy Neale, Happy Barnes, John Heisman, Lambert Sullivan, Walter Camp, Xip Newman
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Joe Guyon, Lone Star Dietz, Pete Calac, Pop Warner, William Gardner | 2 Comments »
August 8, 2011
While preparing Spalding’s Official Football Guide for 1906 for reprinting, I noticed a few things about the Carlisle Indian School football team’s 1905 season. These things caught my eye because it was this very team under Advisory Coach George Woodruff that Sally Jenkins maligned in her 1907 book. Caspar Whitney ranked the Indians as the 10th best team in the country for 1905. He also placed Frank Mt. Pleasant as a substitute at quarterback on his All America team.
George Woodruff placed three Carlisle Indians to his All Eastern Eleven for 1905: Frank Mt. Pleasant at quarterback, Charles Dillon at guard, and Wahoo (Charles Guyon, older brother of Joe Guyon) at end. N. P. Stauffer placed Dillon at guard on his All Eastern Eleven as well.
That an authority of the stature of Caspar Whitney considered Carlisle as the 10th best college football team in the country means something and that something is that the Indians were viewed as having had a very good season. Not their best ever, mind you, but a successful one at that.
These selections, along with George Orton’s observations that were posted in the June 27, 2011 message, show that Jenkins’s assessment of the type of play and success of the 1905 Carlisle Indian football team is at odds with the opinions of the experts of the day who actually saw the teams play.
1905 Carlisle Indian School football team from Spalding’s Official Football Guide for 1906
Tags:Chauncey Archiquette, Frank Jude, George Orton, George Woodruff, Littleboy, N. P. Stauffer, Oscar Hunt, Sally Jenkins, Scott Porter, Wilson Charles
Posted in Albert Exendine, Archie Libby, Arthur Sheldon, Bemus Pierce, Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Football, Frank Hudson, Frank Mt. Pleasant, Joe Libby, Mike Balenti, Nicholas Bowen | Leave a Comment »
June 15, 2010
Apparently, Pop Warner added three post-season games to the 1914 schedule very late in the season, quickly or while on the road or all three. The first mention of the post-season games came in the December 4 issue of The Carlisle Arrow, after the first two of these games had been played. The team likely did not return home after the Thanksgiving game with Brown because the first pot-season game was played two days later in Boston. On December 6, the Indians met Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn) in a game played in Atlanta that figures prominently in Auburn folklore. It was Pop Warner’s last at Carlisle’s helm and Lone Star Dietz’s last before embarking on a career as a head coach.
Some research into student files uncovered the fact that former Carlisle end Charles Guyon, aka Wahoo, was instrumental in setting up that game. At that time, he was th Atlanta branch manager for Spalding Sporting Goods and, as such, was closely involved in athletics in that city. Unfortunately for him, the game had been set up too quickly to generate much publicity and, due to having a bad season, the Indians weren’t a big draw at that time. Guyon fronted the money for the game and lost it. Attempts to have the government refund part of it were fruitless.
The game itself was a defensive struggle. The Indians had the ball in Auburn territory much of the first quarter but failed to score. Auburn stiffened. The second and third quarters were fought to a standstill with neither team able to generate much offense, let alone score. In the final period, Auburn moved the ball with a series of line plunges followed by pass from quarterback Hairston to left end Kearly, who carried the ball to the Carlisle six-yard line. “On the next play Hairston catapulted through the Indian line for the touchdown.” Louiselle kicked the extra point. Carlisle moved the ball with a series of lateral and pass plays but fell short when a pass was intercepted.
The game lives on in Auburn folklore, not for the victory so much as for the play of a Carlisle substitute named Hawkeagle.
Tags:Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn University, Hairston, Hawkeagle, Kearly, Louiselle, Pretty Boy, Wahoo, War Eagle
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Football, Louis Island, Pop Warner | Leave a Comment »
August 17, 2009
Groupies are not a new phenomenon. Today I came across a 1903 article in the Lincoln Daily News with a Denver dateline with a sensational headline. FLED HER HAPPY HOME FOR INDIAN HALFBACK was followed by Beautiful Young Pueblo Girl Shows Her Infatuation for Guyan[sic], the Chippewa on Haskell Team. The article began, “In love with handsome Charles Guyan[sic], the full-blooded Chippewa halfback on the Haskell Indian football team, pretty Bertha Hodkinson of Pueblo, ran away from home and the team and Guyan were shadowed by relatives, with the result that the girl was caught today.”
The football hero in question is Charles Guyon (aka Wahoo) who enrolled at Carlisle in 1905. A detective was assigned to him the entire time he was in The Mile-High City for the game with Denver University. The reporter thought that the girl, “who is but 17 years old…had evidently been warned, for she did not join him then, nor attempted to do so until noon today.”
Guyon told Detective Emrich that he hadn’t seen Bertha since August when she wrote him to ask for his autograph. “He became acquainted with her in a casual way while travelling with the team last year, and her sixteen years were greatly impressed with his manly charms. ‘But I don’t want to be mixed up in any trouble,’ said Guyan. ‘I know these young girls, and if she comes here I’ll point her out to you. I don’t want trouble.’” When she appeared at the Metropole Hotel and asked for him, Guyon telephoned the detective who rushed to the hotel and arrested her.
Bertha told a different story, “No, I wasn’t stuck on the Indian. I only came to Denver to see the game and visit my friend, Mrs. Eisenhart of 1011 Thirteenth Street.” She claimed that it was always her intention to return home after the game. Mrs. Eisenhart said that she had no previous acquaintance with Miss Hodkinson, that the girl merely rented a room in her house while she was in town. The girl said that she was 18 years old and free to travel if she wishes. She had also bought a round-trip ticket.
Tags:Bertha Hodkinson, Charles Guyan, Denver University, Detective Emrich, Haskell Institute, Lincoln Dail News, Metropole Hotel
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Football | Leave a Comment »
February 26, 2009
I just found out that, like almost everyone else interested in the Carlisle Indian School, I had been snookered. The trickster is a major figure in American Indian lore and another one has been brought to my attention. I bought the idea that Wauseka was Emil Hauser’s Cheyenne name. Now I learn that he made it up as a joke.
Pete and Emil Hauser were friends of Mike Balenti as was Albert Exendine and they visited him in his home in Oklahoma after all left Carlisle. It was during one of these visits that the joke was shared and Balenti’s son heard it. It turns out that Emil Hauser made up the name on a lark and it stuck. Knowing this raises a lot of questions, the answers for which can only be speculated.
When and where he coined his name is not known, but something is known about a similar action taken by his old teammate Charles Guyon. When Guyon and Hauser were both attending, and playing football for, Haskell Institute, Guyon would play summer baseball in the Midwest. When interviewed by one-too-many a newspaper reporter who couldn’t pronounce his Chippewa name, Charlie gave him the name of the town in which he was playing at the time, Wahoo, Nebraska. When he played at Carlisle he went by both Wahoo and Charles Guyon. In later years he was often referred to as Charlie Wahoo or Chief Wahoo.
Emil Hauser may have taken a page from his old teammate’s book and appropriated a geographic name as his own. A quick search identified towns in Illinois and Wisconsin named Wauseka and a county in Minnesota named Waseca. The truth probably won’t ever be known but this is a plausible explanation, particularly because a friend of his had previously done something similar.
Tags:Cheyenne, Wahoo
Posted in Albert Exendine, Carlisle Indian School, Charles Guyon, Emil Hauser, Football, Mike Balenti, Pete Hauser, Wauseka | Leave a Comment »
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