Archive for the ‘Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs’ Category
May 25, 2022
I came across a photo of the complete 1913 football squad in the Lancaster New Era dated September 30, 1913. This photo includes a caption listing all the names of the players’ in the photo. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find several of them in the Carlisle Indian School files and can’t identify them. Some of the names could be misspelled, others could be nicknames, and the reporter may have gotten some of them wrong. Here are the ones I am having trouble identifying:
Name, position Place in photo
Archibald, halfback First person on far left of third row (below Warner’s left shoulder)
Mann, fullback Five players to the right of Archibald
G. Morin, guard Three players to the right of Mann
Hemlock, tackle Third layer from the right in the fourth row
Skundooli, guard First person on the far right of the fourth row
Barie (Barle?), guard Third person from the right in the bottom row
Winneco, halfback Second person from the right in the bottom row
Any help in identifying these players would be most appreciated.
Posted in Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Elmer Busch, Gus Welch, Joe Guyon, Lone Star Dietz, Pop Warner | 2 Comments »
July 30, 2018
Earlier this summer you read about my ill-fated attempt to see Tim Tebow play minor league baseball against the Harrisburg Senators at City Island. Since that time, I’ve thought about who else played at that island in the Susquehanna River over a century ago.
Called Hargest’s Island in 1902, a crude baseball field there was home turf for Harrisburg Athletic Club for whom Carlisle Indian School grad and Dickinson College student Charles Albert Bender pitched one summer. The future hall-of-famer even hurled a game against the visiting Chicago Cubs. Chief Bender lost but acquitted himself well. So well, that by season’s end he had been signed by Connie Mack to pitch for the Philadelphia Athletics. The rest, as they say, is history.
Baseball wasn’t the only sport in which Carlisle Indians competed on Hargest’s Island. In 1908, 8,000 people attended the first annual statewide track and field meet sponsored by the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Athletic Association. The Carlisle Indians defeated ten colleges to take first place honors. Several Carlisle athletes performed well. Among them was Jim Thorpe, rounding out his first season of competition. He came in second in the 220-yard hurdles and 16-pound shotput, and first in the high jump. Not bad for someone new to the sport.
Jim Thorpe runs the high hurdles in the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Meet on Hargest’s Island
The 1912 event was the source of an often-heard legend about the Carlisle Indians. Their team did not run 20 miles to a game, defeat their opponents and run home. Lewis Tewanima and Jim Thorpe were training for the Olympic Games to be held in Stockholm that year and did not compete as members of the team. As part of his training regime, distance running Hopi Tewanima ran from Carlisle to Hargest’s Island, waved to his friends, circled the track, and ran back to Carlisle.
Jim Thorpe returned in 1915 to compete there as a member of the Harrisburg Islanders minor league baseball team. A parallel of Thorpe and Tebow is that that both competed on City Island in baseball, not either’s first sport. Both camein to prominence for their exploits in college football. Tebow was a Heisman Trophy winner and Thorpe would have been had that award existed in 1911 and 1912. His prominent position in the College Football Hall of Fame attests to that.
Tags:City Island, Tim Tebow
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Dickinson College, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Jim Thorpe | Leave a Comment »
January 10, 2018
I was very interested when Google Alert informed me of an article in The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington this afternoon. It acknowledges the 100th anniversary of Lone Star Dietz pursuing an acting career in that city: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/jan/10/100-years-ago-today-in-spokane-washington-states-f/ It is well known and covered in my biography of Dietz that he bought shares in the Washington Motion Picture Company, acted in Fool’s Gold and went broke when the studio folded. The film actually made a little money but not nearly enough to cover the operating costs of the fledgling production company.
What was news to me was the subhead “Gives Up Vaudeville.” I had no idea Dietz was in Vaudeville. I was aware of him acting in pictures in Hollywood and Spokane, but not of him being on the Vaudeville circuit. Unfortunately, the portion of the article that may have covered that issue wasn’t reproduced in today’s paper. Maybe Jim Kershner, the reporter who wrote today’s piece can send me a copy of the entire original.
Vaudeville was not always used in the way we think of it today. Sometimes it was used as a catch all for people performing in front of live audiences, including the lecture circuit. For example, Pop Warner referred to Frank Cayou as being in Vaudeville when he was giving talks on something akin to the Chautauqua Circuit.
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Frank Cayou, Lone Star Dietz, Pop Warner | Leave a Comment »
December 27, 2015
While I wait on galleys for my Craighead book, I have received requests for interviews about Carlisle Indian School football players. The first was with the local paper to talk about the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rose Bowl. The second is for a videotaped interview about the Carlisle Indian School football program for an upcoming documentary by Ernie Zahn, a Current Fellow with Filmmakers Without Borders. In the meantime, Washington State Magazine, the Washington State University alumni magazine published a short article they requested I write about the 1916 Rose Bowl. How, you might ask, is the 1916 Rose Bowl a Carlisle Indian School topic?
Lone Star Dietz played right tackle for Pop Warner’s legendary 1909-11 teams and became his protégé when he assisted the “Old Fox” coach the Carlisle teams from 1912 to 1914. After Warner took the head coaching job at Pitt, he recommended Dietz to head up the floundering Washington State program. Dietz brought Warner’s single- and double-wing formations to the Palouse and ran roughshod over the competition with them. A photo of the 1915 Washington State College team lined up in an unbalanced-right single-wing formation heads the Washington State Magazine article.
The Carlisle Sentinel interview resulted in an article in the December 26 edition titled “Rose Bowl: Lone Star Dietz coached first game in Rose Bowl Series.” Accompanying the article are two photos of Dietz: one in civilian clothes holding a cigar, the other in a Carlisle football uniform.
How much of the hour-long interview by the Filmmakers Without Borders fellow won’t be known for some time but the entire documentary Zahn intends to produce will be short. Because it is funded, he won’t be entering it in festivals or contests. Instead, he will be putting it up on YouTube.com when post-production work is complete.
Tags:Carlisle Sentinel, Ernie Zahn, Filmmakers Without Borders, Washington State magazine
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Lone Star Dietz, Single-Wing, Washington State University | Leave a Comment »
December 5, 2015
One Saturday last month, I saw two plays that harken back to a play the Carlisle Indians ran. While sitting in the bleachers in The Big House in Ann Arbor watching the Michigan-Rutgers game, I missed seeing exactly what the players on the field did at the time it happened but did see the Michigan fans’ reaction to receiving an unsportsmanship conduct penalty for “attempting to deceive.” Tight end Jake Butts followed a group of players being substituted out of the game to the sideline but didn’t go off the field. Instead, he lined up on the line of scrimmage near the sideline. After the ball was snapped, the Michigan quarterback saw that Butts wasn’t covered by a defender and hit him with a pass for a 56-yard gain. The defense had been fooled but the officials weren’t. Coach Harbaugh protested the 15-yard penalty as only he can do but the officials were unmoved.
Later that day, Nebraska beat Michigan State on a pass completed to a receiver who had been out of bounds before returning to the field to make the catch. The officials ruled that the Michigan State defender had pushed the Nebraska receiver out of bounds and, under the rules, he was allowed to return to the field and catch a pass.
Both of these plays relate to the 1907 Carlisle-Chicago game played in Chicago against what Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg thought was one of his best teams. That year, Carlisle had a great pair of ends in Albert Exendine and William Gardner (both of whom became lawyers but that isn’t part of this story). Stagg’s defensive scheme involved hitting each end with three defenders, one at a time in succession, every time they went out for a pass. Before on play, Exendine told fullback Pete Hauser (who had passing responsibilities that day due to Frank Mount Pleasant being injured in the Minnesota game the previous week) to hold the ball as long as he dared then heave it as far as he could. Exendine let a defender push him off the field, then scooted behind the Chicago bench and streaked along the sideline until he was deep in Chicago territory. He dashed back onto the field and waved his arms wildly to get Hauser’s attention. Hauser arched the ball high downfield to the wide open Exendine for a touchdown.
A few years later when William Gardner was coaching duPont Manual High School in Louisville, he had one of his ends nonchalantly wander over to a group of sportswriters standing along the sideline. When the ball was snapped, the end headed downfield and the tailback hit him with a pass. Gardner’s only miscalculation was that he picked too slow a runner for this trick play. The play was only partially successful because his end was tackled before he could score a touchdown.
These plays are just two examples of how Carlisle Indians have affected football rulesmaking.
Tags:Amos Alonzo Stagg, football rules, Jake Butts, Jim Harbaugh, Michigan State, receiver out of bounds, Rutgers
Posted in Albert Exendine, Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Frank Mt. Pleasant, Pete Hauser, William Gardner | Leave a Comment »
May 1, 2013
Yesterday, I received n email from the son of Mary Lou Zientek with some photos attached. Mary Lou Zientek was the woman who befriended the Lone Star Dietz and his wife, Doris, in the declining years. Mary Lou managed their estates after Doris died. Mrs. Zientek died on May 7 last year. She distributed artifacts which few valued at that time to places such as Sports Immortals in Boca Raton, Florida (they were in Pittsburgh when Dietz died). She kept a self-portrait Dietz painted in the early 1960s and, one assumes, made a gift to her for her generosity. Previously, I had only seen a black and white photo of the painting See below). Her son sent me color photos. The effect of the painting is much different in color than in black and white. Color photos of both front and back can be seen below. I thank Mr. Zientek for sharing these photos with us.
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Lone Star Dietz, Washington Redskins | Leave a Comment »
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 »
October 26, 2012
The electronic version of the Fall 2012 edition of the magazine for the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is finally out. My article on Carlisle Indians who went on to coach other teams is on page 46 (page 44 of print version). The idea for this article came to me after attending Lone Star Dietz’s enshrinement ceremony into the College Football Hall of Fame. He is the only Carlisle Indian to be inducted as a coach. Six others, some of whom also coached, were enshrined previously but as players. It is unlikely that any others will receive this honor because no other Carlisle Indian coached as long or with nearly as much success as Dietz.
American Indian athletic prowess is getting much attention this year due to 2012 being the 100th anniversary of Jim Thorpe’s extraordinary triumphs in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Games. Anyone unfamiliar with Native Americans’ success in the Olympics can read my several previous blog entries on this topic.
Worthy of note is that Dietz and the others had great success coaching white college and professional players. Many of them, including Dietz, coached Indian teams at one time or another but the vast majority of their coaching careers were with white college teams. Having played with Carlisle and knowing the Warner System gave these men instant credibility and opened doors for them. After going through those doors, success or the lack of it was the deciding factor. After all, sports have always been a meritocracy. Performance matters above all. Carlisle players succeeded on the field both as players and coaches. The graduate system of coaching that was tried in the early 20th century limited coaching opportunities for those who hadn’t attended major colleges but numerous smaller schools welcomed Carlisle Indians to lead their teams. Although far from an ideal situation, these men were given the opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merits and they largely succeeded.
http://content.yudu.com/A1yt4b/fall2012/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanindianmagazine.org%2Fabout-us
Tags:1912 Olympics, coaching football, College Football Hall of Fame, National Museum of the American Indian, NMAI, Stockholm Games
Posted in Albert Exendine, Bemus Pierce, Caleb Sickles, Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Frank Cayou, Frank Mt. Pleasant, Gus Welch, Haskell Institute, James Phillips, Jim Thorpe, Joe Guyon, Joel Wheelock, Lone Star Dietz, Pop Warner, William Baine, William Gardner | 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 8, 2012
While preparing the 1911 Spalding’s Guide for printing, I noticed that some former Carlisle players could be seen in the numerous 1910 team photos to be found in that volume. That brought to mind an old newspaper article that I can’t lay my hands on now in which the writer opined as to why there were so few football coaches at a time when Carlisle Indian School players were grabbing headlines. I don’t recall his reasoning or conclusions but do remember having read the article.
The truth is that several Carlisle Indian School players tried their hands at coaching with varying success. The names that come quickly to mind are Bemus Pierce, Frank Cayou, Albert Exendine, Caleb Sickles, Lone Star Dietz, James Phillips, Joel Wheelock, Victor “Choc” Kelley, Mike Balenti, and Gus Welch (I keep adding names as they come to me while writing this article). I’m sure there were others. Given enough time to research this issue, I’m sure that I could come up with more. But I don’t have the time right now because I must get the 1901 Spalding’s Guide ready to print.
The lengths of their careers varied, but Exendine, Welch and Dietz all had long coaching careers. Of these, Lone Star Dietz had by far the most success and, as an acknowledgement of that success, was honored by the Helms Foundation many years ago. Next month, the College Football Hall of Fame will honor him. It is highly unlikely that any other Carlisle Indian will receive this honor because only a few had long careers and only Dietz, as far as we know, had a Hall of Fame worthy career as a coach. Also, Exendine and Welch were already inducted as players. My immediate concern is not about the Hall of Fame but with 1910 team photos that include former Carlisle players.
Follows are two of the 1910 team photos. I’ll leave it to the reader to find the Carlisle Indians in them, but here’s a hint: both wore their Carlisle letter sweaters. I take that as an indication of how proud they were of having been part of those great teams.
Tags:Carlisle Indian School Coaches, Franklin and Marshall College, Washington University
Posted in Albert Exendine, Bemus Pierce, Caleb Sickles, Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Ed Rogers, Football, Frank Cayou, Frank Mt. Pleasant, Gus Welch, James Phillips, Joel Wheelock, Lone Star Dietz, Mike Balenti, Victor Kelly, William Gardner | Leave a Comment »
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