Archive for the ‘Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs’ Category
October 29, 2011
This week I succeeded, after considerable struggle, to create ebooks for Prostate Cancer and the Veteran. Now, people who have a Kindle or a Nook or another device, including a PC with ebook software, have this book available to them—and at a lower cost than the print version. I won’t go into the gory details of converting a print book to an ebook but converting to the Kindle was easier than converting to the Nook (ePub format). I won’t bother with other formats unless there is demand for them. Also, I understand that some devices have software that allows them to read books in Kindle or Nook format.
Writing this short book and creating print and ebook versions along with receiving requests for information on various Carlisle players has caused me to think about making little books on individual players or families of brothers who played. Each book would contain the three introductory chapters that provide background on the Carlisle program, the team and Pop Warner. That would be followed by a chapter or chapters on the player or players being covered in the book. Ebooks could also be created when requested.
I don’t plan on charging off on a project to create any individual player books but will seriously consider it if enough people request them. So, if you’re interested in a single player or family of players, let me know. Otherwise, I won’t know that there is anyone out there interested in a book on a specific player. I could also create books based on a specific relationship. Two that come to mind are Carlisle Indians in the NFL and the Carlisle Indian School – Washington State College Connection.
As I said before, if there are no requests, I must assume that there is no interest.
Tags:eBook, Kindle, Nook
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Pop Warner, Publishing | Leave a Comment »
October 27, 2010
I was recently asked if Pop Warner unveiled the single-wing against Penn in the Carlisle Indians’ fifth game of the 1907 season. Penn was actually Carlisle’s 7th opponent that year but that was probably just a typo made by the person asking the question. This was the first time I had heard (or read) that the single-wing was first used in that particular game. I have seen it attributed to several other times but not that one. A little research found a source for this claim but quite possibly not the only person to make it. Follows is an extract from an article on the Carlisle Indians in LeatherHelmetIllus.com:
‘Pop’ Warner unveiled the new [single-wing] formation against the University of Pennsylvania, on Oct. 26, 1907. So far that season no team had crossed the Quaker’s goal line. Carlisle was undefeated. A large crowd of 22,800 fans looked on. They were expecting a good game but they got more than they bargained for. Carlisle scored on the second play: a 40 yard pass from Hauser to Gardner, caught on the run. The diversified offense racked up 402 yards, to 76 yards for Penn., Carlisle went 8 of 16 passing. The game also marked the debut of Jim Thorpe. He broke free for 45 yards the second time he touched the ball. The Indians won 26 – 6.
After finding this, I set about locating game accounts in period newspapers. Before resolving the issue of the single-wing, I noticed a significant error—or the sports writers of the day had it all wrong. Nowhere did I find mention of (William) Gardner scoring a touchdown or anything else in that game. What I did find in the coverage by The Washington Post, The New York Times, United Press and other wire service accounts was that the Indians’ first score came on a field goal kicked by Pete Hauser early in the game. That score was followed by Fritz Hendricks’ 100-yard touchdown run after picking up Hollenbach’s fumble. Payne closed out the first-half scoring with a touchdown of his own around Penn’s end from the 4-yard line. Penn played better in the second half and didn’t allow Carlisle an offensive touchdown. However, Little Boy scored his touchdown by diving on a Penn punt that Albert Exendine had blocked and fell behind their goal line. Hauser closed out Carlisle’s scoring with a second field goal. Frank Mt. Pleasant kick the extra points after each touchdown. Although Mt. Pleasant and Hauser received much praise for their passing in this game, none of their tosses went for a touchdown to Gardner or anyone else.
The next blog will deal with the errors related to Jim Thorpe and the single-wing.
Tags:Albert Payne, Fritz hendricks, LeatherHelmetIllus.com, Little Boy, Rich Manning
Posted in Albert Exendine, Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Frank Mt. Pleasant, Jim Thorpe, Pete Hauser, Pop Warner, Single-Wing, William Gardner | Leave a Comment »
September 28, 2010
The on-field influences the government Indian schools, Carlisle mostly but also Haskell to some extent, had on the development of college football are well known. Less well-known are the impacts on the rules under which the game is played. Most football historians are aware that Carlisle Indian School was frequently criticized for not adhering to eligibility rules similar to those agreed to by the major colleges. In 1908, Pop Warner instituted a limit of four years of eligibility on the varsity team for Carlisle’s players. Years spent riding the bench without playing were most likely not counted against the four years. Something that is not known as well is that major colleges routinely ignored the fact that players they recruited from Carlisle had already played for four years prior to enrolling in college. That was about to change in 1905 if some had their way.
A November 29, 1904 article datelined Chicago that was printed in The Boston Globe announced that eligibility rules were about to be enforced more stringently, at least by some schools. “A meeting of representatives of leading western colleges” (read Big Ten) agreed on rule changes to which they were to comply. Two schools were singled out specifically: “Carlisle and Haskell Indian Schools, two formerly unclassified institutions, were raised to the ranks of colleges, and students who have competed for four years from those institutions in the future will not be allowed to compete in events controlled by western colleges.” Since Carlisle and Haskell seldom played more than a total of two games a year against the schools that became the Big Ten, this rule was probably aimed at the schools themselves. Several former Carlisle players had played for these schools after having used up their eligibility at the Indian school. Some that come quickly to mind are: Frank Cayou, Illinois; James Johnson, Northwestern; James Phillips, Northwestern; William Baine, Wisconsin; and Ed Rogers, Minnesota.
Next time – Freshmen.
Tags:Eligibility rules
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Dickinson College, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Ed Rogers, Football, Frank Cayou, Haskell Institute, James Johnson, James Phillips, Pop Warner | Leave a Comment »
September 17, 2010
Last weekend, we entertained some houseguests by taking them for a tour of Gettysburg Battlefield. In the evening afterward, one of our guests mentioned that her grandfather, an immigrant from Poland who lived in the Detroit area, had served in an all-Polish unit in the U. S. Army during World War I. I recalled from researching William Gardner (a chapter of Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs is devoted to him) that he was put in charge of an all-Polish unit at Camp Custer during WWI.
An article titled, “Gardner is the Only Real American Officer in Army,” ran in the October 6, 1917 edition of The Fort Wayne Sentinel. In part, it said:
Captain Gardner is in a unique position in the new army, for in the assignment of recruits to the various regiments and companies he was given a large group of men of foreign extraction from Detroit, nearly half of his company being of Polish extraction. Of the Polish contingent in Captain Gardner’s company there were many who could not speak or understand English so the first problem of this real American officer was how to make His new soldiers understand the language in which they will fight.
Gardner, however, in his first problem of his new life in the army, showed the same resourcefulness which made him the terror of foes whom he had met on the gridiron, for he immediately detailed one of his lieutenants to begin to learn Polish. The lieutenant began his duties, learning the Polish words for such commands as “squads right,” and “right face” and when Gardner’s commands were given to the company in English, the lieutenant repeated them in Polish for the foreign born soldiers in Uncle Sam’s army. The Poles were so pleased at Captain Gardner’s efforts to help them learn to fight for their new country that they took to drill with a will.
“My company won’t take a back seat for any company in the new army, even if they did have to learn soldiering through an interpreter.” says Captain Gardner, “They are the best drilled men in camp today, we think, just because they tried to work and show their appreciation of the work my lieutenants did with them.”
Next time, Part II
Tags:Camp Custer, Polish unit
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, William Gardner | Leave a Comment »
July 6, 2010
The Native All-Star Football Game is for Native American and Alaska Native high school football players along with Canadian Aboriginals who will graduate in 2010 that are able to prove their Native heritage by holding a tribal identification card from a federally recognized Native American Indian Tribe or a Canadian Indigenous Tribe.
Since 2002, this game has given young Native American men the honor to finish out their outstanding high school careers, many of whom go on to compete at the collegiate level, and others who begin new endeavors outside of football.
The original idea and concept of the game started with a man named Jeff Bigger. He was the founder of the Native All Star Idea. The first season the two coaches asked to coach in the game were Carl Madison and Herman Boone. Bigger stumbled across them both as friends of an acquaintance and both were also US Army All American Bowl coaches. Carl was one of the first head coaches in the game as well as the winner of the first Native All Star Game.
There has only been one year (2006) where the game was not under the direction of either Jeff Bigger or John Harjo. That year the name of the game was played in Lawton, OK and renamed the Jim Thorpe Indian All Star Football Classic. It pitted former Muscogee (Creek) Chief and former Jenks head coach Perry Beaver up against former Miami of Ohio coach Jim Wachenheim. Perry’s team walked away with the game with a score of 35-0. While the score was lopsided the game seemed closer and was exciting to watch.
In 2007 John Harjo retook the reigns of the game and moved it back to Lawrence, KS once again and Haskell hosted the closest ever NAS finish. Dave Brown and his East team won with no time left on the clock with a 2 pt conversion. The final play of the game the running back for the West took the ball back into his own endzone to secure the win even giving Brown and company the safety, but he did not take a knee or run out of the endzone. Quick thinking by a corner from the East took the ball from him tying the game as the horn went off. The play was never called dead and it resulted in a game tying touchdown. Eventual Game MVP and Choctaw Central runningback Joshua Parkhurst punched in the 2 pt conversion and helmets went flying in an unforeseeable upset.
2008-The original 2008 game was to be held on the Soboba Reservation near Hemet, CA. Tragedy and turmoil on the reservation caused game officials to quickly change the location of the game and move it to the home of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians near Philadelphia, MS. Miko Denson and A.D. Walt Wilson were very receptive and helpful in allowing the game to played at Choctaw Central. 6 months of planning and organizing were squeezed into 4 weeks and the NAS Football Game was given new life. Dave Brown held off a 4th quarter offensive explosion by Coach Raymond and company for the victory.
In 2009 the head coaches were two former head coaches Bryan Raymond (Cherokee) and Jim Sandusky (Colville). Both coaches lost in previous years and are great coaches and highly competitive. Coach Raymond and the White team’s physical defense held the Red team’s prolific offense to 0 points. Every time the Red’s got near the endzone the White team would tighten up in a bend but don’t break effort by a defense anchored by Matt Billy from McAlester, OK. Billy, who won the Defensive MVP of the game, was also an Oklahoma All-State Selection.
To find out more about this year’s game which is being played on July 24 at Bacone College in Muskogee, OK or the game’s history, check out http://www.nativeallstar.com/.
Tags:Bacone College, John Harjo, Muskogee, NDN Sports.com, Oklahoma
Posted in Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Haskell Institute | 6 Comments »
March 24, 2010
This time we’ll discuss other parts of the Writer’s Digest review of Oklahoma’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals, beginning with “The U. S. tendency to treat Native Americans like animals means that their biographies reflect the glory of sports—and the sorrow of poverty and bigotry.”
For starters, biographies of these men must “reflect the glory of sports” because, in their youth, these men were famous across the country as a result of their athletic abilities. Sure, newspaper coverage was often racist but it was respectful of their abilities and accomplishments. Sports opened doors to them that were not open to most young whites of that period. College was largely reserved for the elite. Few from the working class darkened the doors of these hallowed institutions. However, several Carlisle Indians were enrolled in major universities. These same schools complained about Carlisle not conforming to the same eligibility rules that they gave lip service to while recruiting the Indians to leave Carlisle and come play for them.
Others leveraged their Carlisle fame into jobs away from the reservations where opportunities were few. Not many of them became rich, but sports were not a route to wealth for all but a few in those days. Amos Alonzo Stagg was probably the highest paid man in sports because he was making $6,000 a year as a tenured professor with the University of Chicago. Jim Thorpe’s contract with the New York Giants paid him as much but only for five years. It wasn’t until Red Grange and Babe Ruth arrived on the scene that athletes became rich. By then, the Carlisle Indians who hadn’t retired from competition were in the twilight of their athletic careers.
Most of the Carlisle football players I have researched rose from poverty into the middle class. Many of them worked with their hands in occupations that some consider menial today. But most Americans worked in “menial” jobs those days and very few went to college. The grandchildren of these men who have contacted me have gone to college and living middle-class lives. Ironically, their family histories parallel those of immigrant groups given that Indians are the only non-immigrants in the country.
Tags:Amos Alonzo Stagg, Writer's Digest
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football | Leave a Comment »
March 13, 2010
We are celebrating Dietz’s listing by giving 20% off his biography at www.Tuxedo-Press.com. To learn more about Lone Star Dietz, check out www.LoneStarDietz.com.
The National Football Foundation released this year’s ballot of candidates for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Lone Star Dietz is on the ballot again. This year, he is joined by:
- Barry Alverez of Wisconsin
- Jim Carlen of South Carolina, Texas Tech and West Virginia
- Wayne Hardin of Temple and Navy
- Bill McCartney of Colorado
- Billy Jack Murphy of Memphis
- Darryl Rogers of Arizona State, Michigan State, San Jose State, Fresno State and Cal State-Hayward
It will be interesting to see if the injustice done to Lone Star will be corrected this year. It also remains to be seen if the Lone Star Curse over Washington State will ever be lifted. WSU’s last undefeated season was in 1917, Dietz’s last year in Pullman. Their last, and only, Rose Bowl victory was in 1916 when Dietz’s undefeated warriors upset Fritz Pollard and Brown to put West Coast football on the map and to establish the Rose Bowl and all the other bowl games that followed.
Tags:Brown University, College Football Hall of Fame, Fritz Pollard, National Football Foundation, Rose Bowl, Washington State
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Lone Star Dietz | Leave a Comment »
February 19, 2010
Researching the lives of Martin, Joel and Hugh Wheelock was made more difficult because their relationships to each other and to other Wheelocks at Carlisle Indian School, of which there were many, are not entirely clear. It wasn’t hard to determine who their fathers were. Censuses reflected that James A. Wheelock was the father of Joel and Hugh and Abram Wheelock fathered Martin Wheelock. James and Abram were surely related to each other and could have been brothers or cousins. The fun begins.
On the 1885 census, the earliest on I found that had Martin listed, no mother was mentioned. Eventually, I found the Powless Diary, which contained an entry for 1879 that stated, “Sunday, wife of Abram Wheelock, Mary Ann, age 26, died May 4.” Martin’s parentage was established—or so I thought. Then I encountered another entry that might be relevant: “Wife of Abram Wheelock, Lucy died August 29.” I then noticed that the entry was for 1869. Because Martin was born about five years later, Lucy couldn’t have been his mother. It must have been Mary Ann.
The 1891 Oneida census is the first one on which I found Joel (2 years) and Hugh (3/4 year) listed. Their father was James A. Wheelock and his wife was Sophia. The James Wheelocks’ had 10 children listed. The oldest was Dennison, 19, and the youngest was Hugh. However, they couldn’t have all been Sophia’s children because she was only 27 at that time. I noticed two gaps in the ages of the children: one between James R., 14, and Wilson, 11; the other between Josephine, 8, and Louisa, 3. Sophia was very likely the mother of Hugh and Joel. She could have been the mother of Wilson, Ida, Eliza and Josephine, but that’s not a mystery I have to solve—at least not yet. She surely isn’t the mother of Dennison and James Riley, as I have seen stated elsewhere, but that isn’t my problem, either.
Later, Sophia died and James A. Wheelock married Lena Webster and had children with her. The 1905 census lists her, then a widow, as the stepmother of Joel and Hugh and the mother of children she had with James. To complicate matters further, Lena soon married Martin Wheelock and had children with him.
Tags:Abram Wheelock, Carlisle Indian School Band, Dennison Wheelock, James A. Wheelock, James Riley Wheelock, Lena Webster
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Hugh Wheelock, Joel Wheelock, Martin Wheelock | Leave a Comment »
July 21, 2009
I received some great news over the weekend– Oklahoma’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals have shipped and should be available for sale and immediate shipment by mid-week at www.Tuxedo-Press.com and next week from other booksellers. This book is not recommended for people who already have Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs because most of the material in the new book can be found in it. This may not sound like it makes sense, so I’ll explain.
Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, in my opinion, contains a lot of information that is of interest to young people. However, at 160,000 words, it is inaccessible to youngsters. As an aside, adults tell me they don’t necessarily read it in sequence because its organization allows readers to skip around, reading sections or chapters they find interesting at a particular time and others at other times. Still others use it as a reference book because most of these men’s life stories have been told nowhere else. By splitting this book into a series by state, each volume is short enough that children can read it. A benefit to me is that I was able to include two people who weren’t in Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs: Mike Balenti and Henry Roberts. Perhaps when I finish the series I will make a second edition of Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs that includes all the new people that were added in the series.
Also, Oklahoma’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals is in hardback with a glossy cover, something that should make it an attractive Christmas gift, particularly for children with roots in Oklahoma. If it sounds like I am on a soapbox, it is because I am. Our children and grandchildren should know about these people and much of what has been written about Carlisle Indian School is distorted at best.
Tags:Oklahoma's Carlisle Indian School Immortals
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Henry Roberts, Mike Balenti, Publishing | Leave a Comment »
July 13, 2009
Tex Noel just came across a new website that has an article about the single-wing on it. Being well aware of my interest, he sent me this link: (It may be necessary to copy this URL and paste it into your browser.) http://www.footballhistorian.com/football_heroes.cfm?page=18#Single-Wing%20Formation…1920s
The page is very attractively done and has links to sister sites for baseball and basketball. The problems start when you read what is written on the site. The title for the article is Single-Wing Formation…1920s. I found it curious that the single-wing was filed under the decade of the 1920s instead of when it originated. The first sentence of the article explains that: The single-wing formation was conceived by Glenn “Pop” Warner while coaching at Pittsburgh and Stanford Universities.
After reading this, there is little point in reading further. Apparently, the writer has not read Pop Warner’s letters, books and articles about when he originated the single-wing. As long-time readers know, I researched the birth of the single-wing a couple of years ago and found something quite different from what FootballHistorian.com wrote. To my knowledge, I am the only person to have located the different versions of the offense pamphlets from Warner’s correspondence course that pre-dated his 1912 book. www.Tuxedo-Press.com reprinted Warner’s single-wing trilogy which consists of the 1912 and 1927 books plus the various versions of the offense pamphlet that could be found with an introduction to explain them a bit. Anyone interested in learning the history of the single-wing would enjoy reading them.
I attempted to navigate the site but was unable to find an email address to contact. I did find a Jim Thorpe page. He states that Thorpe “…simply outran the opposing defense and chalked-up a phenomenal total of 1,869 yards in only 191 carries.” I don’t do stats; that’s Tex Noel’s department, so I will leave that up to him. Apparently, he didn’t read what opponents had to say about tackling Thorpe.
After discussing the 1912 football season, he wrote, Thorpe then was acclaimed “the best in the world” by winning Gold Medals in the 1912 Olympics in both the decathlon and the pentathlon in Stockholm, Sweden. This gives the reader the impression that the Olympics happened after the football season. Hmmm.
Tags:footballhistorian.com, Tex Noel
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Jim Thorpe, Single-Wing | Leave a Comment »
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