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A New Review of My Latest Book

February 8, 2023

In all of the years that I have been reading and studying about college football, the team representing the Carlisle Indian School has always taken on somewhat legendary proportions. Much of this probably came from reading about Jim Thorpe and his association with the school, or in reading about other schools that had to play the dreaded Carlisle Indians. Over the years I have read several books that deal at least in part with the Carlisle football team. However, I have never come across any publication that tells the entire story of that team, until now. Therefore, when I was asked to review this significant new book I leapt at the opportunity.

The active time for the Carlisle team was from 1893-1917, with 1894 being the first year to feature a complete schedule of about 10 games. When you consider that this was well over 100 years ago, and that for at least it’s first few years the Carlisle team was hardly known around Pennsylvania, much less the rest of the country, the amount of material that the author has uncovered from this time period is truly amazing. There is no bibliography included in the book; but, the notes listed for each chapter (no less than 25 pages of them) in essence serve as the book’s bibliography. If anyone cares to research a game or a season further, the references are right there.

Although the author acknowledges many people for their help with this project, the story could have used some better editing in two areas. The first is to clear up the player identification ambiguities that are often encountered in the game accounts. Virtually every game that Carlisle ever played is covered in detail based on the available newspaper accounts. With all of this material to decipher and organize, the telling of the story of each season’s games at times suffers. The names of the players from both teams in a game are often used without clearly identifying the team to which they belong; especially confusing when the Carlisle players have non-Indian names. This leads to some confusion for the reader and the need to reread the account to make sure of each player’s team affiliation.

Secondly, the author does a great job in trying to recreate the game action based on what the newspapers reported. However, these recreations stick too closely to the often dry reporting of an early 20^th century newspaper sports reporter, a reporter from an era before the reporting of football really took off. Using more exciting prose, without changing any of the facts of the play or the game, would have definitely livened up these accounts and resulted in a more exciting read.

There are two sections of the book which I also feel are placed incorrectly. Appendix A, Origin of the School, tells the story of the Carlisle Indian School from its founding to just before the organizing of the school’s first football team. When I was first perusing the book and came across this Appendix, I decided to read it first. I was correct in doing so, as it is a natural introduction to the rest of the book and should have been used as either Chapter 1 or as the Introduction.

The other section that appears to be misplaced is Chapter 8, Captain Leadership, which relates in great detail something that took place during the 1902 season. Instead of including this material in Chapter 6, which covers the 1902 season, or making it Chapter 7, it is placed after the material covering 1903, which seems out of place to me.

Despite the imperfections mentioned above, they are minor when compared to the total amount of material presented and the research done, i.e., the overall excellence of this work. This is an incredibly detailed story of one of the most legendary of college football teams, one whose reputation is still strong more than 100 years after its final game was played. Few programs have been covered in such detail. If you are a student of college football, this book is a must for your football library.

Since this is a brand new book, there are no copies currently available from any of the used book sources. My suggestion would be to order directly from the source, www.Tuxedo-Press.com (See ad in this issue), or Amazon.

Timothy Hudak

Sports Heritage Specialty Publications

Tags:College Football Historical Society, Tim Hudak
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Jim Thorpe, Lone Star Dietz, Pete Calac, Pop Warner, Publishing | Leave a Comment »

5Q Articles

December 15, 2022

I wonder if other newspapers are doing what my local paper, The Sentinel (Carlisle, PA), is doing. Rather than writing book reviews, they are publishing what they call 5Q articles. 5Q is shorthand for the five questions they provide the author to answer in writing, which they use, with “He said” interspersed randomly to give the appearance of an interview, to flesh out the body of the article. The on-line version includes photos and an image of the book’s front cover but the print version only includes the text. The column on the left was printed on the front page of the paper. The remainder was on page 7.A copy of the print version is provided. It may be necessary to view it in full-screen mode for the text to be large enough to read.

Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Jim Thorpe, Lone Star Dietz, Pop Warner, Publishing, Richard Henry Pratt | Leave a Comment »

Gus Lookaround (part 1)

August 19, 2022

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.

Tags:Lookaround
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Joe Guyon, Pete Calac, Pop Warner | 2 Comments »

Gridiron Gypsies: The Complete History of the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

June 17, 2022

At long last my latest book, Gridiron Gypsies: The Complete History of the Carlisle Indian School Football Team, is getting close to being published. The text layout, complete with 155 illustrations (period photos and cartoons), a list of players with the years they played, notes, and an index, is complete and a draft cover has been designed. A few softcover copies of the ARC (advance reading copy) will be printed for reviewers that don’t accept digital copies. Since Covid, most reviewers want PDFs but some still want hardcopies. PDFs have been sent to reviewers who accept them and I expect to have print versions in a couple of weeks.

The book will go on sale this fall. Preorders will be accepted after Labor Day. Now I have to design a simple website, GridironGypsies.com, because books are supposed to have websites these days.

Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Pop Warner, Richard Henry Pratt | Leave a Comment »

Who Were These Players?

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 »

A Coaching Mystery

February 25, 2022

The current edition of the College Football Historical Association’s newsletter includes and article titled “Mystery Solved.” The author, Timothy Hudak, was researching the life of Hall of Fame coach Frank “Iron Major” Cavanaugh when he unexpectedly came across a reference to Cavanaugh coaching the University of Nebraska at Omaha football team in 1919. Knowing that the war hero was with Boston College at that time created a mystery to be solved. He wondered, “How could a man fresh from recovering from serious wounds suffered in the closing stages of the war, with a wife and six kids, coach at two schools at the same time located in opposite parts of the country?”

Hudak’s further investigation revealed that they were two different men. The Omaha coach was Frank P. Cavanaugh; the Iron Major was Frank W. Cavanaugh. Case closed. However, a similar case but not involving war injuries and a wife and six kids actually happened decades earlier.

From 1895 through 1899, Glenn S. “Pop” Warner coached teams at two different teams quite distant from each other. He coached Iowa State all five years while leading Georgia (1895-6), Cornell (1897-8), and Carlisle Indian School (1899). The question is: How did he do it?

A year after graduating from Cornell with a law degree, Warner had passed the bar but hadn’t yet developed a substantial practice. So, when the Iowa State graduate football manager offered him twenty-five dollars a week plus expenses to coach their team, he seriously considered the offer. Curious about other possibilities, he contacted some southern and western schools. The University of Georgia offered him thirty-five dollars a week plus expenses for the ten-week period starting September 15.

He then told Iowa State he was willing to coach their team for four weeks beginning in early August. Unable to find a better coach, they offered him one hundred fifty dollars plus expenses for thirty days. An alumni player would assist him while he was there and would take charge after he left.

Warner had no losing seasons with Iowa State, one losing (3-4-0) and one undefeated (4-0-0) season with Georgia, two winning seasons (5-3-1 and 10-2-0) with Cornell, and a strong season (9-2-0) with Carlisle. Warner’s promotion to athletic director at Carlisle in 1900 ended his double-coaching career.

Tags:College Football Historical Society, Frank Cavanaugh, Timothy Hudak
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Pop Warner | 2 Comments »

A Boy Who Ran Away TO Carlisle Indian School

July 30, 2021

You have likely read about numerous Carlisle Indian School students who ran away but you probably haven’t read about any who ran away to Carlisle. I hadn’t. While checking out a student who was trying out for the football team in 1900, I encountered something I’d never heard of before. The son of a Chippewa mother and a German immigrant father was living on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota when, in 1891 when the boy was eight-years old, his parents sent him to the Educational Home in Philadelphia.

Originally set up to serve orphans from the Civil War, with few of them left, it shifted its mission to serve American Indian children. After staying there four years, the boy returned to his parents’ home in Minnesota.

Finding his home life abusive and seeing few opportunities on the reservation, he wanted something more out of life. Two months after returning, he saw an opportunity. Alice Parker, a rising senior at Carlisle Indian School, was recruiting students to return to Carlisle with her. The details of how the boy ran away from home to go with her are lost to posterity.What is known is that Miss Parker arrived at Carlisle on Saturday, September 5, 1896, bringing a group of 15 Chippewa students with her, one of which was a 13-year-old boy who was 5’3 ½” tall and weighed 101 pounds. As his student file no longer includes his application for admission, exactly how he got himself admitted without his parents’ permission is unknown.

He flourished at Carlisle. An avid reader, in June 1900 he led all students in the number of books he had checked out of the library to read. He enjoyed playing sports but was too small to make any of the varsity teams. Eventually, he started pitching batting practice to the baseball team in the gym over the winter. As he improved, Pop Warner put him on the baseball team. He also practiced with the football team and was allowed to eat at the training table. The heavier diet put weight on him and helped him to grow. Soon, he was the star pitcher and captain of the school’s baseball team. After graduating from Carlisle, he attended the Dickinson College prep school and pitched for the college squad, racking up victory after victory. In the spring of 1901, Connie Mack, legendary manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, came to Gettysburg to scout Gettysburg College’s star pitcher, lefty Eddie Plank, hurl against Dickinson College. Plank won the 15-inning game and Mack signed him to pitch for the Athletics. He also signed the Carlisle Indian who was pitching for Dickinson College but to a minor league contract for some seasoning.

Any guess who this right hander who ran away to Carlisle was? Hint. He and Plank are both enshrined at Cooperstown.

Tags:baseball, Bender, Cooperstown, Plank
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Pop Warner | 1 Comment »

Lies About Carlisle Indian School

July 13, 2021

I generally don’t bother to refute misinformation promulgated about Carlisle Indian School but, with reports on what happened at First Nations schools in Canada operated by the Catholic Church often being conflated with American schools, I now find it necessary to comment on a Facebook post (included below) that was forwarded to me for comment. Mr. Edwards appears to have visited Carlisle Barracks but is unfamiliar with its history. Some errors are so off they require no research on my part.

His sentence that includes the phrase “til ’51 or 2” is worded awkwardly but appears to mean that Mr. Edwards’ relatives played on the grounds at Carlisle Barracks in the early 1950s. If they had done that, they likely had some affiliation with the Army because Carlisle Indian School closed permanently in 1918.

Edwards’ comment about seeing fingerprints in the mortar on the Indian Field grandstand are incorrect unless the Army brought Indian masons back to Carlisle to build the new, concrete grandstand years later. Students learning the building trades likely built the original wooden grandstand around 1906, but they were long gone by the time the masonry grandstand was erected. However, they did build a masonry building: the Native Arts building which still stands. The school newspaper lauded the students for the quality of their work on the building in which the famous Winnebago artist, Angel DeCora, taught. It is diagonally across the street from the house in which Pop Warner lived. That house was also built by students. The funding for both these structures came from the Athletic Department.

A quick look at newspapers from August 1927, when the graves were moved, gives the total at 187. Perhaps Mr. Edwards was confused by hearing that over 1,000 students were enrolled in the school at its peak and mistook that for being the number of graves. Superintendent Pratt has been criticized for sending sick children home to die. He likely did that to keep diseases from spreading to other students and there was little he could do for many of them. The state-of-the-art of medicine had not advanced very far at the time the school was in operation. Lifespans were short. People, white and Indian alike, died at early ages. Tuberculous was rampant and took many lives. Pratt sent bodies of dead children home to those parents who wanted their remains whenever he could because a large graveyard filled with dead students wouldn’t have been good advertising for his school.

The graves were not moved to make room for a road. Officer housing was built on that site.

I had heard that the moving of the graves had been done in a haphazard manner but the newspaper articles suggest otherwise. Sixteen men were assigned to do the job. While errors were likely made, it appears that remains were paired with the headstones as both were relocated from the old cemetery to the new one. Some records were surely lost when the Indian School was closed with little advance notice. So, it would not be surprising to learn that some graves were mismarked. Something that argues for the overall data to be accurate is that the headstones were created shortly after the students died and would have been mostly correct, although some details could have been wrong. This was a government project after all so some screw ups were inevitable.

Neil Edwards

From where I’m standing a few yards to my right, a few yards to my left and back to that building almost where the stop sign is behind them vehicles is the old graveyard at Carlisle. There’s children under there…. but you won’t hear about that you’ll only hear about the graveyard out front. If I remember correctly, without looking it up, there was about 1,200 students back there and during the early 30s they ripped the graves out deep enough to make the road and piled them at random out front in 190 holes 192 I think or whatever……strange things happen here that’ll make yer neck hairs stand up…… this isn’t far from the “good ice” …their winter ice rink. In back and to my left is the field where Jim Thorpe, my family George Thomas todadaho, my great uncle, til ’51 or 2 I believe and his sister Edith Thomas, my GG, used to play. You can see the students fingerprints in the mortar between the Rocks when they built the grandstand there’s even fingerprints where they ended each pass in the morter.

If you don’t start learning about boarding schools here at Carlisle it’s like starting a book in the middle of it. You don’t know anything until you start here.

Posted in Angel DeCora, Carlisle Indian School, Football, Pop Warner, Richard Henry Pratt | Leave a Comment »

Leupp Indian Art Studio

May 13, 2021

I learned something new today while researching something different. The May 11, 1907 edition of The Washington Bee, a paper I’d never heard of before, included an article titled “Aid Art by Football: Carlisle Indian Players Build a Museum.” The piece was accompanied by a drawing of the Leupp Indian Art Studio. I already knew that the building was built with proceeds from the football program, but I didn’t know any of the details. Football cash bought the stone, lumber, glass and other materials needed to construct the building. Students from various shops on campus provided the labor. Boys created the millwork in their shop. Carpentry students did much of the construction. Other shops plumbed the building, installed the heating system, and roofed it. Art students painted and decorated the building. George Balenti, Cheyenne of Mike and John, designed the building by using the best ideas submitted by students—George had already graduated—and drew up the plans. The Balentis were a brainy bunch and even held two patents.

Originally intended to be a photo shop, it’s use was shifted to house the Native Art Studio when Winnebago artist Angel DeCora was hired. A section of the building was set aside for the photo shop. Although called a museum—at least by the reporter—displays were generally student projects, some of which were for sale.

The building still stands diagonally across the road from Pop Warner’s house, which was also constructed with football money, near what was the main gate at the time. The roof has been changed but the exterior is the same.

Tags:George Balenti
Posted in Angel DeCora, Carlisle Indian School, Football, Lone Star Dietz, Mike Balenti, Pop Warner | Leave a Comment »

Warner Might Have Been A Gopher

April 29, 2021

Things didn’t always have to happen the way they turned out although histories often read as if they were preordained. For one example, it wasn’t a sure thing that Pop Warner would return to coach Carlisle in 1907 and change the course of football forever. The Indian School surely wasn’t able to pay him as much as the large universities could. When Warner’s Stanford team was in Minneapolis in October 1930 to play the Gophers, as guest of honor at the local Rotary Club meeting, he gave a talk. Included in the talk was the story of how he returned to Carlisle for a second stint as the Indians head coach.

After the 1906 season, Pop decided to leave Cornell due to alumni pressure against his style of play. Carlisle wasn’t the only possible opportunity he considered but we know about only one other school he considered, thanks to newspaper coverage of his talk. There were likely more. As a married man not an heir to a fortune, Warner felt pressure to get a job to keep income flowing in to support Tibb and himself.

An inveterate gambler, Pop knew that nothing was certain until a contract was signed, and sometimes not even then. He had received favorable responses from his inquiries to at least two schools: Carlisle and Minnesota. He had stated his terms, but didn’t have a contract in hand for 1907. So, when an acceptance letter arrived from Carlisle Indian School, he immediately accepted, probably by wire. He had a job offer from one of the schools he wanted and didn’t waste time accepting.

Later that same day, an offer arrived from Minnesota. Their letter had likely been mailed well before the one from Carlisle was posted, but Minnesota was a lot farther from Springville, New York than was Carlisle in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Warner must have been satisfied with his choice because he didn’t try to rescind his acceptance and take the Minnesota offer. However, changing his mind was less of an option then than it is now. Having given his word and keeping it was more important then than it is today.