The October 24, 1908 edition of The Anaconda Standard reported, in an article titled “Carlisle Cancels Northwestern Trip,” on a wire sent from Portland, Ore. on October 20. The wire began, “The games between the Carlisle Indians and W. S. C. and Multnomah A. C. are off, a letter from the Indians to Manager Martin Pratt of Multnomah yesterday announcing that the proposed expedition had been canceled. The news was badly received at Multnomah, where the clubmen were counting on the Carlisle game as the big attraction of the year from an attendance standpoint.”
W. S. C. stands for Washington State College, which is known today as Washington State University. A strong tie with Carlisle Indian School and the Warner System was established in 1915 when Lone Star Dietz left Carlisle to turn around W. S. C.’s football team and lead them to an undefeated season and a victory on New Year’s Day in Pasadena to establish the Rose Bowl tradition. Dietz was followed as head football coach first by Gus Welch and later by Albert Exendine. Multnomah Athletic Club was founded in 1891 and still operates in Portland, Oregon. At that time, they fielded one of the better football teams on the West Coast.
Carlisle Indian School publications made no mention of this. In fact, the November 6 issue of The Carlisle Arrow made no mention of any games, real or imagined, after the Thanksgiving Day game with St. Louis University. The November 20 issue included this little item:
Our Varsity team will leave for the west on Wednesday, with our coach and the substitutes, to play with Minnesota University, St. Louis University, Nebraska University, and Denver University.
No mention was ever made of a possible extension of the trip to the Pacific Northwest. The Indians lost to Minnesota, 11-6, and athletic relations between the schools were severed for reasons left unstated. The Indians then won the remaining 3 games on their long schedule to finish the 1908 season 10-2-1. The other loss was a 17-0 defeat by Harvard. The other blemish on their record was a 6-6 tie with Penn.
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