Posts Tagged ‘Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals’

More Acknowledgements

August 16, 2018

The stack of books in my office in which I am acknowledged as being a source continues to grow. Most have to do with Lone Star Dietz or Carlisle Indian School football players but the most recent sports book has nothing to do with them or football. It is a baseball book of sorts.

The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team that Helped Win World War II by Anne R. Keene includes a couple of passages on the Craighead twins and references to Glorious Times. Keene’s father, Jim Raugh, grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where, at age nine, he suited up in a Cloudbusters’ uniform as the Navy’s pre-flight training base’s baseball team’s batboy and mascot.

But his daughter didn’t learn about this until after his death. Her book is as much a story of her personal journey to uncover her father’s history as it was to tell the story of a thrown-together team of future hall-of-famers and other professionals.

Ms. Keene discovered the Craigheads in her research about the team and the training the players underwent prior to becoming pilots. Intrigued by them, she stopped by for a visit at Craighead House while she was on a book tour this summer. She also gave me some hints on writing press releases.

This week I received an acknowledgement from another author, but not of a book. This one came on the Green Bay Packers website from their team historian Cliff Christi. Ron from Appleton, Wisconsin had asked him about any Oneidas who had played for the Packers. In his response, Christi mentioned me and my book, Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals, as an important reference. His article can be found here: https://www.packers.com/news/packers-fan-from-ukraine-asks-about-team-s-first-coach.

Cloudbuster NineWisconsin

 

 

President Visits Places with Names Important to Carlisle

August 17, 2011

Yesterday, a little news snippet caught my ear: President Obama visited Decorah, Iowa where he stayed at the Hotel Winneshiek. While there is nothing about that that is earth shaking or will be of great historic significance, it was of interest to me. It wasn’t what the president was doing that got my attention; it was the names of the places he was that resonated with me.

Decorah (often spelled De Cora or Decora) is not just a geographical name but is also the name of an important Nebraska Winnebago family, many of whom were hereditary chiefs. The granddaughter of one of these chiefs, Little De Cora, was Angel DeCora who, after being educated at Smith College, rose to prominence in the late 19th century as the leading female Indian artist of her day and was well known in the leading eastern art circles. In 1906, she accepted the position as director of the Native Art Department at Carlisle Indian School. In late 1907, she married William Henry Lone Star Dietz who, at 25 was her student, but was still 13 years her junior. The two generated much positive press nationally for Carlisle.

Winneshiek is the name of an important Wisconsin Winnebago, or Ho Chunk, family which has provided the tribe with many chiefs. The son of one of them was William Winneshiek who was noted more for his musical ability than his athletic prowess at Carlisle and went on to a career in music, even having his own all-Indian band. He did, however, find time to play football in the early NFL for the Oorang Indians. His biography can be found in Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals.

His brush with history finished, Obama left Hotel Winneshiek in Decorah for breakfast in Guttenberg.

Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals

May 13, 2010

Yesterday, a reader asked about Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals, wondering if it would be a series of blogs or a book. That tells me it’s time to talk about it a bit. Last year I wrote Oklahoma’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals, Volume I of the Native American Sports Heroes Series. I have now completed Volume II of that series. Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals will be released on September 1. Like the earlier book, it follows 17 football stars with ties to a particular state, Wisconsin in this case, from their childhoods on the reservation, generally, to their time at Carlisle, and through their later lives. Background chapters on Carlisle Indian School, its legendary football teams, and coach “Pop” Warner set the stage for the individual biographies.

Not included are busts of the players drawn by Bob Carroll. Bob graciously drew those for Oklahoma’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals just before the end of his life. In their place, is a map that shows all the Indian Reservations in the state of Wisconsin which is intended to assist the reader in knowing where these people spent their early childhoods and, in some cases, returned to after finishing at Carlisle.

Chapters are included for:

Chauncey Archiquette

Wilson Charles

Wallace Denny

Lone Star Dietz

Louis Island

James Johnson

Frank Lone Star

Jonas Metoxen

Thomas St. Germain

Caleb Sickles

George Vedernack

Gus Welch

Joel & Hugh Wheelock

Martin Wheelock

Charles Williams

William Winneshiek

It is my hope that historians, teachers and librarians review this book and make it more available to students who would learn a lot about how disadvantaged people overcame obstacles to excel.

Copies of the softcover version of Oklahoma’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals are now in stock for June 1st release.

Wallace Denny for Hall of Fame

January 28, 2010

While researching the life of Wallace Denny for “Wisconsin’s Carlisle Indian School Immortals,” I became curious of whether trainers can be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The short answer is yes but not through the same process as coaches and players. A trainer can be nominated for the Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award. It seems like a longshot but I may just nominate him.

Wallace Denny, fullblood Oneida, started his football career as a player for the Carlisle Indian School. When Pop Warner arrived in 1899, he observed that Denny had more to offer off the field than on it, at least while play was in progress, and made Denny his “utility man.” Wallace became Warner’s right-hand man. He put the chalk lines on the field, repaired equipment and rubbed players’ aching muscles. Before long, he was tending to various injuries, aches and pains. He and Warner improvised appliances to protect wounded parts of players’ bodies to allow them to play. Over time, Denny became a bit of a psychiatrist as he counseled players who needed psychological boosts. When Warner was back at Cornell from 1904 through 1906, Wallace and Bemus Pierce devised a set of signals that used words from their native languages to identify the various plays Carlisle ran. The opposition was told exactly which play was to be run but they understood neither the words nor the plays they represented.

Warner and Denny rejoined again in 1907 when Warner returned to Carlisle and remained a team until they retired in 1940. Denny didn’t move to Pittsburgh with Warner in 1915 but may have joined him on football weekends because Charlie Moran served as trainer for Carlisle’s coach in 1915, Victor Kelley.

Wallace Denny became a trainer before such a position existed and pioneered it for four decades. By the time he retired, trainers were standard members of coaching staffs.