The contribution of the Native American population to the history of collegiate and pro football is generally summed up in most Americans minds in two words: Jim Thorpe. This larger than life figure is undoubtedly one of the greatest sports icons in American history. Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens and Jim Thorpe take their place among modern phenoms such as Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali as the 20^th Century’s sports legends. But, to truly understand Thorpe’s greatness is to understand the life of the man and the society that spawned him. To understand the greatness of the Native American football programs that contributed so mightily to the history of the sport is to understand the institutions that spawned them.

This page will examine three hallowed football programs which were comprised of Native Americans. To tell these stories without expressing the reality of life at that time is to deny the truth and to slight the protagonists. In order to celebrate the victories on the field, we must understand the hardships which existed in everyday life off it. First, the story of the Carlisle Indian School of Pennsylvania provides the background material necessary to begin to understand the social and political climate that existed at the time of the emergence of these programs. I have chosen to utilize the writings and research of some true experts in this area historical study.

Contents

1. Introduction: The Reality of in the Indian Schools, On Sacred Ground

2. Carlisle and the 1912 season

3. Haskell and the 1926 Season

4. Oorang Indians

On Sacred Ground
Commemorating Survival and Loss at the Carlisle Indian School
by Stephanie Anderson
As published in Central PA Magazine, May 2000

In the middle of a bitter night in October 1879, a train puffed slowly across the last few feet of track and eased into Carlisle after a long journey from Dakota Territory. On board were 82 children from the Lakota people, whom most European Americans knew as the Sioux. Hungry and tired, they rose from their seats one by one, pulled their blankets tighter around them and stepped onto the small platform at the station. Their eyes, adjusting to the darkness, met a sea of strangers staring back at them. Just three years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, hundreds of townspeople gathered with necks craned to glimpse the "exotic" Indian children from what was still regarded as the Wild West.
 

During the next 39 years, American Indian children became a familiar sight in Carlisle. While their arrival was little more than a curiosity to the townspeople, their departure from their homes, families and way of life marked momentous change in the lives of the children, their parents and their tribes.
 

From 1879 to 1918, approximately 12,000 Native-American children attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, on the grounds of Carlisle Barracks, to become educated in the ways of European-American culture. They came from all corners of the United States - some even from Puerto Rico and the Philippines - and from more than 140 tribes. Some came willingly; others did not. And while many survived, some did not.
 

The goal of the Carlisle school and its founder, a U.S. Army officer named Richard Henry Pratt, was total assimilation of Native Americans into white culture, at the deliberate cost of their Indianness. The legacy of Carlisle, and of the extensive system of boarding schools it spawned, continues to pervade the lives of Native Americans today. Mention the Carlisle Indian School in Central PA, and most residents think of Jim Thorpe, its most famous student. Proclaimed the world's greatest athlete, Thorpe became a source of pride for the school and the town. But to most Indians, the mention of Carlisle elicits a conflicting mixture of strong emotions - both positive and negative - involving the dignity of

survival and the mourning of lost cultural identity.
 

More than 80 years after the school closed, the Cumberland County 250th Anniversary Committee has invited each of the 554 federally recognized American Indian tribes, along with the nonnative community, to come together in Carlisle for the first-ever commemoration of the school and its contradictory legacy. Powwow 2000: Remembering Carlisle Indian School will take place on Memorial Day weekend on the site of the former school. The organizers hope "to provide awareness of Native-American Indian cultures and the Carlisle Indian School history, and to remember and honor the students who attended the school."
 

But there's also a deeper purpose to the singing and dancing, the ceremonies and talks. Pulitzer Prize-winning Native-American author N. Scott Momaday, the keynote speaker for the event, hopes "it is a healing process. We are doing real reverence to the children."
 

Captain Pratt's Dream
 

"Convert him in all ways but color into a white man, and, in fact, the Indian would be exterminated, but humanely, and as beneficiary of the greatest gift at the command of the white man - his own civilization."
- Characterization of Carlisle Indian School founder R.H. Pratt's philosophy by historian Robert H. Utley, 1979
 

The history of the Carlisle Indian School is inextricably linked with its founder. R.H. Pratt, a US Army captain, had commanded a unit of African-American soldiers and Indian scouts in Dakota Territory for eight years following the Civil War. Subscribing to the ideas of the "Indian reformers" of the time - many of whom were Quakers and Christian missionaries - Pratt believed the solution to the so-called "Indian problem" was not separation, which was the function of the reservations, but assimilation. Pratt believed the best way for Indians to be absorbed into mainstream American society was to provide them with an education. In 1875, Pratt was assigned to guard a group of Caddo, Southern Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa prisoners at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. He selected a group of these prisoners to test his hypothesis about Indian education and sent them to the Hampton Institute in Virginia, then a boarding school for black children. The 17 students adapted so completely to European-American ways that Pratt decided he wanted an all-Indian school of his own.
 

In 1879, the Army gave Pratt permission to house his school on an old cavalry post in the small, rural town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He traveled west to recruit his first students from Rosebud and Pine Ridge, two Lakota reservations in what is now South Dakota. In the meantime, two of Pratt's former pupils from Hampton were recruiting Cheyenne and Kiowa children for Pratt in the Southwest.
Meeting with well-known and influential Lakota chiefs and elders - Spotted Tail at Rosebud and Red Cloud at Pine Ridge - Pratt argued that had their people been able to understand English, they might have prevented the loss of land and freedom that had occurred with the institution of the reservation system, or at least understood what was to come.
 

Though Red Cloud and Spotted Tail were skeptical of Pratt's intentions, they believed their land and resources inevitably would continue to be purloined by the white men. Each chief sent 36 children with Pratt, including five of Spotted Tail's own children and Red Cloud's grandson. According to Pratt's account, 10 more were added to the group as it made its way to the steamboat for the first leg of the journey.
 

Collective Wail
 

"In our culture, the only time we cut hair is when we are in mourning or when someone has died in the immediate family. We do this to show we are mourning the loss of a loved one."
- Sterling Hollow Horn (Lakota), Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 2000
 

As the train carrying the first group of Lakota students made its way across the country, townspeople came to every train station to gawk at the children wearing their blankets and moccasins. To avoid this spectacle in Carlisle, Pratt routed the train to a tiny depot several blocks from the main station on High Street. His plan was foiled, and hundreds of cheering Carlisle residents were waiting on the platform. When the travelers arrived at the school, Pratt was enraged to find that the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs had failed to send provisions, bedding or food. The children were forced to sleep, hungry, on the floor in their blankets.
 

Pratt immediately left to collect the Cheyenne and Kiowa children, and his wife and the teachers took charge of the first wave of assimilation. The process began with the outward signs of Indian appearance - clothing and hair. Confused and homesick, the Lakota children wept as their long hair was cut and fell to the ground. On one of the first nights after the Lakota children arrived, a collective wail rose up from their throats, its wrenching sound echoing across the campus. What they did not yet know was they were mourning the shearing of their cultural identities.
 

Tools of Assimilation
 

"God helps those who help themselves."
- Slogan on the masthead of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School newspaper
 

Because Pratt wanted his charges to learn trades as well as academics, half of each day was devoted to reading, writing and arithmetic, and the other half to trades, such as blacksmithing and carpentry for the boys, sewing and laundry for the girls. The entire system was shaped by Pratt's military past. Boys dressed in uniforms, and girls wore Victorian-style dresses. The students practiced marching and drilling and were given military-style ranks.
 

One of the few original structures still standing on the grounds is a haunting reminder of the school's rigidity. Built in 1777 to store gunpowder, the guardhouse contained four cells in which children were locked up, sometimes for up to a week, for various indiscretions. Running away was a common offense.
 

In addition to their vocational and academic pursuits, the Indian children also studied the humanities. Pictures in the students' sketch books chart the progress of assimilation. When they first arrived, children drew things they remembered from home, such as buffalo hunts and warriors counting coup on horseback. In time, the drawings evolved into representations of their new lives - including images of farms and children with short hair wearing European-style clothing.
 

Mohican composer Brent Michael Davids, who is performing at Powwow 2000, has studied the use of music as a tool of assimilation. Though the children came from backgrounds rich in song, they had no concept of European approaches to music. "The students sang songs at mealtimes in a four-part harmony," Davids explains. "It was a completely different singing style. The hymns they were forced to sing were the Western style, espousing the values of being good Christians."

Nearly 120 members of Davids' Stockbridge Mohican clan attended Carlisle. He learned about them while composing music for a CD-ROM about the Indian School. "[Carlisle] was a missing link for me," Davids says. "I knew they tried to kill us, then herded us onto reservations, but I couldn't figure out how we cut our hair and started wearing shoes."
 

Theater also was used to indoctrinate the students in the customs of white America. Lynne Allen, an artist who lives in Furlong, Pennsylvania, remembers finding a photograph of her Lakota grandmother, Daphne Waggoner, performing in a Thanksgiving play at Carlisle. "Indians dressed as Pilgrims and Indians dressed as Indians," Allen says, laughing at the irony of Native Americans portraying stereotypes of themselves.
 

Language Lost
 

"When you destroy a person's language, it destroys their world view. They're left with only fragments. I speak Spanish, and I speak English. When you think in Spanish, it's totally different. When they leave the school and go back to the reservation, they're still Indian, but not anymore."
- Jorge Estevez (Taino), participant coordinator, Museum of the American Indian, New York, 2000

The destruction of native languages was one of Pratt's main objectives. Children began English lessons as soon as they arrived at Carlisle. Students were punished, sometimes severely, if caught speaking their native languages, even in private.
 

According to Tsianina Lomawaima, a professor at the University of Arizona and author of a book about the Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma, Carlisle and other boarding schools modeled after it didn't instantly eliminate native languages. But because of their school experiences, many former students decided not to teach these languages to their children.
 

Sterling Hollow Horn, 38, who works at KILI, a Lakota-language radio station on the Pine Ridge Reservation, had several relatives who attended Carlisle and has witnessed this in his own community.
 

"They didn't let [the students] speak in the old language," says Hollow Horn, a member of revered leader Crazy Horse's band of the Lakota people. "They set a dangerous precedent. I'm fluent in the Sioux language. Most people my age don't speak the language. It's dying out. The whole spirituality and way of thinking is intertwined with the language. That's all being lost. Carlisle was the starting point for this."
 

In 1995, Ed Farnham, a major in the US Army, learned he was being transferred from his base in Germany to the Carlisle Barracks. Originally from upstate New York, Farnham was excited he would be living closer to his family. When he called his mother to tell her, she asked him, "Don't you know what that place is?" Only then did he realize he would be living in the same Carlisle that had been the subject of murmurings in his family.
 

Farnham's grandmother, Mamie Mt. Pleasant, attended the Indian School for nearly a decade. A Tuscarora Indian, she was 14 when she was sent to Carlisle. Mamie's older brother Frank had been one of the school's star athletes in football and track and field. When Mamie came to Carlisle in 1908, Frank was in London as a member of the US Olympic track-and-field team, but was unable to compete in the broad jump because of a torn knee ligament. Before she graduated from Carlisle in 1917, Mamie learned to sew and was rumored to have been courted by another Carlisle athlete - Jim Thorpe.

Though he grew up across the street from his grandmother on the Tuscarora reservation near Niagara Falls, New York, Farnham was never taught the Tuscarora language. After Mamie Mt. Pleasant returned to the reservation from Carlisle, the only time she spoke Tuscarora was at night, praying

Christian prayers before bed.
 

'The Man on the Bandstand'
 

"Kill the Indian, save the man."
- R.H. Pratt, often-repeated catch phrase
 

Pratt wrote extensively and candidly about his reasons for founding the Carlisle school. He referred to relations between European and Native Americans in terms of the "Indian problem" and compared it to a similarly widespread attitude toward the "Negro problem." In 1890 he wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "If millions of black savages can become so transformed and assimilated, and if, annually, hundreds of thousands of emigrants from all lands can also become Anglicized, Americanized, assimilated and absorbed through association, there is but one plain duty resting upon us with regard to the Indians, and that is to relieve them of their savagery and other alien qualities by the same methods used to relieve the others."
 

Pratt may be considered a bigot by today's standards, but his views of African Americans and Indians were considered progressive 100 years ago. He and most people who regarded themselves as advocates for Native Americans considered Carlisle a "noble experiment." He believed that education was the only way native people would survive - at a time when the survival of Indians was a goal that a significant number of white Americans did not support.
 

ratt was often referred to as "the man on the bandstand." Located directly in the center of the school's campus, the circular bandstand provided a view of the entire grounds. But more than a pseudonym for Pratt, the constant reminder that "the man on the bandstand" was watching represented the all-encompassing, paternalistic way in which Pratt and the teachers, ministers and matrons viewed themselves as the "saviors" of the Indian children. The phrase was meant to make the children feel secure and cared for. It also reminded them that they were under constant surveillance.
 

Tsianina Lomawaima believes, in some ways, Pratt was unusual for his era. "His commitment to those students as individual human beings was unique," she says. "He really believed in them. He fought for those kids. The part of Pratt that wasn't unusual was that he didn't believe Indian culture would survive, or should."
 

"There were kids who were Lakota, and there were kids who were Wampanoag. At Carlisle, they became Indian."
- Barbara Landis, Carlisle Indian School biographer, 2000
 

The erosion of Native-American sovereignty was swift and unrelenting. Propelled by a hunger for land, gold, power and control, it swallowed up everything in its path, including communities, languages and religions. No matter the Nez Perce were distinct from the Navajo, the Seneca from the Seminole, the Coeur D'Alene from the Crow. They were one in their difference.
 

Repercussions of the Carlisle Indian School experience are still felt today, often in unsuspected ways. In March, National Public Radio reported that Native Americans were the most undercounted ethnic group in the US Census, in part because older members of the "boarding-school generation" remember that when they gave their names to government agents, they were "carted off involuntarily."
 

Most of the 2 million Native Americans living in this country have some sort of biological link to Carlisle or one of the boarding schools created in its wake. There is also a shared sense of inner conflict. It is difficult for many Indian people to fully condemn or condone Carlisle. But they agree the disintegration of Indian cultures and the arrogant racism toward native people is horrific.
 

Much of the inner turmoil Carlisle has spawned revolves around the question of what the lives of native peoples would have been like without Carlisle and similar boarding schools. Barbara Landis, who researches the Indian School for the Cumberland County Historical Society, points out that the children's lives were less than idyllic before they came to Carlisle.
 

"It was just about the end of the treaty-making era," Landis explains. All the major battles between Indians and the US military were over except for the massacre at Wounded Knee, which would take place in 1890. But the children would have had some memory of the wars, in which their parents and grandparents had participated.
 

"The only place for Indians was in the agency [reservation]," Landis says. "Emotionally, the structure of their world changed with the agencies, the rations, a whole new way of eating, not being able to hunt buffalo."
 

"Most people around here are proud their children and ancestors went there," Sterling Hollow Horn says of the Carlisle Indian School. "But four- and five-year-olds were being taken from their families. There was a lot of confusion from parents, but more so from the children. Carlisle was good, and it was bad. It depends how you want to look at it. I personally think it was good. It showed Indian kids were intelligent. But I know a lot of people would disagree with me."
 

Ed Farnham has only begun to wrestle with his feelings about Carlisle. "It's a touchy subject," he says. "On the one hand, you had all these Indians coming together to play football and being a dominating force. That was great, and that never would have happened [otherwise]. But losing or suppressing your cultural identity, that's not good.
 

"I know things would have been different if my relatives hadn't come here. My grandmother wouldn't have been a seamstress. My uncle wouldn't have gone to Europe and done all he did."
 

Though her grandmother described her time at Carlisle as pleasant, Lynne Allen feels boarding schools contributed to her own confusion about cultural identity. Though Allen is a descendant of Chief Sitting Bull, she is only one-sixteenth Lakota - not enough to be officially recognized by the tribe as a member.

"Being part Indian and not belonging anywhere was something [my mother] carried with her her whole life," Allen explains. "It's something she passed on to me, this feeling of being marginalized.
 

"Part of me knows it helped a lot of people survive in the world. But there were people who stayed on the reservations and survived, too. It was the age, it was the era of missionaries and zealots trying to 'help the savages.' ... I don't know what would've happened if they wouldn't have done that."

A Time For Healing
 

"My lands are where my people lie buried."
- Crazy Horse, Oglala Sioux leader, 1877
 

When you are driving on Claremont Road in Carlisle, it's easy to miss the small, tidy cemetery along the side of the road. The long, slender limbs of a weeping-cherry tree in the nucleus of the plot reach down like fingers brushing along the arched tops of pristine, white tombstones surrounded by a short, iron fence. Row after neat row of graves dot the grass.
 

The Indian cemetery is one of few traces of the school left in Carlisle. More than 175 tombstones line the ground. Prayer cloths, strings of shells and beads and small bundles of sage and sweetgrass embrace the tree trunk.
 

The realization is harsh and unforgiving - there are children buried here. They died of the diseases that killed many children in those years, regardless of ethnicity. Climate change, separation anxiety and lack of immunity also contributed to the toll. Most were sent home for burial, but some had no relatives who could have made the arrangements, or their homes were simply too far away. Because of fear of infection, tuberculosis victims were buried immediately.
 

Most of the town of Carlisle's connection to the school revolves around its legendary football team and Jim Thorpe. In the All-American truck stop just outside of town, there's a wall covered with framed photographs and newspaper clippings of Thorpe. A memorial stone in the town's square pays tribute to him. Wardecker's, a men's clothing store on Hanover Street, which at one time extended a special line of credit to the Indian School's athletes, houses a shrine of photographs of Thorpe, Coach "Pop" Warner and the football team. Carlisle High School's mascot is a buffalo, and its nickname is the Thundering Herd.
 

But Native-American memories of the Carlisle Indian School run much deeper. Beverly Holland, who lives in Harrisburg, moved to Central Pennsylvania about 20 years ago from the Yankton Lakota reservation in South Dakota. Her grandfather attended Carlisle for nearly four years. But, like Ed Farnham, she didn't make the connection that she was living so close to the former school.
 

"I didn't run right to the school after I found out," she says. "It was a long time before I could visit the cemetery. I think I visited there about four or five times before I could stop crying."

It was equally moving for Farnham. "I had no idea what happened there," he says. "I was ignorant."

But when he visited the grounds for the first time as a soldier, he acknowledges a complete reversal of attitude. "It was almost a spiritual event for me, once I understood that's where my grandmother walked for so many years," he says. "She was Christian. I know she would've gone to the chapel. The foundation of the chapel was about 200 yards from where we were housed. Kneeling on the ground [in the cemetery], looking at the graves, you just have ... more of a reverential attitude."
 

Sacred Ground
 

Powwow 2000 will doubtless be an emotional time, but the members of the organizing committee, comprised of about half native and half nonnative members, hope the event will help salve the unrelenting pain felt by so many.
 

Nadine West, a Chippewa Indian and member of the powwow committee, has made an annual pilgrimage from her home in Harrisburg to the Indian cemetery each Memorial Day for years. She claims the decision to schedule the powwow during a national holiday of remembrance was deliberate and symbolic. "Those children in that cemetery are our veterans," she says.
 

Originally from the Cheyenne River Lakota reservation in South Dakota, Carolyn Rittenhouse of Lancaster joined the powwow committee after realizing the impact of the school on Lakota children. They were the first students to attend the school, and more than 1,100 of them went to Carlisle throughout its tenure, including her great-uncle, Thomas Hawk Eagle. Four generations removed from Carlisle, Rittenhouse's daughter Danielle, 9, plans to dance the jingle-dress dance at the powwow.
Rittenhouse believes the powwow also will be a positive experience for non-Indians. "The nonnative community will be educated when they attend - seeing the dancing, eating the food, hearing the stories - so healing can begin for them, as well," she claims. "The event won't only impact native people, but the whole community."
 

Since the closing of the Carlisle Indian School, the descendants of its students and the descendants of the community into which they were to be assimilated have never come together to consciously honor he students' memory. It is significant that when they do so this month, the commemoration will take place on the ground where the tears of those first Lakota children fell 121 years ago.
 

"I hope that everybody there has a sense of the sacrifice that the children made," says keynote speaker N. Scott Momaday. "Sacrifice is related to the word 'sacred.' It is a sacred place because of the sacrifice made by the children."
 

Stephanie Anderson is the managing editor at Central PA Magazine in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
 

Carlisle and the Season of 1912
 

Carlisle founder, William Henry Pratt, was intrigued by football, but was wary of how his students would be perceived if they competed directly with whites. In the first football game at Carlisle, a student broke his leg and Pratt disbanded the program. But in 1893, at the behest of more than thirty young students, he relented, and Carlisle Indian Football was reborn, and continued for the next 24 years.
 

Legendary coach, Glenn “Pop” Warner arrived at Carlisle in 1899. Warner had coached at Georgia and Cornell. He coached at Carlisle for two years before returning to Cornell for three seasons. He returned to Carlisle in 1907 and transformed the team into a national football power. During his two stints at Carlisle, he posted a record of 108 wins, 41 losses, and 8 ties against major college opponents over a fifteen year period. He emphasized a systematic, team-oriented approach to the game and was blessed with several outstanding talents at Carlisle.
 

Jim Thorpe (Wa-Tho-Huk) is America’s sports legend, generally regarded as our greatest athlete in history. Most American sports fans know the story of his Olympian achievements. One of the greatest figures in Olympic history, alongside Jesse Owens, his importance to Olympic history has been likened to that of Coroebus of Elis, the first man to win a recorded Olympic race in the year 776 BCE. Thorpe was stripped of his medals due to questions regarding his amateur status, but these were reinstated posthumously.
 

Jim Thorpe (left) and Glenn "Pop" Warner (right).

Jim Thorpe was born on May 28, 1887 in Oklahoma. He had a twin brother named Charlie. Jim and Charlie went to school in Stroud, Oklahoma at the Sac and Fox Indian Agency School. Charlie died when the boys were eight years old and Thorpe fought depression in the aftermath. His parents sent him to Haskell Indian Institute in Lawrence, Kansas where he was introduced to sports. His mother died while he was at Haskell and, in 1904 at age fifteen, Thorpe went to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. After he had been at Carlisle for two months, his father died. At Carlisle Jim met "Pop" Warner who would help begin his great athletic career. Warner's innovations made Thorpe a triple threat, a weapon who could run, pass, and kick with equal devastation.

Thorpe gained nationwide attention for the first time in 1911. He was a football consensus All-American in 1911 and 1912. He played in multiple roles for Carlisle: as a running back, defensive back, place-kicker, and punter. The Indians went 11-1 in 1911 with a 18-13 upset of Harvard, in which Thorpe scored all of his team’s points. In 1912, he led Carlisle to the national championship, scoring 25 touchdowns and 198 points in 12 games. The crowning achievement of the ’12 season was an upset of mighty Army at West Point. He was 25 in 1912 and besides his football accomplishments, competed for the US team at the Stockholm Olympic Games. He won Gold in both the decathlon and the pentathlon events. Following the triumphs of 1912, Thorpe went on to play major league baseball. For six years he played for the New York Giants, from there he spent a short time playing in the outfield for Cincinnati. He played professional football with the Canton Bulldogs, Oorang Indians, and four other professional teams. Incredibly, he also played pro basketball, barnstorming with "Jim Thorpe and His World-Famous Indians" in 1927 and 1928.

What most Americans don’t know about Thorpe’s early years makes his story all the more incredible. The Carlisle Indian School, like other government established facilities, was an acculturation facility. In the early years of its existence, the school was populated with children who were forcibly removed from their families. It was often an anguishing experience. It is now known that the Institute was typified by a military atmosphere of intolerance and rigidity. Evidence of mental and sexual abuse are investigated by historians. The children were forced to “Americanize”. They were told they were being “civilized” and “raised up” from an inferior way of life. Those who resisted change were called “bad Indians”. Likewise, those who assimilated quickly were classified as “good Indians.” Thorpe arrived at Carlisle in confusion and under great stress from his personal life, having lost all of his family members. He was orphaned shortly after his arrival in Pennsylvania.

SHOW SPEED AND ACCURACY
Thorpe Plows Through Army Line and Cadets Are Unable to Check Him- Arcasa a Fine Running Mate.
 

Special to the New York Times

WEST POINT, Nov. 9- Jim Thorpe and his redoubtable band of Carlisle Indian gridiron stars invaded the plains this afternoon to match their prowess against the moleskin gladiators of Uncle Sam's Military Academy, and when the two teams crossed the parade ground in the semi-darkness of late afternoon the Cadets had been shown up as no other West Point team has been in many years. They were buried under the overwhelming score of 27 to 6, figures that no other team has been able to reach against the Cadets since West Point loomed up among the big football teams, and to make the defeat all the more humiliating every Cadet who had played or had merely looked on knew deep in his heart that this big score did not show the relative strength of the two teams, based on today's performances.

It was a game such as the old reservation has seldom, if ever, staged. In a way it carried a distinct shock to the 3,000 spectators who had firmly believed that the big Army team had passed the stage where such a thing might happen. But the unexpected did happen, and its materialization was effected with an exhibition of football by the wards of the Nation that distinctly places the Carlisle team among the great elevens of the year. The Indians simply outclassed the Cadets as they might be expected to outclass a prep school. They played football that won by its steadiness rather than novel formations. Speed and accuracy marked every move of the redskins, and they showed that football can still be spectacular while the so-called old style methods are employed most of the time.

Standing out resplendent in a galaxy of Indian stars was Jim Thorpe, recently crowned the athletic marvel of the age. The big Indian Captain added more lustre to his already brilliant record, and at times the game itself was almost forgotten while the spectators gazed on Thorpe, the individual, to wonder at his prowess. To recount his notable performances in the complete overthrow of the Cadets would leave little space for other notable points of the conflict. He simply ran wild, while the Cadets tried in vain to stop his progress. It was like trying to clutch a shadow. He did not make any of the four touchdowns credited to his team, simply because the brilliant Arcasa, Thorpe's backfield mate, was chosen to carry the ball on three of the four occasions when a plunge meant a score. But failing to score and failing to shine are totally different.

Thorpe went through the West Point line as if it was an open door; his defensive play was on a par with his attack, and his every move was that of a past master. In the second half the game was delayed for three minutes because of an injury to Thorpe's left shoulder- the recurrence of an injury which had come back twice in previous games- and for a time it seemed that the great Indian must leave the game. For a full minute he lay prone, on the field; then he was helped to his feet and first aid was applied. When Thorpe walked back to his position behind the line the crowd gave him an ovation that was remarkable, in view of the fact that he was the one big obstacle between West Point and victory. And it was a crowd made up almost entirely of West Point sympathizers.

Thorpe tore off runs of 10 yards or more so often that they became common, and an advance of less than that figure seemed a wasted effort. His zigzag running and ability to hurl himself free of tacklers made his running highly spectacular. In the third period he made a run which, while it failed to bring anything in points, will go down in the Army gridiron annals as one of the greatest ever seen on the plains. The Indians had been held for downs on West Point's 3-yard line, and Keyes dropped back behind his own goal line and punted out. The ball went directly to Thorpe, who stood on the Army's 45-yard line, about half way between the two side lines. It was a high kick, and the Cadets were already gathering around the big Indian when he clutched the falling pigskin in his arms. His catch and his start were but one motion. In and out, zigzagging- first to one side and then to the other- while a flying Cadet went hurling through space. Thorpe wormed his way through the entire Army team. Every Cadet in the game had his chance, and every one of them failed. It was not the usual spectacle of the man with the ball outdistancing his opponents by circling them. It was a dodging game in which Thorpe matched himself against an entire team and proved the master. Lines drawn parallel and fifteen feet apart would include all the ground that Thorpe covered on the triumphant dash through an entire team.

West Point's much talked of defense, which had held Yale to four first downs in a full hour of play, was like tissue paper before the Indians. To a corresponding degree the Indian defense, which had been considered so much inferior to their attack, was a wonder. The Cadets got one first down in the first period and in the second, when they showed their only bit of rushing ability, they got four, three of these coming just before the touchdown was made. In the second half, West Point did not make a first down. In fact, barring the second period, the Cadets spent all their time on the defense. They got the ball occasionally, but only to make the futile advances and then punt.

From a Carlisle standpoint the game was simply one first down after another. In midfield the redskins ran wild, but the Army had the habit of tightening up when the goal line was threatened, and four times the Indians lost the ball after traveling to within the five yard line. Twice the loss came on downs and twice forward passes were tried on the final down. The Indians got away four passes that were very cleverly executed, and these gained considerable ground. The Cadets tried the forward pass a few times and it failed every time.
 

Roughness marred the game to such an extent that two of the best players in the game were relegated to the side lines for uncalled-for roughness. In the first period Powell, the Indian fullback, was sent off the field for a mix-up with Herrick of the Army team, and in the second half Capt. Devore of the Cadets drew a similar penalty for an encounter with Vederneck. The Indians lost twenty-seven yards with Powell's disqualification, and the Cadets lost fifteen when Devore was sent out.

Arcasa and Guyan ranked next to Thorpe in the honors of the afternoon. Arcasa starred as a ground gainer, and he teamed with Thorpe in an exemplification of the old-time criss-cross which seldom failed to fool the Cadets.

The Indians lost seventy-five yards in penalties, and the Cadets lost forty-five.

Carlisle won the toss and chose the north goal, being slightly favored with the northwesterly wind, which was blowing very strong, but rather across the field than at their backs when the game began. Devore kicked off to Thorpe, who fumbled at the 10-yard line, but recovered the ball and carried it to his 28-yard line before being downed. On the first play the Indians gave a sample of what was to come, Arcasa dashing around Hoge's end for a gain of fifteen yards, which brought the ball to the 43-yard line. On a criss-cross play, with Thorpe taking the ball from Arcasa, the great athlete galloped around the Army's right end for fifteen more yards and another first down at West Point's 42-yard line. Arcasa failed to gain, Powell hit the centre for seven yards, and then the criss-cross again fooled the Cadets, Thorpe making twenty yards and bringing the ball to the Army's 15-yard line. Thorpe fumbled the ball as he was thrown hard and it was recovered by Prichard where Thorpe fell.

Thorpe zigzagged his way through the yard line for a first down. Arcasa and Powell picked off three yards apiece and brought the ball to the 25-yard line, but the Indians were penalized fifteen yards for holding and the ball went back to the Army's 40-yard line. Hobbs broke through for a twenty-yard gain and planted the ball on Carlisle's 36-yard line. Thorpe made a pretty tackle. Two rushes by Keyes and one by Hobbs made it first down on the 4-yard line, and on the third try from this point Hobbs circled the Indians' right wing for a touchdown. Prichard failed to kick an easy goal.

This about finished the Cadets. After Devore kicked off the Indians were forced to punt, but the Cadets could not gain and, being handicapped more by a fifteen-yard penalty, Hobbs punted to Arcasa, who made a fair catch on West Point's 44-yard line. On another criss¬-cross from Arcasa to Thorpe the latter got seventeen yards, two rushes by Arcasa netted four yards and another criss-cross brought the ball to within six yards of the Army goal line. On the first rush Bergie went over for a touchdown and Thorpe kicked an easy goal, putting the Indians ahead, 7 to 6.

Shortly after the second half began Captain Devore of the Army was ruled out of the game for rough work against Gujan, and West Point lost fifteen yards, half the distance to her goal line. The Cadets could not gain and Hobbs punted to Arcasa at the Indians' 43-yard line. From this point the Indians began a steady advance to the Army goal line, with Thorpe and Arcasa starring, but were halted on downs inside the 5-yard line.

This paved the way for the most spectacular play of the game. Standing behind his own goal line, Keyes kicked to Thorpe at the 45-yard line, and the speedy Indian wormed his way through the entire Army team for a touchdown, and the ball went the Army at their 22-yard line. Three successive rushes by Arcasa made another first down on the Army's 25-yard line. Thorpe carried the ball to the 10-yard line for another first down. Two rushes by Powell and Arcasa netted only five yards, for once the criss-cross failed to gain, and Thorpe tried a forward pass to Arcasa. On the first line-up Thorpe made a wonderful punt of fifty-five yards, the ball going, scarcely more than fifteen feet in the air. The Army on their first rush got their second first down of the game. Eisenhower carrying the ball twelve yards to his own 47-yard line. Powell and Herrick engaged in a scuffle on this play, and the Indian full back was ruled out of the game, his team drawing a penalty of twenty-seven yards, or half the distance to their goal line. The Indians tore the Army line to pieces in their steady advance, and in seven rushes sent Arcasa over for another touchdown. Thorpe kicked the goal. Score: Carlisle. 14: West Point, 6.

Keyes kicked to Arcasa, who was downed at his own 25-yard line, and then began another advance which ended in another touchdown by Arcasa and another goal by Thorpe. The Indians did not lose the ball during the journey of seventy-five yards.

Early in the final period the Cadets held the Indians, and Thorpe tried for a goal from placement from the 44-yard line after a 15-yard penalty. The kick was true, but the ball fell short. Keyes, was quickly forced to punt, and Thorpe got the ball at midfield. From this point the Indians made another advance toward a touchdown, but lost the ball on downs on the one-yard line. Coffin, who had succeeded Keyes, punted from behind his goal line, but the ball hit one of the goal post uprights and was recovered by the Indians on West Point's 12-yard line. On the fourth try Arcasa went over for a touchdown, and Thorpe failed to kick the goal. The game ended a few seconds after Coffin had again kicked to the Indians.

Note: A frequently quoted anecdote from the Carlisle-Army game has become legendary. During the game, future President Dwight Eisenhower injured his knee while trying to tackle Thorpe. Thorpe’s performance that afternoon was so dominating that Eisenhower, together with a conspirator, Charles Benedict, planned to take Thorpe out of the game. Although they succeeded in briefly stopping a Thorpe-led drive by using a double-tackle on the halfback, a deft maneuver by Thorpe dodged them a play later and sent the two West Pointers crashing headlong into each other. They were temporarily stunned and removed from the game. Eisenhower remembered Thorpe in a 1961 speech, "Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."

It is one of the true ironies of American sports history that Warner and Thorpe arrived at Carlisle at the same time. The two great men crossed paths and forever changed collegiate football history. During the four years that Thorpe played for Warner at Carlisle, the team won 43 games, lost 5 and tied 2. Included in the list of defeated powerhouses were Penn State, Syracuse, Army, Navy, Minnesota, Nebraska, Chicago (under Amos Alonzo Stagg), Princeton, Harvard, and Villanova.

The 1912 team is the one that will always be remembered for bringing the national championship to the tiny Indian school. Carlisle was closed in 1918 and the memory of the football program has faded away. But, for a generation of Americans, this was one of the finest collegiate teams that ever played the game, superbly coached and led by the greatest star in the history of American sports.

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Haskell and the Season of 1926
 

Haskell Indian Nation University of Lawrence, KS was founded as the United States Indian Industrial Training School in 1884 as an agricultural educational primary school serving American Indian children. Boys were taught trades and girls studied homemaking. Most of the students' food was produced on the Haskell farm, and students were expected to participate in various industrial duties. Ten years later, a "normal school" was added. By 1927, the high school classes were accredited by the state of Kansas, and Haskell began offering post high school courses in a variety of areas.

Part of Haskell's attraction was not only its post high school curriculum but also its success in athletics. Haskell football teams in the early 1900's to the 1930's are legendary. And even after the 1930's, when the emphasis on football began to decrease, athletics remained a high priority to Haskell students and alumni. Today, Haskell continues to pay tribute to great athletes by serving as the home of the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame.

The Carlisle Indian School of Pennsylvania had represented football at the government’s Indian schools since the 1890s. The United States Bureau of Indian Affairs saw the attention to the football programs as an excellent means of publicizing the efforts to educate and assimilate the Native American race into mainstream white culture. In the early part of the 20th Century, Haskell was overshadowed by the reputation of Carlisle, which was recognized as a major power in college football in the early 1900’s. In the absence of professional football, Carlisle had been considered world champions after their magnificent campaign of 1912.

In 1904, Haskell and Carlisle met when promoters of the St. Louis World's Fair concluded that a Haskell-Carlisle game at the fair would be an incredible spectacle. The game was scheduled for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which fell on November 26. Carlisle won easily, 38-4. "Pop" Warner's team left the fans thinking that Eastern football was superior to that played in the Midwest. But, Carlisle closed in 1918, and the nation’s attention shifted to Haskell Indian Institute of Lawrence, Kansas.

Throughout the era of the 1920s Haskell football teams traveled from coast-to-coast to meet national powerhouse programs. They were the subject of continuous racial stereotyping by newspaper writers and game promoters. Almost without exception, the predominantly white crowds were treated to pregame and halftime activities that usually entailed some type of Indian costumes and ceremonies. Players were regularly expected to pose for publicity photos while wearing outfits that included plenty of Indian feathers. Many latter-day historians believe that football games against the Haskell Indian teams came to actually represent a reenactment and reaffirming of the frontier struggles of the past, which had established white superiority over the Indian race.

From 1900 through 1930, Haskell defeated Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas State, Texas A&M, LSU, Oklahoma State, Tulsa, TCU, Baylor and Michigan State. Coaches of national renown guided the program. John Outland of Outland Trophy fame and an earlier rule developer, coached at Haskell in 1906. In the early 30’s, William “Lone Star” Dietz, a former teammate of Jim Thorpe and coached by Glenn “Pop” Warner at Carlisle, took over the program. Dietz had led Washington State to the first modern Rose Bowl in 1916 and is still the only coach to lead the Cougars to a Rose Bowl victory. This game, more than any other, is considered to have given Western football respectability against the East. Also, Washington Redskins’ owner George Marshall re-named his team (formerly the Boston Braves) the Washington Redskins in honor of Dietz. Dietz left Haskell for the Washington head coaching position under Marshall in 1933. And, former Haskell head coach, Matty Bell, coach from 1020-22, is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.

The Haskell Indians of 1926

In 1922, Haskell hired Dick Hanley, former quarterback at Washington State as the athletic director and coach of the football team. In the seasons of 1922-25, Hanley had led the Haskell Indians to a composite record of 33-9-3. Hanley moved the Haskell Indians into inter-sectional schedules that saw them playing major teams from around the country. And, in 1926, Haskell constructed its first concrete modern stadium. Previously, few home games had ever been played since there had been no grandstands and any fans had to stand along the sidelines or sit in their cars.

The ‘26 team was comprised of nearly 50 players, representing eighteen different tribes from all over the country. The team was led by Captain Tom Stidham, at right tackle. His running mate at the other tackle spot was the giant (245 lbs) Theodore "Tiny" Roebuck. Hanley considered the two the finest tackles in the country. The backfield was incredible with Egbert Ward at quarterback, along with halfbacks George Levi and Elijah Smith. At fullback was Louis Colby. On the second team backfield was a young Irish-Cherokee fullback named Mayes McLain. Hanley felt that there was something special about the six foot, 200 pound McClain. And, in 1926, Hanley would be proven right.

The first game of the 1926 season was played at home in the new stadium as Haskell buried Drury College of Springfield, MO, 65-0. The second game saw Haskell defeat Wichita 57-0. The Wheatshockers had only one scoring threat on the day. McLain scored all eight of the Haskell touchdowns and kicked seven PAT's. In week three, the Indians coasted to a 55-0 victory over Still College of Des Moines, IA. The next week against Morningside College of Sioux City, IA. McLain scored four touchdowns in Haskell's 38-0 win.

The Indians then headed to Dayton, which was first real test of the season. The Dayton Daily News wrote that Haskell’s team was “anxious to return to their native haunts in Kansas with the scalps of the men of Dayton.” The largest crowd in Dayton history watched as their team took a 7-0 lead on a blocked punt in the first period. But later in the quarter Haskell responded with a 70 yard drive which ended with McLain scoring the TD on a 4-yard plunge to tie it at 7-7. McLain would tally four touchdowns on the afternoon and add a field goal as Haskell crushed Dayton, 30-14.

Back home the next week, Joe Cross scored four touchdowns and kicked five PAT's and McLain added four TD's, as Haskell totaled 795 yards of rushing offense on the way to a 95-0 win against Jackson College.

Haskell entered the power part of their schedule when they faced Bucknell in the first-ever homecoming game played at Haskell. The media had a great time writing about "redmen” and the Indian students posed with head-dresses for the visitors and press. On the day of the game the new stadium was formally dedicated and presented to Haskell Institute by Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas, Senate Majority Leader, future Vice President and Kansa-Kaw Indian.

The game itself was no contest as Haskell dominated in a 36-0 win over shocked Bucknell. For the day, McLain had tacked on two touchdowns and rushed for 129 yards in 27 tries. Smith had rushed for 140 yards in 17 tries as Haskell piled up 521 yards of total offense.

The Kansas City Star noted that the win "sent the crowd of Braves back to their tepees to narrate the deeds of valor done by their offspring upon the modern battle ground... Watching the Redskins smash into the White Man makes one glad America was Americanized before the Football Era."

The following week, the Indians took on Loyola of Chicago at Muehlebach Field in Kansas City. They trailed early, 7-0, after Loyola scored on 58 yard touchdown pass. McLain suffered a knee injury in the second quarter, but Louis Colby scored three touchdowns and Haskell won, 27-7.

The Indians next traveled to Boston to meet the unbeaten Eagles of Boston College who were considered a power in the East that season. McClain would not play due to his knee injury from the previous week. More than 20,000 spectators jammed Braves Field (home of the Boston Braves of baseball). BC scored early on a 50 yard interception return. In the second quarter, Elijah Smith fumbled a punt on his own 17 and the Eagles scored in four plays for a 14-0 lead. On the last play of the half, Haskell attempted a drop-kick from their 47, but it hit the crossbar and kept the Indians scoreless.

Boston came out aggressively in the third quarter. BC blocked a punt into the endzone and recovered it for a 21-0 lead. From that point, Haskell’s offense started to take over and, on an eight play drive, Louis Colby scored to the Indians to within 21-7 at the end of the quarter.

In the fourth quarter, the Indians marched 76 yards in 14 plays and Colby scored from the three to make it 21-14. A short time later, Haskell recovered a BC fumble at the Eagles’ 15 yard line. Colby went in on a ten yard carry and the score was tied, 21-21. The comeback in Boston against a powerhouse program was phenomenal. Especially considering that their leading rusher did not play. The Boston College Eagles finished the 1926 season undefeated at 6-0-2.

Hanley then led his team to Lansing, Michigan to take on Michigan State in a game played on a snow-covered field with McLain again seeing no action. Haskell cruised to a 40-7 victory. Next up was a trip to Cincinnati for a Thanksgiving Day game with unbeaten Xavier (9-0),which was experiencing the finest season in their history. During the week before the game there were numerous rumors circulating about the possibility of an end-of-season game between Haskell and Notre Dame, but this was never pursued because of the expected financial guarantees that Notre Dame would require (Haskell was 0-4 against Notre Dame from 1914-1932).

The Cincinnati Enquirer described the game as a “modernized version of warfare between the paleface and the proud representatives of the Indian empire of the past". McLain was back for this one and he scored three touchdowns and Colby another, as Xavier was throttled, 27-0.

The Braves returned home at last on Nov 27. Coach Hanley confirmed that he had accepted an offer to become head coach at Northwestern. Also, it was announced that the team had declined an invitation to travel to Honolulu for games with Hawaii U on Christmas Day and an All-Star squad on New Years Day. The players were exhausted.

On Dec 4, Haskell traveled to Oklahoma to meet Tulsa, which featured a wide open aerial attack. The Hurricanes had defeated the Valley champs (precursor to today’s Big 12), Oklahoma A&M, by a score of 28-0. Indians from all over the state filled the stadium. Led by Levi and McClain, Haskell dominated, 27-7, and traveled on to San Francisco for the season finale on Dec 18 against the Hawaii All-Stars.

The Stars held the title in Hawaii and the club championship of the Pacific by virtue of wins over Hawaii U. and the San Francisco Olympic Club. It was no contest with McClain scoring 3 touchdowns in the 40-7 victory.

The season ended with a 12-0-1 record. McLain scored 38 touchdowns rushing and accounted for 253 points (228 by rushing). He averaged 23 points per game. McLain’s numbers for the season are not recognized by college football historians. Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders is the holder of the records for rushing touchdowns and points from rushing in the NCAA record books. Sanders scored 37 touchdowns on the ground and 234 total points in 1988. McClain had 38 touchdowns and 253 points. If the stats are measured purely on rushing (McClain had PAT’s and a field goal, Sanders had two non-rushing touchdowns) the total for scoring still favors McClain, 228-222. In short, McClain’s season was the finest in history for a running back and his scoring marks have still not been broken. This, in spite of the fact that he appeared in only 9 ½ games.

The Indians were completely ignored in All-America selections. Only the All-America Board gave the Indians any mention, as "Tiny" Roebuck was selected as second team tackle and McLain as third team fullback. Haskell had gone undefeated with a 12-0-1 record during the same season that saw Navy go 9-0-1, Alabama, 9-0-1, and Stanford went 10-0-1. Alabama or Stanford were generally considered the “national champions” at that time.

Jack Clinton, an Eastern referee, said after the Boston game that "this year I have seen West Virginia, Penn, Lafayette, West Point, Syracuse, Bucknell and Lehigh in victories. Haskell could defeat any of these teams by several touchdowns."

Of the teams on Haskell's schedule, eight of them were considered as major college competition at that time. Haskell definitely was considered a major in 1926. However, in defense of the pollsters of that era, modern power rankings, when applied to the 1926 season, reveal that, besides Boston College, who does not appear in the rankings, the highest ranked opponent for Haskell that season would have been Michigan State at #88 in the nation. In retrospect, a match-up with Notre Dame would have proven Haskell’s true prowess.

Industrial training became an important part of the school’s curriculum in the early 1930's, and by 1935 Haskell began to evolve into a post high school, vocational-technical institution. Gradually, the secondary program was phased out, and the last high school class graduated in 1965. In 1970, Haskell began offering a junior college curriculum and became Haskell Indian Junior College. In 1992, Haskell was re-named to reflect the Board of Regents’ vision for the school as a national center for Indian education, research, and cultural preservation. In 1993, the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs (U. S. Department of the Interior) approved the change, and Haskell became "Haskell Indian Nations University."

Haskell Indian Nation University is today the antithesis of a military-type training institute whose purpose is to acculturate Native Americans into the Anglo society. The purpose of Haskell is to offer innovative curricula oriented toward American Indian/Alaska Native cultures. Gone are the glory days of the football past when the likes of John Outland, Jim Thorpe, and “Lone Star” Dietz walked the grounds. But, football is still there. The Indians play at the NAIA level, a source of inspiration for fans who know a little something about the game’s history. That is, for those of us who know that the NAIA team clad in purple that we are watching on Saturday afternoon, would probably now be remembered as a national champion had they chosen to play Notre Dame in the season of 1926.

Information on Haskell Institute and the 1926 season exerpted from:

Princes of the Prarie, Lords of the Prairie: Haskell Indian School Football, 1919-1930, and College Football, 1919-1930
by Raymond Schmidt
College Football Historical Society

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Oorang Indians
 

In the history of the National Football League, there never has been a team quite like the Oorang Indians. Members of the NFL in 1922 and 1923, the Oorang Indians were organized by Walter Lingo, the owner of the Oorang Dog Kennels in the small town of LaRue, Ohio. Lingo organized the team for the sole purpose of advertising his kennel and selling a breed of dog known as the Airedale. "Let me tell you about my big publicity stunt," Lingo wrote in a 1923 edition of Oorang Comments, his monthly magazine devoted to singing the praises of Airedales. "You know Jim Thorpe, don’t you, the Sac and Fox Indian, the world’s greatest athlete, who won the all-around championship at the Olympic Games in Sweden in 1912?" Well, Thorpe is in our organization."

Lingo went on to explain that he had placed Thorpe in charge of an all-Indian football team that toured the country’s leading cities for the express purpose of advertising his Airedale dogs. The team roster included such names as Long Time Sleep, Joe Little Twig, Big Bear, War Eagle, and Thorpe. Since Lingo’s plan was to advertise his dogs and kennel, the Indians played only one home game. However, since tiny LaRue had no football field, the game was actually played in neighboring Marion, Ohio.

The Indians were not a very good team. In fact, they won only three games in two years. Of course the players must have found it difficult to take their football seriously when you consider what Lingo had in mind. The pre-game and halftime activities were more important than the results of the game.

Entertainment, both prior to the games and during halftimes, was provided by the players and the Airedale dogs. There were shooting exhibitions with the dogs retrieving the targets. There were Indian dances and tomahawk and knife-throwing demonstrations. Long Time Sleep even wrestled a bear on occasion.

At first the Oorang Indians were an excellent gate attraction. However, the novelty eventually wore off and Lingo pulled his financial backing. So, at the end of the 1923 season, the Oorang Indians, undoubtedly pro football’s most unusual team, folded their tents and shut down for good.

-National Football League

THE OORANG INDIANS
By Bob Braunwart, Bob Carroll & Joe Horrigan
The Coffin Corner Volume III, 1981

GOING TO THE DOGS

"Let me tell you about my big publicity stunt," wrote Walter Lingo, owner and operator of the Oorang Kennels in a 1923 edition of Oorang Comments, his monthly magazine devoted to singing the praises of himself and his Airedales. "You know Jim Thorpe, don't you, the Sac and Fox Indian, the world's greatest athlete, who won the all-around championship at the Olympic Games in Sweden in 1912? Well, Thorpe is in our organization."

Lingo went on to explain that he had placed Thorpe in charge of an all-Indian football team that toured the country's leading cities for the express purpose of advertising Oorang Airedales. As far as Lingo was concerned, that was the only thing that really mattered -- how good Thorpe and company made his dogs look. Football was a game he never really cared for very much.

Ironically, Lingo's "stunt" produced the most colorful collection of athletes ever to step onto an NFL gridiron. In American sports lore, there never was, and surely never will be again, anything like the Oorangs, the first, the last, and the only all-Indian team ever to play in a major professional sports league.

Although Thorpe was given three full pages in Oorang Comments, very little was said about the performance of his team. It was just as well; they weren't very good, despite the presence of two future Hall of Famers and several other former All-Americans in their lineup. In the two years that they operated, they managed only four NFL victories. In fewer than half their league games could they score even a single touchdown. They lost games by horrendous scores, 41-0, 57-0, and 62-0! And yet, inevitably, they will be remembered long after more successful teams are forgotten.

To understand why they existed and why they played as they did, one must begin with Walter Lingo.

Never was a man so in love with a breed of dogs as was Walter Lingo with Airedales. In his magazine he explained. "About sixty years ago, the common man of Great Britain found it necessary to create a dog different from any in existence. The bird dog became lost in the bush when at stand, the hound was too noisy, and the retrievers lacked stamina. Therefore these folks secretly experimented by a series of cross-breeding old types, including the otter hound, the old English sheep dog, the black and tan terrier, and the bulldog. From this melting pot resulted the Airedale, so named because he was first produced by the people along the dale of the Aire river between England and Scotland. The new dog combined the good qualities of his ancestors without their faults. It was a super dog."

Not only were Airedales the Ultimate Dogs, but Lingo had the Ultimate Airedale in King Oorang, a dog he had produced by bringing in and breeding great Airedales from all over the world. King Oorang was "the greatest utility dog in the history of the world," according to Field and Stream. With the king as his kingpin, Lingo operated the famous Oorang Kennels out of the little town of LaRue in very rural Ohio.

The kennels were anything but a neighborhood dog pound. They were the "Airedale" of pet stores, a mail-order puppy factory that spread over acres of Lingo's land and employed countless trainers, night watchmen, kennelmen, cratemakers, hunters, and a whole kennelful of clerks who did nothing but keep records on the temperament, instincts, and "pluck" of the hundreds of Airedales being bred there. A prominent dog show writer of the period allowed that, after he had covered thousands of kennels all over the world, "nothing has been seen or imagined such as Walter Lingo's mail-order dog business."

Although America had gone slightly gaga over movie star Rin-Tin-Tin and German shepherds were the big item in dogdom, Lingo was certain that he could make the whole country Airedale-conscious with just a little more advertising. He was already spending $2,000 a month for ads in a dozen or more leading magazines, but what he really needed was to lure thousands of people at a time into watching the Airedales perform.

Enter Jim Thorpe.

Next to Airedales -- although not a close "next" -- Walter Lingo loved Indians. He had grown up hearing Indian tales -- LaRue was the site of an old Wyandotte village -- and somehow he had convinced himself that a supernatural bond existed between Airedales and Indians. "I knew that my dogs could learn something from them that they could not acquire from the best white hunters."

The most famous Indian in the world was Jim Thorpe, the greatest athlete of his, and perhaps any other, time. Thorpe had endeared himself to Lingo by telling a nice dog story. When a local farmer accused Lingo of raising a pack of sheepkillers, Thorpe remembered that he once knew an Oorang Airedale that had saved a six-year-old girl from being trampled by a bull. The girl's name was Mabel, he recalled.

In 1921, Lingo invited Thorpe and his buddy Pete Calac to LaRue for a little hunting. In between dog stories -- Lingo had one for any occasion -- they decided on a novel way both to advertise Airedales and to employ Jim Thorpe, who, if the truth be known, was a little down on his luck just then. Lingo would purchase a franchise in the young National Football League, and Thorpe would run the team, which was to be composed exclusively of Indians. With the asking price of an NFL franchise at $100 and the asking price for a superior Oorang male at $150, Lingo's investment was actually quite modest. Of course, by the time Lingo's kennels joined the league at the June meeting of pro moguls, there was on the books a requirement of posting $1,000 as a guarantee against playing collegians with college eligibility remaining or not showing up for a game or so forth. But such things were quite "negotiable" in the NFL's early years. With a potential drawing card like an all-Indian team, no one needed to concern himself too closely with trivia.

Lingo wanted the team to play out of little LaRue, but that was hard to justify as the little town had no football field. Admittedly, the team would perform almost exclusively on the road, where it could draw the biggest crowds and best advertise the dogs, but everyone agreed that it would be nice to keep the Indians at home once or twice to show off for the home folks.

Fifteen miles away was Marion, a comparative metropolis of 30,000, which had a suitable field. Additionally, Marion had just been "put on the map" as the hometown of the just then extremely popular President Warren G. Harding. Marion was booming. Riding the crest of Harding's popularity, it was industrializing, had plans for a 150-room hotel, and even had scheduled Al Jolson into the Chautauqua Auditorium. As a result of all these circumstances, the Indians will forever go down in most record books as representing Marion, Ohio.

Thorpe set about putting together his team. Indians came from all over to try out, many from Jim's old school, Carlisle. Some of them had not played in quite a while and were older than Thorpe, whose age ranged from thirty-four to fifty depending on what account you wanted to believe. Lingo said he was thirty- eight, and by Jim's own admission, "I was getting up toward forty and I couldn't breathe so good."

Some writers have suggested that Thorpe filled out his roster with several palefaces; they've even gone so far as to say that on a rainy day some of the red skins ran faster than the redskins. There seems to be little basis for the charge. Although many of the Indians were not pure-blooded -- Thorpe himself was three-eighths Irish -- every identifiable team member has proved to have at least some Indian blood.

With such players as Sanooke, Red Fang, Downwind, War Eagle, Lone Wolf, Running Deer, and Eagle Feather representing the Cherokees, Chippewas, Winnebagos, Mohawks, and Mohicans, the Oorang Indians hit the warpath against the NFL.

The Oorang Indians
 

Unfortunately, the warpath hit back. Had Sitting Bull's braves applied themselves in battle with the tenacity that Thorpe's team applied to its games, General Custer might be alive today. After the horrible 62-0 massacre at Akron, one newspaper headlined "JIM THORPE'S INDIANS LOAF."

That was part of it.

The team found it difficult to take their football seriously because the team owner was far more interested in the pregame and halftime activities than he was in the game itself. They gave exhibitions with Airedales at work trailing and treeing a live bear. One of the players, 195-pound Nikolas Lassa, called "Long-Time-Sleep" by his teammates because he was so hard to wake up in the morning, even wrestled the bear. There were fancy shooting exhibitions by Indian marksmen with Airedales retrieving the targets. There were Indian dances, fancy tomahawk work, knife and lariat throwing, all done by Indians. "The climax," explained Lingo, "was an exhibition of what the United States' loyal Indian scouts did during the war against Germany, with Oorang Airedale Red Cross dogs giving first aid in an armed encounter between scouts and huns in no man's land. Many of the Indians and dogs were veterans of the war -- the Oorangs up front."

After such a workout, Thorpe's players must have looked upon the game as purely a secondary matter.

Another reason for the team's lack of success, according to Ed Healey, the Chicago Bears' Hall of Fame tackle, was that Thorpe was not a good coach, especially where discipline was concerned. However, Healey insisted the players were tough. "I have a vivid recollection of how they used the `points.' By that I mean the elbows, knees, and feet in their blocking and tackling. They'd give you those bones and it hurt. They were tough S.O.B.'s, but good guys off the field."

Perhaps too good. Most of the stories told about the team focus on their off-the-field antics.

There was the time in Chicago when the bartender wanted to close up and the Indians tossed him into a telephone booth, turned it upside down, and drank until dawn. Then they went out and got slaughtered by the Chicago Bears.

There was the time in St. Louis when they left a bar late, only to find their trolly headed in the wrong direction. Using muscles they didn't always exert on the football field, they lifted the vehicle off its tracks and turned it around to face in the right direction. And there were the many times they put Nikolas Lassa up against touring carnival strongmen. After his experience with the bear, Long-Time-Sleep had little trouble staying the required distance to win the ten or twenty dollars that would allow the whole team to party all night.

Leon Boutwell, a Chippewa quarterback, explained: "White people had this misconception about Indians. They thought they were all wild men, even though almost all of us had been to college and were generally more civilized than they were. Well, it was a dandy excuse to raise hell and get away with it when the mood struck us. Since we were Indians we could get away with things the whites couldn't. Don't think we didn't take advantage of it."

On occasion -- whether hung over or not -- the Indians could rouse themselves for a super play. Thorpe punted 75 yards in the air at Milwaukee and Joe Guyon ran an interception back 96 at Chicago. But the most spectacular play involving the team was made against them. It happened in 1923 in Chicago when Bear end and coach George Halas picked up a Thorpe fumble and mushed down a muddy gridiron for 98 yards and a touchdown, a record that stood until 1972.

Through it all, Walter Lingo got what he'd paid for: a showcase for his dogs and for his Indians. Without a doubt, the colorful costumes and the colorful stories helped bring out the fans. And then there was Thorpe's still magic name (although Lingo kept billing him by his Indian name, "Bright Path"). Old Jim seldom played more than a half and often sat out the whole game. But every once in a while he could call up the old greatness and lead the team to an at least respectable performance. One news story put it this way: "... they looked like a real football team when Indian Jim was in .... Rarely has the presence of one player made so great a difference as when Thorpe went in. It seemed as if the team improved fully 50 percent. Their defense stiffened and they started carrying the ball down the field. Thorpe took it many times himself and showed he can forward pass."

After two years, Lingo gave up his team. The novelty was beginning to wear thin. Crowds in 1923 -- especially on the second trip to a city -- were smaller than the year before, and that was no way to sell Airedales. The publicity stunt had run its course.

The Indians scattered. Some went back to the reservation; reportedly Lassa gave up drinking, raised a family, stopped wrestling bears, and became a respected member of his community. Others went right on playing football for other teams. Thorpe played for four more years, Guyon and Calac for three.

Walter Lingo's kennels continued to prosper at LaRue (they were still going strong when he died in the mid-1960s), but fifteen miles away everything seemed to go sour for Marion all at once. The Indians were gone and so was Harding, dead after being disgraced by Teapot Dome. Both the team and the President had looked better on paper than in performance, although time has been kinder to the memory of the football team.

Although "the records tell you differently," wrote John Short in the Marion STAR, Harding's old paper, "the passing years have given them a powerful image." But they will be remembered, not for their record, but because "they came and gave the game incredible color at a time when it needed color badly."

1922: THE FIRST SEASON

Sunday, Oct. 1, at Dayton, O. - Triangle Park

The Dayton Triangles had almost no trouble in opening their 1922 season with a one-sided win over the heavy but slow Indians. Jim Thorpe didn't play but it was unlikely his presence could have made any difference. The Indians showed very little offense; the Dayton Journal called their attempts "a joke." And, except for Joe Guyon who saved several touchdowns, the tribe had even less on defense.

Dayton took the opening kickoff and drove straight down the field for a touchdown. Before the first quarter ended, the Triangles added two more points on safety when they blocked Guyon's punt. For the rest of the game, the only question was how high the score might go.

The most unusual Dayton touchdown was the last. After Huffine had scored the next-to-last TD, the Indians kicked off to Dayton. Gus Redmond caught the ball, but instead of running with it, he punted it right back to the Indians. This completely confused the tribe. One Indian touched the ball, and then Dayton's Glenn Tibb scooped it up and ran 41 yards to the end zone.

 

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Oorang Indians	0	0	0	0	0
Dayton Triangles	9	7	7	13	36

Scoring Summary

DA - Partlow 3 run (Hathaway PK)
DA - Safety
DA - O'Neill 25 run (Hathaway PK)
DA - Huffine 10 run (Hathaway PK)
DA - Huffine 4 run (Hathaway PK failed)
DA - Tidd 41 fumble recovery (Hathaway PK)

Sunday, Oct. 8, at Marion, O. - Lincoln Park (1,200)

Joe Guyon's two touchdown runs -- one a 55-yard dash -- led the Indians to a 20-6 win over the hapless Columbus Panhandles at Marion. Eagle Feather's line plunges, the main feature of the Oorang attack, accounted for a third tribe TD. Pete Calac played a strong defensive game at end for the tribe.

Columbus scored a touchdown in the third quarter on Emmett Ruh's plunge after a long pass and 35-yard dash by Wiper had moved them in close. With the score 7-6 at that point, the Indians broke through to block the extra point try.

On Wednesday, Oct. 11, at Marion, the Indians topped Bucyrus, an independent team, 20-6 in a non-NFL game.

OO - Guyon 10 run (Guyon DK)
CO - E.Ruh 3 run (E.Ruh DK blocked)
OO - Eagle Feather 8 run (Guyon DK)
OO - Guyon 55 run (Guyon DK failed)

Sunday, Oct. 15, at Canton, O. - Lakeside

The Indians lost a bitterly fought game to the Canton Bulldogs by a misleading, 14-0, score. The contest wasn't actually that close, but the Bulldogs frittered away several scoring opportunities, particularly in the first half when Miller fumbled a couple of times.

Canton scored both its touchdowns in the third quarter. First, scatback Norb Sacksteder made a 60-yard, twisting punt return through most of the Oorangs for one score. A few moments later, the Bulldogs drove from midfield for another, with Harry Robb going over on a plunge.

Guyon played another excellent game for the Indians, but he had too little help. Thorpe disappointed the crowd by remaining on the bench.

On Sunday, October 22, at Indianapolis, the Indians earned $2,000 and quite a bit of ill will in beating the Belmonts, an independent team, during a snow storm. According to the locals, the tribe had promised to keep some of their stars on the bench and take it easy on the home team. The final count of 33-0 indicated that the tribe went all out to run up the score.

Scoring Summary

CA - Sacksteder 60 punt return (Shaw PK)
CA - Robb 1 run (Shaw PK)

Sunday, Oct. 29, at Akron, O. - Elk's Field (3,000)

Perhaps it was a new strategy. Perhaps the Indians thought they could tire the Akron players by letting them race unmolested up and down the field. Akron cooperated to the extent of scoring nine touchdowns and eight extra points, for a total of 62 points.

In the meantime, the Indians conserved their own energy so well that they avoided the goal line altogether. Nearly every time they found themselves in danger of doing something exhausting like gaining yardage, they contrived to drop the football and trick Akron into recovering. If the game had gone on for several more hours -- or days -- the Oorang boys would have been fresh for a rally.

Those unaccustomed to the wily redskin ways, namely all in attendance, mistook the Oorangs' clever strategy for a shameful example of a team loafing.
 

Scoring Summary

AK - Cramer 4 run (Sheeks DK failed)
AK - Cramer 6 run (Sheeks DK)
AK - King 2 run (Sheeks DK)
AK - King 50 pass interception (Sheeks DK)
AK - Daum 45 pass from King (Sheeks DK)
AK - King 1 run (Mills on pass from Sheeks)
AK - Mills 5 run (King DK) AK - LeJeune 1 run (King DK)
AK - LeJeune 5 run (Sheeks DK)

Sunday, Nov. 5, at Minneapolis, MN -Nicollet Park (4,000)

Marty Norton led his Marines to a come-from-behind win at Minneapolis. Bad weather held the crowd to below expectations. The Indians took a 6-0 lead in the first half on a lucky break. On a long Oorang pass, Norton tried for an interception but the ball bounced off his hands and into the arms of Oorang's Stilwell Sanooke deep in Minneapolis territory. From there, Guyon and Eagle Feather smashed at the line until Guyon finally went over for the TD.

In the second half, Norton, with the help of Irgens, changed the game around. Ripping off brilliant end runs, they moved the ball quickly down the field. Norton raced in for the touchdown from 22 yards out. Irgens' goal put Minneapolis in front.

Thorpe entered the game at this point, his first playing time of the season, but he could not rally his team. In the final period, Irgens' block of Thorpe allowed Norton to score the icing touchdown.

 

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final
Oorang Indians	0	6	0	0	6
Minneapolis Marines	0	0	7	6	13

Scoring Summary

OO - Guyon 6 run (Guyon DK failed)
MN - Norton 22 run (Irgens PK)
MN - Norton 19 run (Irgens PK)

Sunday, Nov. 12, at Chicago, IL - Cubs Park

Scoring Summary

CB - J.Sternaman run (E.Sternaman PK)
CB - J.Sternaman 15 run (E.Sternaman PK failed)
CB - E.Sternaman run (Halas pass from Walquist)
CB - Halas fumble recovery (E.Sternaman DK failed)
CB - Pearce run (Halas pass from Walquist)
OO - Thorpe run (PAT failed)

Sunday, Nov. 19, at Milwaukee, WI - Athletic Park (7,500)

Bo McMillan, the All-America from little Centre, took the professional plunge with the Milwaukee Badgers. He brought the crowd to its feet several times with fine open field running and also did some accurate passing. Thorpe was nearly the whole of the Oorang offense.

However, the Badgers' Paul Robeson was the player of the game, scoring both Milwaukee touchdowns. In the first half he fell on Eagle Feather's fumble at the Oorang ten and rolled into the end zone to score. Then, in the third quarter, he took Purdy's 30- yard pass at the 20 and ran the rest of the way unmolested, making the final score 13-0.

Scoring Summary

MI - Robeson fumble (Copley PK failed)
MI - Robeson 50 pass from Purdy (Copley PK)

Sunday, Nov. 26, at Buffalo, NY - Baseball Park

Jim Thorpe proved that on occasion he could still be a great player by leading the Indians to a stunning, 19-7, upset of the Buffalo All-Americans. Jim entered the game after Buffalo had taken a first quarter lead on Buck Gavin's 25-yard touchdown run. He proceeded to electrify the crowd with his line plunging, long runs, and accurate passing.

Thorpe was directly responsible for all of his team's points. In the second quarter, he blasted across for the Indians' first touchdown to move them within a point of Buffalo.

After a scoreless third quarter, Thorpe broke away for a 20 yard TD jaunt to put the Indians in front early in the final period. The extra point was made on a Thorpe pass to Joe Guyon. Shortly after that, another Thorpe to Guyon pass was good for a 30-yards TD to ice the game.

Scoring Summary

BF - Gavin 25 run (Morrissey PK)
OO - Thorpe 2 run (Thorpe DK failed)
OO - Thorpe 20 run (Guyon pass from Thorpe)
OO - Guyon 30 pass from Thorpe (Thorpe DK failed)

Thursday, Nov. 30, at Columbus, O. - Neil Park

Jim Thorpe, Joe Guyon, and Pete Calac all played well as the Indians defeated the Panhandles at Columbus. Thorpe played only the first half but looked good on his few carries. Most of the rushing was handled by Guyon and Calac.

After taking a 6-0 lead in the first half, the Indians went ahead by two touchdowns in the third period on Guyon's 80-yard run after a pass interception.

A few moments later, Calac used trickery to gain his second touchdown of the day. At the Columbus 15, the Indians' center made a bad pass. Calac picked it up and ran about 15 yards and when two Panhandles grabbed him he yelled, "Out of bounds! Out of bounds!" The would-be tacklers released him and he dashed the last five yards into the end zone.

On Sunday, December 3, the Indians somehow contrived to lose a game to the independent Durant All-Stars by the embarrassing score of 29-0.

The Indians closed their season on Saturday, December 9, with a strong showing against the Baltimore Pros at Venable Stadium before a crowd of 5,000. The Pros had former Penn State All- American Glenn Killinger in their lineup, and he scored the only touchdown in the 7-0 game on a short run. Thorpe did not play.

Scoring Summary

OO - Calac run (PAT failed)
OO - Guyon 80 pass interception (PAT failed)
OO - Calac 15 run (PAT failed)
CO - Snoots 1 run (PAT DK failed)

1923: THE SECOND SEASON

The Indians took to the NFL trail again, but the team was even weaker than it had been the year before. Although Leon Boutwell, Nick Lassa, Eagle Feather, Joe Little Twig, and a few others had their moments, the Oorangs were really a three-man team, consisting of Thorpe, Guyon, and Calac. Yet the three were on the field together for only about one half of one game all season. Joe Guyon did not play until the eighth game. Calac was out for that one. Then, in the second half of the ninth game, Thorpe was knocked out for the remainder of the season with an injury.

While Thorpe was healthy, nearly every newspaper report of an Indian game agreed that he was still a strong punter, passer and line-plunger but had lost the blazing speed that had made him a great player.

The Indians' dog show had made the rounds the year before. The crowds for most of the second appearances were generally down, although bad weather was sometimes as much a culprit as fan apathy.

Sunday, Sept. 30, at Milwaukee, WI - Athletic Park (4,000)

The Indians opened their second season with yet another loss, this one to the Badgers at Milwaukee before a good crowd. Although Pete Calac tore away for several good gains, the only Indian score came about when the Badgers' Jimmy Conzelman was spilled in his own end zone for a safety.

Thorpe delivered one great moment that brought the spectators to their feet. In the second half, from behind his own goal line, he boomed a punt that traveled 75 yards in the air.

Scoring Summary

MI - Winkelman 40 pass interception (Conzelman PK)
MI - Conzelman run (Conzelman PK failed)
OO - Safety

Sunday, Oct. 7, at Toledo, O. - Armory Park (5,000)

In a slow but rough game at Toledo, the Indians went down to a 7-0 defeat. Although Pete Calac played well, Jim Thorpe did not, being thrown for several losses.

The game was scoreless for three quarters, but toward the end of the third period Hill and Watson finally got a drive going. In the first few minutes of the final quarter, Hill crashed over for the only touchdown of the afternoon.

Scoring Summary

TO - Hill 3 run (Watson DK)

Sunday, Oct. 14, at Minneapolis, MN -Nicollet Park (4,000)

The Minneapolis Marines had little trouble in defeating the Indians at Nicollet Park. Using a strong aerial game, the Marines dominated play after a scoreless first quarter.

Kaplan's 25-yard run set up the first Marine touchdown. Later he booted a 35-yard field goal and scored a TD on a pass reception.

Thorpe played a good first half, missing a 55-yard field goal by inches. An injury forced him out in the second half, and he was replaced by his brother Jack.

Scoring Summary

MN - Sampson 4 run (Kaplan DK)
MN - FG Kaplan DK 35
MN - Tersch 25 fumble recovery (Kaplan DK)
MN - Kaplan pass from Irgens (Kaplan DK failed)

Sunday, Oct. 21, at Buffalo - Baseball Park

At Buffalo, the All-Americans exploded for 57 points in one of the most one-sided slaughters ever on an NFL gridiron. Jim Thorpe played every minute of the game in a desperate

The outburst of eight touchdowns was all the more unexpected in that Buffalo had accomplished only one other TD all season.

Scoring Summary

BU:TDs - Flavin 2, Holleran 2, Traynor 2, Martineau, Hughitt (all runs);
XPs: Morrissey 6 of 7, Hughitt 0 of 1; FG: Morrissey 30 yds.

Sunday, Oct. 28, at Cleveland, OH - Dunn Field

Oorang's real Indians bowed to Cleveland's pale-faced version in a one-sided game. Tanner and Roby were outstanding for the home team, which used forward passes effectively.

News reports suggested that Thorpe was slipping badly, that his speed was gone and his tackles no longer sure. His field generalship, however, was still regarded as first rate.

Scoring Summary

CL - Roby 16 pass from Bahan (Roby DK)
CL - Tanner 10 pass from Roby (Tanner DK)
CL - Edler 25 run (Tanner DK failed)
CL - Wolf 7 run (Kyle DK)

Sunday, Nov. 4, at Chicago, IL - Cubs Park (1,000)

The Indians completed their sixth game without scoring a touchdown, as the Chicago Bears simply plowed around to suit themselves on a rain-soaked Cubs Park field and took an easy 26-0 victory. Only about 1,000 hardy fans braved the elements to watch the slaughter.

The most exciting play of the game gave the Bears their fourth touchdown. Coach George Halas nabbed an Indian fumble at the Bears' two and raced 98 yards down the field with Thorpe chasing him all the way. Halas' return would remain the NFL record for 49 years.

All the Bear scoring took place in the first half. For the second half they confined their efforts to holding the Indians in check.

Scoring Summary

CB - Knop 5 run (E.Sternaman DK)
CB - Lanum 5 run (E.Sternaman DK failed)
CB - E.Sternaman 16 run (E.Sternaman DK)
CB - Halas 98 fumble recovery (E.Sternaman DK failed)

Sunday, Nov.11, at St. Louis, MO - Sportsman's Park (5,000)

At Sportsman's Park, the St. Louis All-Stars gained their first victory over an NFL opponent at the expense of the Indians before 5,000 fans. In the second half, Thorpe made a desperate attempt to bring his team back by forward passes. One Thorpe aerial gave the Indians their first touchdown of the 1923 season.

Al Casey scored a pair of St. Louis touchdowns in the first half to build up a 14-0 lead at the half.

Scoring Summary

SL - Casey run (King DK)
SL - Casey run (King DK)
OO - Arrowhead pass from Thorpe (Little Twig on pass)

Sunday, Nov. 18, at Canton, O. - Lakeside Park (5,000)

Canton's champion Bulldogs gave a rude welcome to some old favorites. Despite the presence of Thorpe and -- for the first time in 1923- Joe Guyon, the Indians were trampled 41-0. Pete Calac missed the game, and he was sorely needed.

The Canton Daily News focused on the Indians' problem: "Jim Thorpe and Joe Guyon were the Indian team, and although these two famous stars put every ounce of energy into the game, they could not bring victory to the team of real Americans. The other nine players on the Indian team were practically useless. They know little about football, and showed it on every play.

"Thorpe's best days are over ... but he can still play football. He is still a good punter, can pass and hit the line as hard as ever. But his speed is gone, and he is no longer the dashing Indian who once ran from one side of the field to the other, and back again, finally outrunning his opponents. Without a good line, and someone in addition to Guyon for interference, Thorpe could not display his real form."

Scoring Summary

CA - Elliott 3 run (Henry DK)
CA - Jones 3 run (Henry DK failed)
CA - Lyman 40 pass from Smith (Henry DK)
CA - Jones 6 run (Henry DK)
CA - Chamberlin 13 pass (Henry DK)
CA - Hendrian 9 run (Henry DK)

Sunday, Nov. 25, at Columbus, O. - Neil Park

The Columbus Tigers, the revitalized successors to the famous Panhandles, used a long-range passing attack to send the Indians down to their ninth straight defeat. The game's most spectacular play was a 70-yard TD pass reception by the Tigers' "Goldie" Rapp, 60 yards of which were made on a broken field run.

Before the game was out of reach, Thorpe hit a 47-yard dropkick for a field goal. Then, in the final quarter, Jim suffered a sprained ankle with ligament damage, an injury that ended his play for both the day and the season.

On Thursday, Nov. 29, the Indians played at home for the firat time in 1923 and also tasted victory for the first time with a 31-0 win over the Marion Athletics. Unfortunately, a Thanksgiving Day win over the local A.C. at Lincoln Park, added nothing to the Indians' NFL record.

Scoring Summary

CO - Rapp 70 pass from Winters (Tebell PK)
OO - FG Thorpe DK 47
CO - Sonnenberg 2 run (Tebell PK failed)
CO - Tebell 45 pass from Goebel (Tebell PK)
CO - Tebell pass from Winters (Tebell PK)

Sunday, Dec. 2, at Chicago, IL - Comiskey Park (1,200)

The badly crippled Chicago Cardinals survived a last quarter rally by the Indians to hand them their tenth straight loss. The Cards' Paddy Driscoll was out with appendicitis and several other regulars were sidelined nursing assorted hurts. The Indians, though missing Thorpe, played the best game of the year.

The Cardinals entered the fourth quarter leading 22-6, but the Indians made it close with the help of some breaks. When an Emmet McLemore punt bounced off a Cardinal's leg, Buffalo picked up the ball and scooted 26 yards to a touchdown. A few moments later, Guyon stepped in front of a Chicago pass and took the interception back 96 yards for a touchdown.

Scoring Summary

CC - Folz 2 run (Folz DK)
OO - Arrowhead 15 pass from McLemore (McLemore kick failed)
CC - R.Horween 3 run (Kick failed)
CC - Koehler 20 run (Kick failed)
CC - FG A.Horween DK 35
OO - Buffalo 26 fumble recovery (McLemore kick)
OO - Guyon 96 pass interception (McLemore kick failed)

Sunday, Dec. 9, at Louisville, Ky. - Kentucky Fair Grounds

On what was described as "the muddiest gridiron that ever served as a playing field this year," the Indians closed their season and their existence with their only 1923 NFL victory. Their victims were the Louisville Brecks, certainly one of the weakest teams ever on an NFL gridiron. Thorpe, still nursing his injured ankle, was on the sideline, in uniform but not in pads. Because of the injury, Jim was unable to compete in the kicking contest that took place before the game.

Despite the conditions, a good crowd showed up to watch the Indians' show.

As the game reached its conclusion, fog shrouded the field, making it difficult for the fans to see the players. In one sense, it was a fitting exit for the colorful Oorangs as they disappeared forever into the mists of time.

Scoring Summary

OO - McLemore pass from Guyon (Kick failed)
OO - Guyon 5 run (Kick failed)

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