FOOTBALL: THE GREAT YEARS

[Music] i've always felt that football was pretty closely related to warfare it's not such a frightening concept i mean violence is certainly a part of man so why not admit it use it let it out so that's what football is control combat civilized combat of course violence isn't all there is to football the game is a great training process for citizenship discipline teamwork responsibility it's full of good old-fashioned american values but the violence is definitely there violence is a big part of the game and why not as long as men enjoy this violence and it looks as if they always will then i certainly think football is the ideal way to go about it one thing should be made very clear the game of football did not originate at the university of notre dame it only seems that way as a matter of fact football didn't originate in the united states so many of the best things in america it began with people from other land in other cultures and other times it's hard to think of football as being greek or danish or roman or chinese but you know it has been before the time of christ the ancient greeks were playing a kind of football called harpaston they didn't use anything like the rose bowl gridiron but they did have rectangular fields and they marked their sidelines and had goals the romans picked up the game from the greeks and when julius caesar conquered the british isles his soldiers taught the game to the natives some people claim that was the beginning of the fighting irish but it's only a legend basically the game consisted of a group of men kicking around object just for the heck of it just for the fun of it but it wasn't always a ball as we now know it to be it seems some englishman dug up an old danny cemetery and started booting a skull around after they got tired of denting their toes they used the inflated bladder of a cow next step was the original pigskin just exactly that stuffed with hair or cloth easy to kick primitive so was the game of course and with the 12th century it was england's roughest and most popular pastime in those days the game was played in the streets the object was to kick the ball through the center of town but the players seemed to concentrate at times on kicking each other it was half game half mob half riot and even spectating was a dangerous occupation things got so bad the game was banned from the streets it had to be played outside the towns in vacant areas a few years ago in italy people recreated medieval football the stunt was a big success except they should have worn the armor where it was needed on the field [Music] [Applause] in england king henry ii finally banned football completely anyone discovered playing the game automatically went to prison probably the toughest football penalty ever imposed illegal or not football fortunately stayed alive and by the 17th century it was back for good slightly more civilized now played mostly by young students in secondary schools with as many players as there were boys one of the early variations was this wall game object kicked the ball that's what football was for the most part a kicking game heads and shoulders allowed but no hands then in 1823 at the famous rugby school a boy named willy ellis decided he'd had enough of just plain kicking contrary to all the rules of the day young mr ellis picked up the ball and ran for the goal thus starting the game of rugby there would be two kinds of english football now soccer mainly a kicking game and rugby which also allowed players to carry the ball and run for a score and permitted opponents to stop them both rugby and soccer developed their own associations their own sets of rulings and like most british games both were really played for keeps this british enthusiasm for football has carried over into the present today soccer commands the largest audience of any sport in the united kingdom and refined though it may be it's still played with that 12th century enthusiasm [Applause] the british are famous as a nation of traders and they've exported their football to many many lands each of which seems to lend the game a flavor of its own the italians for instance pursue their brand of soccer with a special flair [Music] [Applause] [Music] in new zealand the maori soccer players have added a few pregame touches that are strictly domestic sort of a south sea charleston [Applause] foreign the russians play soccer too and they're good at it when it comes to genuine enthusiasm probably no country in the world surpasses australia australian football is a rugby variety and our friends from down under play it well and constantly football is played and weather is certainly no object i've always said there's no substitute for spirits they may not be clean but they're happy yet to a lover of soccer or rugby say the average englishman our kind of football the familiar saturday afternoon variety is almost totally incomprehensible the object of all football is the same move the ball down the field and score but the rules of american football the tactics even the names of the players and their positions these are strangely unlike any other brand of football what we take for granted at a college football game is something that's evolved into a genuine american article a game where the emphasis is on tactics and strategy not just force and speed each time the ball is snapped those players know exactly what their mission is there's a thought out quality the quality of design overall plans of offense and defense and these are truly american characteristics but none of that just happened american football evolved slowly changing out of the imagination of the people who came into the game players and coaches it's awfully hard to say just exactly when it all began but there is one date we do have a day that marked the start of intercollegiate football november 6 1869 the first formal game between two colleges princeton versus rutgers the winner rutgers six goals to four of course there had been football in america before this kicking running pushing i guess boys have always done that in boston it was called the boston game and it had a rugby flavor however soccer was more popular by the 1870s princeton and yale began to compete colombia and cornell followed they too used a form of soccer and they invited harvard to join in but harvard had played the boston game and wanted to play that style of football so for them the answer was mcgill university of montreal and the famous series of 1874 the series that decided the direction of american football if not for those canadians i might have spent many years coaching soccer instead of our kind of football but luckily mcgill played rugby but the last game harvard was completely sold dropkicks running lateral passing this was much better a new kind of football more exciting more fun and it didn't take harvard long to spread the word by the next year 2 000 people paid 50 cents a piece to watch harvard play yale its way and win by four goals more schools quickly adopted this new brand of football and in 1876 the first intercollegiate association was born the game they settled on grew from both kinds of football but the emphasis was strongly on rugby all the basic elements were there now kicking running and tossing there was even a hero his name walter camp a freshman on the ao varsity of 1876. in years to come he would be called the father of the game in the 70s and 80s football spread to new schools with each new team came new ideas changing football moving it away from rugby giving it a character of its own the scrimmage possession of the ball going to a specific side thus making it possible for both sides to plan ahead then came numerical scoring making so many points equal to a goal this was football growing evolving and rough in those days the most polite word for football was carnage straight arms flying wedges flying tackles mass formations it was a violence in which the players reveled parents averted their eyes and moralists shook their heads [Music] too many teams were concentrating on violence at the expense of sportsmanship and by 1900 public sentiment was turning against football in one season 1905 the casualty list was put at 18 players dead over a hundred seriously injured theodore roosevelt called the situation a disgrace but rather than abolish football he tried to save it his suggestion changed the rules on january 12 1906 the intercollegiate rules committee came together to make football safer faster and more interesting that was really a busy day playing time was reduced to 60 minutes and divided into halves also a neutral zone was established to keep the teams at least this far away from each other at every scrimmage the length of a football but the most important thing to emerge that day was something else something called the forward pass it was legalized to keep men from destroying themselves in close formation and it became the greatest single offensive weapon football has ever known all right collins you and co-wreck will play the ends in the same backfield jimmy owen collins chef me anemic now the success of any team men based on team play same as you've shown all year sacrifice unselfish sacrifice these are the fellas they say are pretty good but i think we're better and i think if we get ourselves keep to a point we're confident that why the results will take care of themselves oh now in the kickoff if we receive this little man drop back on the receiver in block long i don't know the name style if we kick off with the rest of these teams walk let's run down fast that's as fast as you can run and then we go on defense and on defense i want the center in and out of that line according to the situation use your old head and i want you guys charging through as far as you can go on every play expect to play right over here every time on the tackles i want you to go in a yard and a half and then check yourselves put your feet squat down roll everybody with your hands and no boat so you won't be sideswiped but i want the ends and they're fast every play every play but under control and you men in the back belayer i want you to analyze before you move if it's all forward pass it's all passed wait you see the ball in the air and then go and get it and when we get it boys that's when we go on offense that's when we go to them and don't forget we're gonna pick another one one tackle i'd rather this week we're going inside them we're going outside them inside them now it's adam and when we get them on the run once we're gonna keep them on the run and we're not gonna pass unless our secondary comes up too close but don't forget man we're gonna get them on the run we're gonna until we go to that goal line and don't forget man today is the day we're gonna win they can't lick it and from the flesh out of the goal the first person to win there fight fight fight fight what do you say man [Applause] football is people that's the commodity in which a coach deals it's human nature and i don't think there's ever been a greater judge of human nature than newt rockne it would take hours to adequately describe that great man of course he was a great coach but he taught much more than just football four years with rock and you had enough value really to last a lifetime from walter camp on up football had captured the interest in the imagination of some fine outstanding gentlemen including one man who was almost too good to be true mr amos alonso stag soon after graduation from yale mr stagg became head football coach at the university of chicago a post he held for 41 years young middle age right to the end he was one of football's most inventive coaches an offensive genius all was plastic always ready to change his m's back formation was the cornerstone of mass football yet in 1906 stag was one of the first to take advantage of the newly legalized forward pass rule chicago attempted 64 pass plays that season players and coaches came into the game and left it yet amos alonso stag went on at the age of 70 mr stagg departed the university of chicago but instead of retiring like the average man he moved across the country to little-known college of the pacific and started a whole new career under his guidance cop became known from coast to coast 1943 at the age of 81 mr stagg was voted coach of the year by his fellow coaches uncle sam has been very good to me by sending a lot of good football players to the college of the pacific and i've done my best to develop them into a team and unify them and make them as skillful as possible and as effective as they have been is that all right mr stagg died only recently he was 104. the way i remember the gentleman best was at a birthday luncheon several years ago [Music] he just turned 95 and he concluded his speech that afternoon by saying ladies and gentlemen in case you wonder what i'll be doing during the next several years it gives me great pleasure to inform you that i'm going to continue doing the rest of my life what i've done all my life work with the youth of our nation another famous coach on offense was mr fielding yoast of michigan hurry up yost they called him and for good reasons too in one two year period his wolverines averaged a point a minute some 60 points a game his first year at michigan was 19 1. that team was the most potent powerhouse football had ever known by the end of the season not one single point had been scored against it on january 1 1902 yost's wolverines came west to meet an unbeaten team from stanford university the postseason game was held in pasadena it was the first rose bowl game and it was a real slaughter michigan 49 stanford zero then along came mr pop warner one of football's most brilliant minds in 1895 at georgia he started a coaching career that spanned 41 active years but the turn of the century he was head coach and athletic director at carlisle a government indian school in pennsylvania coaching a fantastic youngster who could do absolutely no wrong on a football field his name jim thorpe suddenly little-known carlisle started knocking off athletic joints like harvard and glenn warner became the most famous coach of his day pop warner invented the single wing famous for its power and in sweeps to the strong side when the defense caught up with the single wing coach warner's fine imagination enabled him to give birth to the double wing formation from which he ran reverses and fake reverses without the loss of pure power like mr stagg pop warner became a legend in his own time the legend lives on today with thousands of boys learning football in the pop warner leagues all across our wonderful land another innovator was bob zupke of illinois his up was called the little dutchman he came to illinois in 1914 and is famed for at least two achievements though others have laid claim to it zuppke was first to employ a huddle to call plays this was way back in 1921 and in 1923 the most famous player he ever produced the incredible red grain no player of the time was more deserving of publicity than harold red grange of illinois the newspapers christened him the galloping ghost redgrange earned all the praise he got he was one of the greatest football players that ever came along in 1913 notre dame was practically unknown they played football all right but so did other schools bigger ones still in 1913 notre dame had a quarterback named gus duray and an end named newt rockne in the fall notre dame went up to hudson to play west point for the first time the army expected a soft touch after 60 wild minutes of football the score was notre dame 35 army 13. thanks to rockne and duray the forward pass had finally arrived knock was a brilliant student and after graduation he taught science for a year at notre dame but by 1915 he was an assistant coach and three years later became head football coach at his alma mater soon football was reacting to a newt rockne refinement the notre dame shift a rhythmic move from the regular t into a box formation the effect was to throw the opposing line off balance confuse them not let them know where the attack was coming from or where to defend opposing coaches called it absolutely outrageous unfair pop warner called it the chorus line in 1922 the four horsemen quarterback harry stood fullback elmer laden left half back jim crowley right half back don miller captured the public's imagination that was one of the finest teams ever blended together they were called rafny's ramblers and in 1924 were untied undefeated they met pop warner's champs from stamford university and won the game 27-10 in notre dame's one and only trip to a post-season game the rose bowl in the last half of the 20s boys from all over the country were eager to matriculate at the university of notre dame including a rather undistinguished tackle named francis william leahy get that tackle alone but ma'am when you use the camo block in the guard and make sure you pull off and use the holding block in the center you plug the gap tom and cocker you trailer there from behind here you carried a long line of skimmers here lahey so he can't come through for the secondary you go like super secondary right away square angle play all right christman here's the defensive fullback let that out clear man offense was fantastic on the practice field he could be extremely complimentary and 10 seconds later he'd be saying the most sarcastic cutting word i'd ever heard hey let's try that again see if you can't do something all right come on let's go here all right let's go come on come [Applause] i don't like it all right now we're getting warmed up here fortunately he was a great psychologist he knew just exactly when to criticize and when to encourage and then we were playing a lot of fun out of it but smarter and enjoyed i you to play football because you like it there's any fella here who doesn't like football i want to turn in a suit and get away because he's wasting his time let's try 92 here say no 86 94 51 yep one two three two one low oh too high mascara too high and you didn't get that man out there leahey get your head on the inside of them frank carry them out 1928 was rock's worst season but in 1929 and 30 notre dame was back in stride once again the fighting irish were unbeatable yet what didn't happen on the gridiron was taking place in the rules committee for bit by bit the powers that be were attempting to destroy the notre dame ship and rock didn't like it without the shift we would never had the four horsemen in football they averaged and weighed 157 pounds the shift enabled them to use their speed and their intelligence and their ability to finesse the other fellas now they're cleaning against the ship they're talking about momentum but every year they want to slow the shift up slower and slower and slower which in my opinion is absolutely ridiculous whether referee count six or whether he counts twenty the question simmers down to this is there any unfair advantage in my opinion if a shifting team stops for one second that's long enough for anybody except that stupid defensive team and football wasn't made for any defensive teams however if the abolisher shift i'll change my type of player from the intelligence smart trim ankles player not the poor husband and uh i'll go in for the cow-minded hippopotamus chassis type that's how many schools use now and so when you see a football picture of the notre dame team about four years from now you will notice the uh the bovine expressions and the ox-knuckle ankles for dominating and the fella with the mustache doing his best to exude an aroma of strategic cunning that'll be me though none of us would have believed it 1930 was to be rocks last season within weeks after the final game newt rockne was dead victim of an airplane accident he was barely 42 years of age [Music] of course there were other coaches in the 30s football was being played by more and more schools there was the iron major frank cavanaugh who left his mark on three great schools boston college dartmouth and fordham from michigan another great offensive coach fritz chrysler he served a long apprenticeship eight years with alonzo stag and he learned his lessons well at minnesota coach bernie bearman with four national championship teams to his credit this was football at its best in the 30s but there was a coach who thought it could be improved his name was clark shaughnessy thanks to him the modern t formation came into college football even while shaughnessy was still head coach at chicago university he worked constantly with the coaching staff of the chicago bears professional football team helping them refine their tea attack in the 30s the bears had improved their tea by adding the man in motion that moving man opened up the enemy's defense he was a decoy or a pass target but either way the opponent had to spread in order to cover him when shaughnessy went west the t went with him the year before stanford had been unable to win a single conference game but in 1940 they had the modern t formation shaughnessy really built a machine his stanford backfield was comprised of frankie albert at quarterback pete kametovic at one half back hugh gallerno at the other and norm stanley at fullback he was a great one he weighed close to 200 pounds and could run like a scared deer this was football at its very best changing improving like everything else the modern t was just the bright man taking something good and making it better a great deal better in his own way shaughnessy's innovation was just as revolutionary as the forward pass more than 30 years before with the forward pass football had begun to grow up with the modern t football had really come of age the last of the war years the greatest football power in america was army a fantastically strong team headed by an outstanding coach earl blake in 1944 and 45 helped by such outstanding young men as glenn davis and doc blanchard army's team were absolutely unstoppable for one long stretch from 1943 to 1950 the teams of earl blake were beaten only three times a fantastic record another school is flourishing now a real giant coached by an intelligent man who knew his subject thoroughly bud wilkinson and his powerhouse from oklahoma the sooners began making football history in 1948 and for the next eight seasons they had some great football teams [Music] wilkinson's strong point at oklahoma was offense he adopted his own brand of the split team backed it up with talent like jim owen daryl royal leon heap and billy [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] vessels in his best eight years wilkinson churned out all americans as if they were corn plates and amassed a remarkable record only six games lost two tied and 77 victories [Music] and at south bend arrow parsigian has placed notre dame back on top and i'm not surprised he's a leader a natural he's got it all and i think he'll go down in history as one of the outstanding college football coaches you know when an architect builds a house he's got a house to show for it same with a writer and a book a bricklayer with a wall a merchant with a store but when a football game is over or a season for that matter the only tangible things a coach has to show for his efforts are a few lines in a record book and a lot of memories some pleasant some sad and that's quite enough actually the satisfaction of building good teams and good men is a more than adequate reward for any coach and that's what coaches are remembered for they're good teams and their outstanding men on january and concentrates on the city of pasadena california in the tournament of roses that begin as a festival of flowers but through the years the rose parade has become the prelude for a contest of a very different variety the football festival called the rose bowl game after michigan's visit of 1902 it took the west coast 14 long years to recover but by 1916 this post-season classic was once again being held between eastern and western champions in 1923 the rose bowl stayed built a showcase for modern football and on its turf some years later there took place one of the real nightmares of all football the wrong way run of roy riegel georgia tech and cal were struggling desperately in the 1929 game then in the second period cal's fine center roy riegel recovered a fumble and streaked towards the goal line his own that is had it not been for teammate benny lomb regals would have gone all the way for georgia tech that just wasn't cal's day georgia tech finally won eight to seven some ten years later another unforgettable moment the trojans of howard jones were very much the underdogs against unbeaten untied unscored upon duke university in the last few moments duke leading three to nothing an obscure quarterback from usc named doyle knave suddenly began to pass with deadly accuracy he completed four consecutive passes this last one gave southern california the victory seven to three usually the patrons leave the rough stuff to the players but every once in a while it just can't resist getting involved it's one thing to let off steam after a game yet one memorable afternoon there was a certain fan who just couldn't wait for the final gun here was tom harmon dashing down the field for his third touchdown of the day 11 men had failed to stop him yet one spirited anti-michigan router decided he'd give it a try and he came just as close as anyone else that's what i call the real gut [Music] as you look back over the years you can always pick out some of the outstanding squads before the turn of the century there were harvard yale princeton in the early 1900s the great michigan teams of fielding yost in the teens and twenties carlisle cornell pittsburgh and georgia tech and of course notre dame in the years of the four horsemen rockne's men played for best football in milan there were other fine teams in the 20s andy smith's wonder teams from california then in the late 30s michigan featuring tom herman was once again in high gear in football no one man wins alone and herman would be the first to remind us of teammates like forest avices bob westfall ed frutti al wister and elmer maydar yet herman was certainly the star and here in his final game against ohio state we see the style and the speed that made him so famous [Applause] there were several powerhouses in 1940 boston college tennessee nebraska and stanford shown here is the rose bowl game of january 1 1941 how about that blocking the essence of offensive football i'm not sure where card stunts first originated some people claim it was ucla or usc i do remember them from my playing days when we traveled to los angeles for the southern california game of 1928. they were just great then they're even better now it's the spectacle of course that's part of the mass appeal on any given saturday afternoon you get thrilled [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good loud music marching band and pretty girl no wonder football so popular [Applause] in 1946 army was a top ranking team again and when they met the irish of notre dame and yankee stadium 85 000 people were on hand to watch it happen this was probably the most publicized game in the history of college football [Music] [Applause] all afternoon it went back and forth neither side was able to score and what a game blanchard davis and quarterback arnold tucker performed most creditably for army for notre dame blue jack and all his teammates gave an excellent performance citgo a true all-american put in a full afternoon a tough afternoon two giants coming together and both playing for keeps this was rockham sock'em football at its very best if one were to pick a typical great team of the 50s the nod would probably go to oklahoma squads like oklahoma texas and michigan state typified the decade agility power modern tactics this was football in the 50s someone once described football as the kind of great big public chess game and i agree certainly a coach is a chess player he confuses he attacks he deceives and if he thinks harder than his opponent he often win only coaches use people for chessmen live people and there's the key to the whole thing those boys in a very real way they're a coach's greatest achievement that's always been the case the score certainly counts but when it's all over the boys count much more over the years the game of football has managed to absorb many improvements it seems there's always someone around who can think up some fanciful way to make the game even more interesting and the ladies of uppsala college were no exception football football a man's game nonsense they'd show them and they did not bad somehow though they never made the rose bowl [Music] on any given saturday in the fall the game is played in hundreds of stadiums these playing fields are football magnets attracting untold hundreds of thousands of people who travel miles to cheer their favorite team [Music] college football owed much of its fame to sports reporters and none is more revered than archward chicago tribune arch had a wonderful dream the finest college players of each season playing the champion of the professional league at first it seemed like the wild sort of an idea but after that first collision in 1934 the annual all-star game has become a football classic a charity event that has featured the game's greatest stars in 1947 we had the privilege of coaching the all-stars against the champion chicago bears we won 16 to nothing [Music] [Applause] the man who plays football has a peculiar kind of courage i don't just mean physical courage either in football you really play yourself you test yourself all the time and the athlete who becomes a champion is often the boy who was never quite satisfied you know this is what they wore at notre dame about 50 years ago when football was still very much in its infancy and this is what a sports writer friend called the armor of the modern gladiator it's beautifully designed but it's only a package inside you still have to pour an old-fashioned boy someone who's willing to work awfully hard be a real champion to crown these men walter camp had coined the phrase all-american and each year helped select a team of college champions in the years before world war one there was perhaps no better publicized player than the all-american indian from carlisle jim thorpe not only an olympic and football hero thorpe won his letter in baseball and went on to play professionally in 1925 ernie nevers was one of the great performers an outstanding fullback from stanford in the early 30s there was jay burwanger the one-man team from chicago [Music] [Applause] sammy bob of course he was much more than just a great forward passer ball was an accomplished football player in every department wizard white from colorado superb football player all-american all pro and he hasn't done badly since first a rhodes scholar and now a justice on the supreme court we were playing southern methodist university in the cotton bowl in 1949 but half the time it seemed as though we were just playing kyle wrote so many good boys so many schools one of the best ever to represent princeton university dick casmire and he was a tiger too there was ernie davis from syracuse university unanimous all-american half-back he had such a promising professional career ahead of him but he was struck down by leukemia soon after graduation the tragic loss notre dame's john hewert was one of professional football's highest paid bonus babies his last college game was against southern california in the fall of 1964. notre dame entered the contest unbeaten a single triumph away from becoming national champion [Applause] [Music] at the end of the first half the great passing combination of heward to snow had vaulted notre dame into a 17 to nothing lead yet after halftime johnny mckay's trojans came back like tigers and notre dame found itself defending not attacking [Applause] in the last quarter what it seemed a certain victory was slipping away it was one of those times when a football coach wished he'd gone into a nice quiet business like lion taming [Music] [Applause] in the last few moments of the game a classic forward pass by usc and for notre dame the nightmare of sudden defeat [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] quite a game football it is just a game at least i know it's supposed to be but of course it's been a lot more than that to me when i look back i figure i've been a pretty lucky irishman football's given me a great life i can't think of how the years could have made me any happier at least not in the things that count true i worked very hard at football but i always tried to remember what coach rockne used to say football is fun and winning in football that's the most fun of all so so so you