The Teams: 1893

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Previously: 1879, 1901, 1918, 1925, 1932, 1940, 1947, 1950, 1964, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1985 p.1& p.2, 1988, 1991, 1999, 2003, 2011 p.1 & p.2

[Writeup and player after THE JUMP]

1. College Football in the 1890s

(starts at 1:00)

Teams are starting up right and left—over a hundred of them in five years—and the few teams that exists are trying out “scientific” football and hiring their first head coaches. Chicago changes the game by creating a school that’s going to pour money into its football program as its primary marketing strategy. Ohio State uses their team to justify its existence to a state that hates them. Meanwhile there’s talk of a conference of Midwest teams. Michigan gets a coach.

2. The Team

(starts at 44:06)

Michigan’s in their second year of having a head coach, and converting to the Yale system. George Jewett and Michigan football’s role in anti-racism. Trainer Dad Moulton was a professional sprinter. Roger Sherman one of the first Chicago stars. Count Villa from Walla Walla is the guy who’d eventually convince Gustave Ferbert to leave his job as Michigan head coach to pan for gold in Alaska. Pa Henninger another super freshman on the line. Fatty Smith was one of the best blockers in the West. Big Jim Hooper was a character, became one of the last old-time mining men of Butte. WW Griffin was a left tackle for Michigan before he was a famous Chicago publishing house. Jimmy Baird is the star, but his brother is the guy managing the team. George Dygert is captain, which means he calls the plays.

3. The Games, Part I

(starts at 1:3259)

Two warmups against the DAC, then a rough game at Chicago where time is called with Michigan on on the one-inch line. Minnesota comes into town and trounces us en route to their national championship. With Dygert out, Wisconsin dominates us even worse, program is now at a super low. Then Michigan borrows some money from a professor to travel to Purdue, dominates them, and gets stiffed.

4. The Games, Part II

(starts at 2:14:37)

Stuck in West Lafayette and in debt, the team hops a train to Indianapolis to play DePauw, and win again. Follow that up by destroying Northwestern—this is a completely different team! Now we’re trying to reschedule on the fly, have a whole spat that ruins our relationship with Cornell. Michigan gets Chicago to play us again, and puts together a road trip to Kansas City versus Kansas.

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MUSIC:

All of these tracks are performances of a book of music given out as a souvenirs from the World’s Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago, 1893

• "Chicago Day Waltz”
• "The Last Day of the Fair”
• “The Chicago Dudes March”
• “Across 110th Street”