The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

Ferry Field
From the New Stand, showing the gates and the Club House

Inter-collegiate football was dormant the following year, but in November, 1883, a second Eastern trip resulted in another clear demonstration of the greater advantages the game enjoyed in the seaboard colleges. The game with Yale was a decided defeat 46 to 0; but Harvard barely avoided a tie with a 3 to 0 score; Wesleyan won 14 to 6, while the one victory for the West was over Stevens Institute 5 to 1. The Harvard game was the greatest disappointment as Michigan, with a much better team than in the previous game, had hoped for victory. All the circumstances, however, were unfavorable. The only possible schedule called for a game with Yale the preceding day, and a series of new rules were flashed upon the team as the only ones under which the Easterners would play. The game, which was played November 22, was an exceedingly close one, however, and the first half ended with neither side scoring, and most of the play in Harvard's territory. A failure to kick goal following a score by Harvard in the second half still left hope, though Harvard repeatedly saved her goal by kicking. Finally a Harvard man ran out of bounds on Michigan's twenty-five yard line and the ball was thrown out from that point according to the rules then in force. Michigan secured it and by using the one trick play in her repertoire, the time-honored fake run, Prettyman, '85, the manager of the team, started off with Killilea, '85l, as his interference behind him, as the rules then demanded. The opposing full-back was ready for them, but just before the tackle the ball was passed to Killilea, who went on for the touch-down while Prettyman went head-on into the Harvard full-back, calling "down" in accordance with the plan. The Harvard umpire insisted that the ball was "down" where Prettyman had been tackled, and the referee ordered it back to the middle of the field and then called the game on account of darkness. The Michigan team arranged immediately to stay and play another game the next day. But instead of playing, Harvard pleaded faculty interference and paid a $100 forfeit. An eleven that could play Yale one day, Harvard the next, and then be ready for a third game, made a profound impression, however, and created great respect for Western grit and sportsmanship.

After this venture into the lime-light there came several years of comparatively minor games, due largely to the fact that few teams were available as competitors. For many years Albion had a regular place on the schedule and was regularly defeated, save in 1891, when it won for the first and last time. The Chicago University Club, the Windsor Club, the Peninsular Club of Detroit, and Notre Dame were the principal opponents until the first game with Cornell in 1889. The result of this contest, 56 to 0 in favor of Cornell, was discouraging, but in a second game the following year the Varsity managed to score five points against Cornell's twenty. This score came as the result of a long field goal by James Duffy, '92l, who three years previously had won the first Varsity medal for breaking an inter-collegiate record, with a drop-kick of 168 feet 7-1/2 inches, surpassing Yale's previous record of 157 feet, five times before he was satisfied.

A new era in the history of football at Michigan began in 1891, when with a fair schedule and an experienced coach, Frank Crawford (Yale, '91), '93l, the systematic development of a team began; though it was not until several years later that football assumed the undisputed supremacy it now holds as a college sport. Cornell won twice that year and gave Michigan her first experience with "real interference and fast play." Michigan took her first Western trip the following year. The team was coached by Frank Barbour, a classmate of Crawford's at Yale, and for the first time played a complete schedule with the leading universities of the West, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Chicago, with varying success. The Varsity lost most of her principal games in 1893, Minnesota winning for the last time in twenty-seven years, though a final victory over Chicago, 18 to 10, was some compensation for the earlier defeats.

The autumn of 1894 saw the beginning of a long series of remarkably successful seasons, which lasted with one or two partial relapses until 1906. These twelve years were not only Michigan's "golden age" of football, as far as the game itself is concerned, but also one of the longest series of almost uniformly successful seasons in the history of any of the larger American Universities. It is true that a decisive defeat from Cornell, 22 to 0, marred the early season in 1894, but a second game, 12 to 4, redeemed the record. This was Michigan's first victory over a rival of long standing. The team was a formidable one, equally strong on offense and defense, and included such well-known names in Michigan's football annals as H.M. ("Mort") Senter, '90-'95, m'95-97, end; Gustave H. ("Dutch") Ferbert, '97, end in '94 and later half-back; G.R.F. ("Count") Villa, 96l, tackle; F.W. ("Pa") Henninger, '97, guard; and "Jimmy" Baird, '96, quarter-back. W.L. McCauley, Princeton, '94, who had entered the Medical School, proved his ability as a coach during this and the two succeeding seasons.

Previous to this time there had been little supervision of athletics on the part of the Faculty, and no attention was paid to the composition of the teams or the academic standing of the players. When the general Athletic Association was organized in 1891, an Advisory Board of three non-resident alumni and four Faculty members was established, though at first it had slight influence. The Faculty members were becoming impressed, however, with the significance of the growing interest in athletics all over the country and realized the necessity of some form of effective supervision.

Up to this time there had been no real distinction in the West between professional and amateur. The question came home to Michigan as the result of a disclosure that two men on the 1893 track team were sub-freshmen, not yet in college, although they entered the following fall. The Athletic Board promptly requested the resignation of the captain of the team and published the facts. The Faculty was also aroused. The result was the organization in 1894 of the Board in Control of Athletics, which ordinarily has had the final word in the administration of athletic affairs since that time. It is at present composed of four Faculty representatives, elected by the University Senate, three alumni, appointed by the Regents, three students appointed by the Directors of the Athletic Association, and the Director of Outdoor Athletics.

The year 1894, therefore, aside from the beginnings of a real football team, was important also because it saw the awakening of the Faculty to its responsibility in athletic affairs, and a corresponding growth in the whole University body of higher ideals of inter-collegiate sport, with the University "started fairly and squarely on the road to athletic cleanliness." The movement thus inaugurated resulted in the establishment of the Western Inter-collegiate Conference on February 8, 1896. This is a body composed of representatives from the athletic boards of seven (later ten) leading mid-western Universities, which has aimed from the first, not only to regulate and standardize the conditions of all forms of inter-collegiate athletic competition but also to maintain a high ideal of amateurism in college sports. The formation of this body, which soon came to be the most powerful influence in the West for clean athletics, was due in no small part to President Angell, who was instrumental in calling the first meeting, as well as to Dr. C.B.G. de Nancrède and Professor Albert H. Pattengill, the Michigan representatives at that first meeting. Professor Pattengill's interest in outdoor sports was lifelong. His was the moving spirit in the Conference through many years; and to him, more than to any other, Michigan owes, not only the present effective organization of athletics, but the securing of Ferry Field and its equipment.

The records of the football teams of 1895 and 1896 were quite overwhelming for those days, 266 points to their opponents' 14 in 1895 and 262 points to 11 the next season. The only disappointments were a 4 to 0 defeat from Harvard in 1895 and a 7 to 6 victory for Chicago in 1896. A season of uninterrupted victories in 1897 was again cut short by a defeat from Chicago 21 to 12 in the last game. Chicago had now come to occupy the chief place on the schedule and the seeds of that rivalry which was later to prove so unfortunate in Western inter-collegiate affairs were already being sown.

An unbroken series of victories marked the 1898 season, with the Championship of the West decided by a thrilling 12 to 11 victory over Chicago. At the end of the first half in this game the score stood 6 to 5,—a touchdown for Michigan and a goal from the field by Chicago's great punter, Herschberger. One of the most spectacular runs in Michigan's football history came in the early part of the second half when C.H. Widman, a freshman, broke through between left end and tackle, ran down the field sixty yards, broke away from the Chicago full-back, and squirmed across the remaining five yards for a touchdown. Chicago's subsequent touchdown made the score a close one but left the championship, the first in three years, with Michigan. The center on this team, W.R. Cunningham, '99m, was Michigan's first player on an All-American Team.