Fightin' Spirit born of The Alamo!!!

Played better than Harvard!

It may come as a surprise to many of you that the Centre College head coach in that game was none other than Charlie Moran. Charlie was coach at A&M College 1909-1915 in football and baseball and taught A&M to expect to beat tu in every game. "I did not come here to lose."

dp

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 7/13/2008 10:07a).]

Who says the Ags can't win the big game???

olde schoole cut ande paste...

Those Praying Colonels claim they only gave up 6 points during the 1921 season! They need to add 22 more to that figure!

http://www.centre.edu/web/athletics/football/history_football.html

When Moran was our coach didnt tu stop playing us for a few years out of "protest"...something about "to hell to hell with Charlie Moran and all of his dirty crew"

EnviroAg96:

It's true. Centre College only allowed 6 points during their 1921 season. The game that matched the Aggies against the Colonels is very well known among Aggie faithful as The Dixie Classic; the game that gave birth to the 12th Man. The Dixie Classic was considered a championship game and therefore, does not count towards the regular season schedule.

From the Dallas Morning News.

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The victory over the "Champions of the South" put A&M football in the national spotlight as A&M scored 22 points against a team that had allowed only six points all season. The game capped a 7-1-2 season for the Aggies and was Centre's first loss.

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fossil_ag:

In regards to the Centre vs. Harvard game, the Associated Press named the game the "Upset of the half century" in 1950.

Here's more info on the magnitude of that game and the Colonels' year-ending game against the Aggies.

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The Centre vs. Harvard Game of 1921
By Valarie H. Ziegler
Centre College Class of 1976

As practically anyone who grew up in Kentucky knows, the Centre College football team defeated Harvard in 1921 by a score of six to nothing. In losing to the smallest college it had ever played, Harvard suffered its first intersectional defeat in four decades. Coming as it did at a time in which football was the most outstanding spectator sport in the nation, the game had such an impact on the sporting world that in 1950 the Associated Press named it the upset of the half century. For one glorious moment Centre College was, as the New York Times noted, catapulted into the center of the football universe.

Not surprisingly, Kentuckians made outlandish claims about their team. "In every nook and cranny of the universe where deeds of mighty men of Caucasian races are recited, its achievements are known," trumpeted the Louisville Herald. The Lexington Herald contented itself with the observation that the Colonels were, in many respects, the greatest football team the world had ever known. The Danville Advocate, mourning that no worlds remained to be conquered, was even less restrained. "CENTRE WINS," the headlines screamed. "McMillin (Alvin Nugent McMillin), The Hero of the Football World, President of the United States for Time Being. He Is The Great Effulgent Star." As for the work of the team's linemen, the paper's delirious congratulations knew no limits: "The Line! The Impregnable Line! Held The Bridge, So Harvard's Mightiest Could Not Cross It - The Line, The Line, Drink Hardy, The Line! - God Bless The Line!... God Bless Our Team, each and all of them."

Perhaps even more astonishing than the compliments its worshipful fans paid the team was the fact that much of what was said also happened to be true. George Trevor of the New York Sun has aptly remarked that the Centre-Harvard game was perhaps the most romantic chapter of America's gridiron annals. As he noted, the story - "an unbeatable combination of sure-fire wow, the more gripping because they were founded on fact, and not trumped up by publicity agents" - had all the elements necessary to create a legend. The Centre-Harvard game needed no mythical embellishments. The history of the 1921 Centre team was just as colorful and unbelievable as any fantasy or tall tale that has emerged as part of the lore surrounding the team.

Indeed, the closer we come to the facts of the matter, the more it is apparent that seemingly impossible images - of a team that prayed and cried together; of a star quarterback who earned his way through college by gambling; of a coach who brought a belt to practice to encourage stragglers and who then stayed after practice to repair uniforms; of a town that went absolutely berserk when its team won the big game - were all at one time quite real. The Praying Colonels of 1921 were the kind of team about which legends are made, but the team itself was just as remarkable as any legend ever was or could be.

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The End of a Season
By Valarie H. Ziegler
Centre College Class of 1976

When the day of jubilation had ended, the Centre players turned their attention back to football, for the season was far from over. Shutting out the next four teams it played, Centre finished the regular season undefeated and found itself inundated by offers for post-season appearances. Unbelievable as it seems today, Knute Rockne traveled to Danville's Busy Bee Cafe that fall to ask Moran (Charles B. Moran, coach) to play Notre Dame at Soldier Field in Chicago. Just as Moran had to refuse bids from the Polo Grounds, the University of Detroit, Yale and Princeton, and the Rose Bowl, so he had to decline Notre Dame's offer as well, for Centre had already scheduled several postseason games.

The Colonels defeated Tulane 21-0 on Thanksgiving Day in New Orleans and Arizona State 38-0 on December 26 in San Diego. Their last game was in Dallas on January 2 against Texas A&M In the morning, the team watched Bo marry his Fort Worth high school sweetheart. In the afternoon, with his wife Marie on his arm, Bo led his teammates on to the field to battle the A&M Aggies.

As Marie watched from the team bench, Bo proceeded to play the worst game of his life, and the Aggies, inspired by the opportunity to slay a giant of their own, upset the Colonels 22-14. Bitterly disappointed with their performance, the Colonels finished their season of glory with a 10-1 record.

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[This message has been edited by Angry Beaver (edited 7/13/2008 4:25p).]

Charley Moran, football coach at A&M College 1909-1914 deserves more than passing mention on this thread. He was the most colorful coach in A&M sports history and put together an amazing career in American sports.

As head coach at A&M, in a six season term Charley fashioned a record of 38-8-4. Between 1909 and 1912 his Aggies beat tu in three out of four meetings. The Longhorns were so frustrated that they refused to play A&M from 1912-1914, the year of Charley's departure. Charley Moran was also rumored to have engaged in fist fights with his own players when the occasion demanded.

His next head coaching gig was at Centre College where he put together a record of 42-6-1 during seasons 1917-1923. From Centre College Charley moved to Bucknell where in a three year term 1924-1926 as head coach he posted a record of 19-10-2. Overall record coaching record was 99-24-7. Not bad for a baseball player and umpire.

Yes, baseball. Charley Moran also coached baseball at A&M. In 1918 he signed on as an umpire with the National Baseball League. He umpired in MLB from 1918 to 1939. He umpired World Series in 1927, 1929, 1933 and 1938.

He was elected to A&Ms Sports Hall of Fame in 1968.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Moran

I visited their campus last year -- very beautiful!

And now you know, the resssst of the story!

Great stuff guys! Thanks for the history....

Thanks

For the morning work crew

Angry Beaver ....

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And now you know, the resssst of the story!

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No. The rest of the story occurred in 1915 when tu, satisfied that Charley Moran was off the Aggie sidelines, resumed the football series with A&MC.

The Ags laid another thumping on the Longhorns by that famous score of 13-0. That score was indelibly scribed on the hide of tu's mascot in 1917 and burned forever in the psyche of A&M and tu followers alike.

As Charley said, "I did not come here to lose."

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The Start
Austin, TX
02/10/1917

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[This message has been edited by Angry Beaver (edited 7/14/2008 9:24a).]

Great thread! I LOVE old football lore!!!

I believe I am now a fan of the 1921 Centre team after this nugget

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of a star quarterback who earned his way through college by gambling

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It's one of the best-known stories on the UT campus. During a late night visit to Austin, a group of Texas Aggie pranksters branded the University's first longhorn mascot "13-0," the score of a football game won by Texas A&M. In order to save face, UT students altered the brand to read "Bevo" by changing the "13" to a "B," the "-" to an "E," and inserting a "V" between the dash and the "0." For years, Aggies have proudly touted the stunt as the reason the steer acquired his name. But was the brand really changed? And is that why he's called Bevo?

Sorry. Wrong on both counts.

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http://www.mackbrown-texasfootball.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=39&url_article_id=42&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2

ABATTBQ87 ... Good find. The linked article confirms various dates, times and events of the 1915-1920 saga about the original Bevo. All this has been discussed in other threads in recent days in this Forum, but from A&M historical perspective and not from the tu side. The following paragraph is confirmation of demise of Bevo and the disposition of his hide.

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The debate was abruptly settled early on Sunday morning, February 12, 1917. A group of four Texas A & M students equipped "with all the utensils for steer branding" broke into the South Austin stockyard at 3 a.m. It was a struggle, but the Aggies managed to brand the longhorn "13-0," which was the score of the 1915 football game A&M had won in College Station.

Only a week later, amid rumors that the Aggies planned to kidnap the animal outright, the longhorn was removed to a ranch sixty miles west of Austin. Within two months, the United States entered World War I, and the University community turned its attention to the conflict in Europe. Out of sight and away from Austin, the branded steer was all but forgotten until the end of the war in November 1919. Since food and care for the animal was costing the University fifty cents a day, and because the steer wasn't believed to be tame enough to roam the campus or remain in the football stadium, it was fattened up and became the barbecued main course for the January 1920 football banquet. The Aggies were invited to attend, served the side they had branded, and were presented with the hide, which still read "13-0."

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I had heard rumors for years that the hide was somewhere on A&M campus but could find no documantation to that effect. I wonder what happened to the hide? Surely no A&M administrator succumbed to an overwhelming urge of political correctness to destroy such a valuable trophy ... and relic of A&M history.

The rumor on the quad when I was there in 95 was that the Sam Brown belts of Huslin 1 came from the original Bevo

The Sam Brown worn by the CO of Sq 1 Huslin' One was from the time the fish of Huslin' One Class of '76 stole BEVO.