The Story Of John Heisman

Ahead by 126 points at halftime, Georgia Tech's John
Heisman told his team, "You can't tell what those
Cumberland players have up their sleeves."

The highest honor that can be bestowed on a college
football player today, aside from the assurance that he'll
be taken in an early round in the NFL draft, is the
Heisman Trophy. The name is evocative of a misty era in
college football, leather helmets, campus bonfires and
raccoon coats.

It's a lovely, if somewhat syrupy, image. So it's
refreshing to know that John W. Heisman, the legendary
coach for whom the trophy is named, is not so far removed
from today's win-at-any-cost coaches. His era--Heisman
coached at nine colleges over 36 years starting in
1892--is surprisingly similar to the state of college
football today: filled with lying, cheating and stealing.

Emblematic of the rough-and-tumble era was a game played
80 years ago today, when Heisman's Georgia Tech team
defeated Cumberland College, 222-0, the most lopsided
college football game ever. The story of the game and how
it came to be held would require all the NCAA's
investigators' efforts to sift through.

Begin with Heisman himself. To say his Georgia Tech teams
were dominant does not give the full picture: From 1916 to
1918, Heisman's teams lost only once and outscored
opponents 1,378-69, for an average score of 55-3.

The 1918 season contained Heisman's real offensive push,
when Tech ran up scores of 118-0, 123-0 and 128-0.

For such a dour man, Heisman's teams were exciting and
flamboyant. Heisman was an early supporter of the forward
pass and a fervent inventor of trick plays. Among his
innovations were yard markers and the center
snap--previously the ball was rolled to the quarterback.

Georgia Tech had many rivalries, but there was never much
of one between the school and Cumberland. Whatever
animosity fueled Heisman's football team can, in part, be
traced back to a Cumberland-Georgia Tech baseball game in
the spring of 1915.

As one of his first acts at the Lebanon, Tenn., campus,
Cumberland's new president announced his distaste for the
frivolous nature of intercollegiate athletics and his
intention to disband all of Cumberland's athletic teams.

It was a time when football was declining in public favor,
largely because its increasing violence was not yet
tempered by adequate protective equipment.

The style of play lent itself to concussive outcomes. The
flying wedge and similar plays left players on both sides
of the ball in a heap after each play. Heisman understood
that the forward pass, which he had first seen during a
game he was scouting in 1895, would open up the game, add
excitement for fans and eliminate some of the awful mass
collisions that signaled the end of plays.

In such an environment, the seemingly harsh step of
abolishing all intercollegiate sports was applauded by
many "forward thinking people" in the academic community.
George E. Allen was no forward thinker, he was a law
student, Cumberland's football team manager and an avid
sports fan. Allen, then about 18, appealed to the
president to change his decision.

"Give us a chance to show you what we can do," Allen said.

To that end, Allen and members of the baseball team talked
a pro team from Nashville into suiting up and playing
baseball as Cumberland. The opponent: Georgia Tech. Tech's
coach: Heisman.

The professionally-enriched Cumberland baseball team
embarrassed Heisman's squad, 22-0, humiliating the team
and besmirching Heisman's national reputation. It was a
loss he never forgot or forgave.

Meanwhile, Cumberland's new president was not moved and
made good on his pledge to shut down the school's football
program.

Thus, only a few months after his baseball team lost to
Cumberland, Heisman received a letter informing him that
the Tennessee school had dropped football and, therefore,
Cumberland would be unable to field a team for the
scheduled Oct. 7 game.

Under other circumstances Heisman might have scheduled a
different opponent or taken a bye week. But he was still
angry and in no mood to let Cumberland off the hook.

Heisman shot a letter to the now-nonexistent Cumberland
athletic department offering a $500 guarantee and an
all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta for the game.

If, however, Cumberland did not field a team on Oct. 7,
Heisman wrote, he would demand $3,000 from the school to
cover the projected loss of gate receipts. Heisman, who
had earned a law degree at Penn, laid the legal language
on thick.

The letter leapfrogged from desk to desk until it got to
Allen, the defunct football team's student manager. Allen
considered the letter. The possibility that the school
would have to pay a $3,000 penalty concerned him. It
wasn't likely to put the president in a more receptive
frame of mind toward football.

On the other hand, Allen figured that the lure of
splitting $500 and a free Pullman train trip would attract
enough players willing to play mighty Georgia Tech.

Allen set about recruiting among his law school
colleagues. Many were willing enough but few of them had
ever played football.

Other problems were more practical: The team's football
uniforms and training equipment had been sold. There was
also the issue of where to conduct practices, since Allen
was keen to hide his plan from school officials.

The rag-tag team never obtained equipment but solved the
uniform problem the night it left for Atlanta by breaking
into nearby Castle Heights High School and stealing its
uniforms.

Allen's solution to the practice site problem dovetailed
nicely with his determination to maintain secrecy: He
booked time in the school chapel under the name,
Cumberland Men's Choir, shoved the pews to the edges of
the church and walked through the plays with his eager but
inept group.

Another problem for Allen: It was unlikely his team would
be able to learn any sophisticated plays in time for the
game.

Allen applied his ingenuity to the puzzle and came up with
a workable system that his team understood: Each player
was assigned the name of a vegetable. This was the era of
a no-huddle offense, so the Cumberland signal-caller would
be able to call the play before the snap and literally
describe what was supposed to happen.

For example, a Cumberland play might begin like this:
"Turnip over cabbage, hut one, hut two. . . ." Or,
"Cauliflower to mustard greens, hike! . . ."

It made an easy system for Cumberland players to identify
plays, but Allen made no allowance for the possibility
that after a few possessions the Georgia Tech players
might get on a first-name basis with the Cumberland
vegetables. The Tech defense was spared the work of
"reading" plays; it had the formations read to it.

Game day approached and Cumberland's Men's Choir continued
to practice and Heisman eyed the Oct. 7 date with relish.
He had more than one score to settle.

At the time, sportswriters selected national champions
solely based on the number of points each team scored.
Heisman disagreed with this practice, arguing that the
relative strength of opponents and schedules should be
factored in.

He saw the Cumberland game as a chance to run up the score
to prove his point--did it make Georgia Tech a better team
because it was able to trounce a weak team?

Allen and his band of law students and fraternity brothers
knew nothing of Heisman's plans when they boarded the
train in Lebanon with their stolen uniforms and high
hopes.

The train pulled into Nashville with 19 members of
Cumberland's team. As it sat in the station, Allen and
others disembarked, hoping to recruit football players
from the nearby Vanderbilt campus. Not only did no
Vanderbilt players agree to make the trip, the Cumberland
team lost three players who failed to show up when the
train left the station.

Allen had already, unsuccessfully, recruited the train's
conductor.

There was one addition from the stopover: J.W. "Johnny
Dog" Nelson, a sportswriter with the Nashville Tennessean,
who would figure into the game's most famous play.

Cumberland arrived in Atlanta and Allen, unwise in the
ways of pregame preparation, took his team to the
outskirts of town and ordered his players to run back into
Atlanta. For all of the bruising and damage the players
received in the next day's game, most would report their
greatest suffering came from that night's four-mile run.

The game took place on a cool and windy day. Heisman had
already decided to platoon his team. He named two squads,
one to play each half. He told the players that he would
buy the better team a steak dinner.

It took less than one minute before Everett Strupper ran
for Tech's first touchdown. That set off a torrent of
scoring that Cumberland could not slow. Georgia Tech
scored every time it had the ball. Cumberland had so
little success advancing the ball it took to punting on
first down.

Even in an era of high-scoring games, it was obvious that
this was headed to historic proportions. A sportswriter
for the Atlanta Journal called in the improbable halftime
score, 126-0, to his office. His editors, thinking he was
drunk, hung up on him.

It's not known whether Heisman's halftime speech was
delivered with a straight face, but, while nursing a 126-0
lead, this is what he told his team: "You're doing all
right. But you just can't tell what those Cumberland
players have up their sleeves. Be alert, men! Hit 'em
clean, but hit 'em hard!"

Meanwhile, across the field in the Cumberland locker room,
the dazed visitors' battle cry was, "Hang on, boys!
Remember the $500!"

The game was a statistical heaven, or grim record,
depending on your allegiance. The most noteworthy
Cumberland stat: Leading rusher, Morris Gougher, gained
minus two yards in five carries. Leading passer Leon
McDonald completed two of 11 passes for 14 yards, but
threw four interceptions. Three were returned for
touchdowns.

At one point, Georgia Tech decided to try an experiment.
On one offensive play near the Cumberland end zone, Tech's
blockers all dropped to the ground when the ball was
snapped. Cumberland's players--thinking this was some
maneuver involving arcane rules they didn't know--likewise
fell to the ground. The Tech running back walked,
untouched, into the end zone.

Cumberland was running out of ideas, and players. Many,
already in some pain, began to exaggerate their injuries.
Two were discovered by Heisman on the Georgia Tech bench,
hiding under a blanket. Another escaped by climbing over a
fence.

Nor was Allen any help. A man of slight build and marginal
athletic ability, Allen had never intended to play. Yet,
his teammates ordered him into the game late in the fourth
quarter. He played two downs. On his first appearance,
Allen punted the ball into the neck of his teammate who
had snapped it to him.

In his second appearance, the game's most infamous gaffe
occurred. Nelson, the sportswriter, fumbled. The ball
rolled toward Allen.

"Pick it up!" Nelson shouted.

Allen looked first at the ball at his feet, then to the
onrushing Tech defenders, then shouted back, "You dropped
it, you pick it up!"

How Lopsided Was It?

A look at some of the statistics from Georgia Tech's 222-0
victory over Cumberland in 1916:

GEORGIA TECH

Scored its first touchdown in less than one minute. Never
threw a pass. Never punted. Was never penalized. Scored
every time it got the ball. Averaged 3.8 points per
minute. Led, 126-0, at halftime.

CUMBERLAND

Never got past the 50-yard line. Never gained a first
down. Fumbled 10 times--lost possession on all 10 fumbles.
Six were returned for touchdowns. Had a total offense of
minus 42 yards.

RECORDS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN

The following game statistics are not listed as NCAA
records. The NCAA was not yet established at the time of
this game and intercollegiate athletic record-keeping was
spotty:

* Most touchdowns: 32

* Most extra points: 30

* Most different players to score a touchdown: 11

* Most points scored in one quarter: 63

* Most touchdowns in one quarter: 9

* Most kickoffs returned: 28

* Most points scored in one half: 126