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1931 ? When They Played for Charity
10/20/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
1931 — When They Played for Charity
By Jack DeGange
The event is all but lost in the mist because they weren't really games when Dartmouth, Brown, Holy Cross and Yale gathered in New Haven for what was described as “The Gloomy Bowl” on a Saturday in December — 75 years ago.
Truth be told, this remembrance might remain untold save for happenstance. On a bookshelf in the home of a Dartmouth alumnus sits an elegant gray ticket to the event, a collectible purchased on eBay. What was this event? It's not mentioned in the media guides of these teams that were friendly rivals then as now.
The ticket offered these facts: A football tournament for unemployment relief. The participants, their regular seasons complete, convened in Yale Bowl on December 5, 1931.
The price of admission was $2. In 1931, the height (or was it the depth?) of the Great Depression, $2 was a day's pay for countless thousands who stood in bread lines, sold apples for pennies on street corners, and struggled to see the next sunrise. The New York Times reported that about 23,000 people came to the Bowl on a crisp, sunny Saturday in those gloomy times for what was described in The Dartmouth as “a gridiron rodeo…the most amazing football circus ever concocted.”
Records in Yale's archives indicate the crowd was probably closer to 28,000 because, then as now, sports provided a window on optimism and better times. In 1931, horse races and pro wrestling dominated the sports pages along with the nation's game — college football. Seventy-five years ago, the National Football League wasn't much more than a vagabond road show in its embryonic years that included the Bears, Packers and Giants but also the Frankford (Pa.) Yellow Jackets, Staten Island Stapletons and Providence Steamrollers.
The participating teams had concluded winning seasons a week earlier. How seriously they took this post-season event was unquestioned by the time they took the field for three games, each comprised of two 12-minute periods: Dartmouth versus Brown, then Holy Cross versus Yale, with the winners to play the third game. The opening opponents hadn't met during the regular season.
Dartmouth's 5-3-1 record had concluded with a West Coast trip that saw Stanford defeat the Green, 32-6, a great experience but hardly as memorable as the game Coach Jackson Cannell's squad already had played in New Haven.
Four weeks earlier in the Bowl, led by All-America quarterback Bill (Air Mail) Morton and halfback “Wild Bill” McCall, Dartmouth had rallied from a 33-10 deficit to tie Yale, 33-33. Yale's legendary halfback, Albie Booth, had scored three times in the first half but McCall matched him in the second half and Morton's 34-yard field goal (with McCall holding) in the waning minutes created the historic tie.
Brown, 7-3 and coached by Tuss McLaughry (who would later coach at Dartmouth from 1940-54), had beaten Princeton (19-7) but lost to Holy Cross, 33-0, during the season.
The only losses for Holy Cross (7-2-1) in 1931 had been at Dartmouth, 14-7, and at Harvard, 7-0.
In addition to its tie with Dartmouth, Yale (5-1-2) had played a 6-6 tie with Army, beaten Harvard (6-0), and then crushed Princeton, 51-14, on the weekend that Dartmouth traveled to play Stanford.
The tournament, given the abbreviated length of games, had special rules to determine winners in the event of ties. Three judges — well-known football officials of the day who were graduates of Trinity, Bowdoin and Tufts — used independent judgment as well as a complicated scoring system that awarded points for yards gained (more inside the 20-yard line, less outside the 20), and points added (or subtracted) for fumbles and interceptions, and kicks blocked.
It proved an entertaining afternoon. The judges awarded Brown a victory over Dartmouth after neither team scored. Two fumbles were costly for the Green though not as much as when end Hal Mackey dropped an apparent touchdown pass from Morton.
Yale, playing without Booth, the Elis' “Little Boy Blue,” faced Holy Cross for the first time since 1913 and won with the tournament's only touchdown. Yale then was awarded a victory by the judges after playing another 0-0 tie with Brown.
Yale's records reveal the benefits to unemployment relief from the “Gloomy Bowl.” Over 26,400 tickets were sold prior to the event and the crowd, probably about 99 percent male and wearing overcoats and fedoras, invested 25 cents each to purchase 9,232 programs. Parking in the spacious fields surrounding the Bowl provided additional revenue. All of the workers for the tournament volunteered their service.
When the accounting was done, the presidents of the participating institutions each received a check for $14,305.25. After expenses for travel, Dartmouth's net share was $12,422.02.
In a published memorandum, Dartmouth's president, Ernest Martin Hopkins, advised that the bulk of Dartmouth's share would be turned over to the State of New Hampshire's unemployment relief committee.
In addition, each of the 30 Dartmouth players who made the trip to New Haven were given $100 from the proceeds to contribute to relief agencies in their respective home towns.
Compared with the vast amounts raised today for charitable purposes — the goal of the Upper Valley United Way's campaign this fall is over $1.2 million — the $57,221 raised by this long-ago football circus seems miniscule.
But, in the days of the Great Depression, when pennies, nickels and dimes were cherished by millions of people struggling to survive, what the Aegis described as “a novel plan to help an unemployment situation that was acute” brought teams from Dartmouth, Holy Cross, Brown and Yale, their seasons completed, together on a sunny Saturday in December.
There's been nothing like it since and probably never will be, not just because the Ivy League doesn't permit post-season play, i.e., playoffs. But what might the current Ivy presidents say if they were confronted with events like those that faced President Hopkins, his counterparts and the nation 75 years ago?
In 1931, the “Gloomy Bowl” made a difference.
Jack DeGange is a freelance writer and former sports information director at Dartmouth.
By Jack DeGange
The event is all but lost in the mist because they weren't really games when Dartmouth, Brown, Holy Cross and Yale gathered in New Haven for what was described as “The Gloomy Bowl” on a Saturday in December — 75 years ago.
Truth be told, this remembrance might remain untold save for happenstance. On a bookshelf in the home of a Dartmouth alumnus sits an elegant gray ticket to the event, a collectible purchased on eBay. What was this event? It's not mentioned in the media guides of these teams that were friendly rivals then as now.
The ticket offered these facts: A football tournament for unemployment relief. The participants, their regular seasons complete, convened in Yale Bowl on December 5, 1931.
The price of admission was $2. In 1931, the height (or was it the depth?) of the Great Depression, $2 was a day's pay for countless thousands who stood in bread lines, sold apples for pennies on street corners, and struggled to see the next sunrise. The New York Times reported that about 23,000 people came to the Bowl on a crisp, sunny Saturday in those gloomy times for what was described in The Dartmouth as “a gridiron rodeo…the most amazing football circus ever concocted.”
Records in Yale's archives indicate the crowd was probably closer to 28,000 because, then as now, sports provided a window on optimism and better times. In 1931, horse races and pro wrestling dominated the sports pages along with the nation's game — college football. Seventy-five years ago, the National Football League wasn't much more than a vagabond road show in its embryonic years that included the Bears, Packers and Giants but also the Frankford (Pa.) Yellow Jackets, Staten Island Stapletons and Providence Steamrollers.
The participating teams had concluded winning seasons a week earlier. How seriously they took this post-season event was unquestioned by the time they took the field for three games, each comprised of two 12-minute periods: Dartmouth versus Brown, then Holy Cross versus Yale, with the winners to play the third game. The opening opponents hadn't met during the regular season.
Dartmouth's 5-3-1 record had concluded with a West Coast trip that saw Stanford defeat the Green, 32-6, a great experience but hardly as memorable as the game Coach Jackson Cannell's squad already had played in New Haven.
Four weeks earlier in the Bowl, led by All-America quarterback Bill (Air Mail) Morton and halfback “Wild Bill” McCall, Dartmouth had rallied from a 33-10 deficit to tie Yale, 33-33. Yale's legendary halfback, Albie Booth, had scored three times in the first half but McCall matched him in the second half and Morton's 34-yard field goal (with McCall holding) in the waning minutes created the historic tie.
Brown, 7-3 and coached by Tuss McLaughry (who would later coach at Dartmouth from 1940-54), had beaten Princeton (19-7) but lost to Holy Cross, 33-0, during the season.
The only losses for Holy Cross (7-2-1) in 1931 had been at Dartmouth, 14-7, and at Harvard, 7-0.
In addition to its tie with Dartmouth, Yale (5-1-2) had played a 6-6 tie with Army, beaten Harvard (6-0), and then crushed Princeton, 51-14, on the weekend that Dartmouth traveled to play Stanford.
The tournament, given the abbreviated length of games, had special rules to determine winners in the event of ties. Three judges — well-known football officials of the day who were graduates of Trinity, Bowdoin and Tufts — used independent judgment as well as a complicated scoring system that awarded points for yards gained (more inside the 20-yard line, less outside the 20), and points added (or subtracted) for fumbles and interceptions, and kicks blocked.
It proved an entertaining afternoon. The judges awarded Brown a victory over Dartmouth after neither team scored. Two fumbles were costly for the Green though not as much as when end Hal Mackey dropped an apparent touchdown pass from Morton.
Yale, playing without Booth, the Elis' “Little Boy Blue,” faced Holy Cross for the first time since 1913 and won with the tournament's only touchdown. Yale then was awarded a victory by the judges after playing another 0-0 tie with Brown.
Yale's records reveal the benefits to unemployment relief from the “Gloomy Bowl.” Over 26,400 tickets were sold prior to the event and the crowd, probably about 99 percent male and wearing overcoats and fedoras, invested 25 cents each to purchase 9,232 programs. Parking in the spacious fields surrounding the Bowl provided additional revenue. All of the workers for the tournament volunteered their service. When the accounting was done, the presidents of the participating institutions each received a check for $14,305.25. After expenses for travel, Dartmouth's net share was $12,422.02.
In a published memorandum, Dartmouth's president, Ernest Martin Hopkins, advised that the bulk of Dartmouth's share would be turned over to the State of New Hampshire's unemployment relief committee.
In addition, each of the 30 Dartmouth players who made the trip to New Haven were given $100 from the proceeds to contribute to relief agencies in their respective home towns.
Compared with the vast amounts raised today for charitable purposes — the goal of the Upper Valley United Way's campaign this fall is over $1.2 million — the $57,221 raised by this long-ago football circus seems miniscule.
But, in the days of the Great Depression, when pennies, nickels and dimes were cherished by millions of people struggling to survive, what the Aegis described as “a novel plan to help an unemployment situation that was acute” brought teams from Dartmouth, Holy Cross, Brown and Yale, their seasons completed, together on a sunny Saturday in December.
There's been nothing like it since and probably never will be, not just because the Ivy League doesn't permit post-season play, i.e., playoffs. But what might the current Ivy presidents say if they were confronted with events like those that faced President Hopkins, his counterparts and the nation 75 years ago?
In 1931, the “Gloomy Bowl” made a difference.
Jack DeGange is a freelance writer and former sports information director at Dartmouth.
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