Moments in College Football History

In tribute to the Army-Navy game, I decided to write about one of the many significant moments in the long history of the Army football program, but which one? After a bit of digging I stumbled on this story, and had no idea how absolutely fascinating it would be...

Tonight, We Will Know If You Are Warriors

On November 9th, 1912, the Carlisle Indians walked on to Cullum Field at West Point for a much-anticipated game against the Army Cadets. The team from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania had become something of a media sensation.  They were in the midst of a three year stretch during which they would compile a record of 33-3-1.

Legendary coach Glenn "Pop" Warner had taken advantage of the game's evolving rules, and developed an offense that was as entertaining as it was successful. He employed the forward pass as effectively as any team of the time, and had perfected the "single wing" formation.  Now, he was about to reveal a new twist to the Cadets, and the college football world.

Eastern city-dwellers had become fascinated by this team that, like their proud ancestors, incorporated speed, stealth, and deception into their plan of attack.  And, of course, the Carlisle squad included Jim Thorpe, only four months removed from winning gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.

Born on a small Sauk and Fox Indian reservation outside of Prague, Oklahoma to a half-Irish and half-Indian father, and a half-French and half-Indian mother, Jim Thorpe was drawn to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School because of its reputation in sports, football in particular.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School had been founded in 1879 by Captain Richard Pratt.  After serving in the Union army during the Civil War, he had commanded the 10th Cavalry Regiment - the now famous Buffalo Soldiers - and employed many Native Americans as scouts.  Recognizing the plight of plains Indians, he became convinced that the best way to end the hostilities with white settlers, and the government, was to force them to abandon their heritage and assimilate into the "majority" culture.  "Kill the Indian, save the man," Pratt would say.  By 1902, the Federal government had established twenty-six Indian boarding schools designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to survive in the white man's world.


By the time Thorpe began playing football, coach Warner had already achieved considerable success at Carlisle, and was responsible for a number of innovations that would fundamentally change the game.  He had enhanced the use of the forward pass, and was the first to employ the screen pass.  He developed the spiral punt, the use of shoulder and thigh pads, and special helmets.  He created the single wing formation and the hidden ball trick.

Thorpe added speed and agility to an already accomplished backfield.  On the very first carry of his career, he hesitated, and was tackled for a loss.  On the next play, he ran for forty-five yards. 

Warner's offense used misdirection like no other coach had.  When Carlisle beat perennial powerhouse Harvard for the first time, in 1907, a Boston Herald story on the game said, "Only when a redskin shot out of the hopeless maze ... could it be told with any degree of certainty just where the attack was directed."

Warner was the first to encourage his team to use audibles and hand signals, enabling them to communicate more readily while aligning, often with words or gestures unique to Native Americans, and baffling to their opponents.  With Thorpe's athletic ability added to the equation, the effect was intimidating.

It was a finely-tuned offensive machine that arrived in West Point in 1912 with a 9-0-1 record, the only blemish being a scoreless tie with Washington and Jefferson College in an uninspired effort that had irritated Warner.  But, on this November day, he was certain his Carlisle Indians would find inspiration.

The Army squad also brought an impressive resume to the field.  They were in the midst of a four year period in which they would compile a record of 28-5-1.  No fewer than nine future generals were on the 1912 team.  Among them was a slightly undersized, but powerful athlete named Dwight Eisenhower.  They played fierce defense, having surrendered just thirteen points in the four previous games combined. 

This game would match Army, and the nation's best defense, against Carlisle, and their high-scoring offense, but the underlying implications were far more significant.  If anything symbolized the Native American struggle against intrusion from white settlers and their conflict with the government, it was the Army. 

Only twenty-two years before, in 1890, the last major confrontation between the Army and Native Americans occurred when soldiers from the 7th Cavalry surrounded a Lakota camp and massacred 146 men, women and children near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota.

Although Carlisle began fielding football teams by 1893, fear of open hostility had kept them from scheduling games against Army.  Despite being among the top programs of their era, the two teams had met only once prior to 1912, a 6-5 Carlisle victory in West Point in 1905. 

When they lined up for the opening kickoff in the 1912 game, it was not only two of the best teams of their day, but old adversaries from bitter battles of the past.  In the locker room beforehand, Warner told his players, "Your fathers and your grandfathers fought their fathers. These men playing against you today are soldiers. They are the Long Knives. You are Indians. Tonight, we will know if you are warriors."

Some versions of the story say he also told his players to "remember Wounded Knee."  In any event, the intent was clear.  He wanted them to know that this was not just one of the biggest games of the year in college football, it was an opportunity for revenge.

As the teams emerged from the locker rooms on a cold, gray day, Dwight Eisenhower paced the Army sideline eyeing Jim Thorpe.  Eisenhower had become the leader on a team of leaders, mostly through sheer determination.  In those days, players stayed on the field for offense and defense, and, although he was a solid halfback, it was as a linebacker that Eisenhower hoped to, literally, make his biggest impact that day.

Months before, when he had first learned that Carlisle would be paying a visit to West Point, Eisenhower had begun dreaming about tackling Thorpe in a way that would leave a lasting impression.  If he could intimidate him, that would be great.  If he could knock him out of the game, that would be even better. 

On at least two occasions in the first half, Eisenhower hit Thorpe as hard as he could, once forcing a fumble, and once combining with one of his teammates in a collision that left all three players dazed on the ground.

At first, Army used their superior strength and size to overpower the Indians, taking a 6-0 lead after scoring a touchdown and missing the extra point.  The Army players were, on average, four inches taller and twenty-five pounds heavier than the Indians.  But the Carlisle offense was a blur of motion and trickery, and the Cadets were soon running all over the field trying to make sense of it, and trying to stop it.

A New York Tribune correspondent wrote, "The shifting, puzzling, and dazzling attack of the Carlisle Indians had the Cadets bordering on a panic.  None of the Army men seemed to know just where the ball was."

The standard formation of the day had two halfbacks and a fullback in the backfield, behind the  quarterback.  It was a power formation that could concentrate blockers in one area for maximum effect.  But Carlisle had begun using a single wing formation developed by Warner.  One of the halfbacks would line up just behind the line of scrimmage on the shoulder of the tackle.  Aligning that way would put him outside the defensive end, giving him a good angle to throw a block, but also giving him room to escape from the backfield to catch a pass.  And it gave him time to build a head of steam if he were to run around the opposite end behind the line of scrimmage on a reverse.  Basically, it was the earliest incarnation of the spread offense.

Now Warner decided to unleash the latest variation on his offense.  The Indians had worked on it all summer, but had chosen not to show it until now.  They wanted "the soldiers" to be its first victim.

They broke the huddle and shuffled into a standard alignment, but, on a signal from quarterback Gus Welch, shifted into a "double wing."  Alex Arcasa, at right halfback, shifted to a spot outside the right tackle.  Thorpe, at left halfback, moved outside the left tackle.  The Indians then embarked on a series of reverses, double reverses and fleaflickers.  No one had ever seen anything like it.

A New York Times story on the game reported, "Thorpe tore off runs of ten yards or more so often that they became common."   He would rush for nearly 200 yards on twenty-four carries.  He scored twenty-two of Carlisle's twenty-seven points.

Eisenhower would never get the knockout blow he hoped for.  Early in the second half, he lunged at a sprinting Thorpe, but, in a remarkable display of agility, Thorpe stopped in his tracks and watched as Eisenhower crashed into his own teammate. Although he didn't know it at the time, Eisenhower had ruined his knee trying to make the tackle, and effectively ended his football career.  Unable to continue, he spent the rest of the game in the locker room, furious.

They had kept the game close, trailing 7-6 at halftime, but the exhausted Cadets were unbable to move the ball in the second half.  They couldn't even manage a first down as Carlisle pulled way to win 27-6.

After the game, reporters asked Army team captain Leland Devore about Thorpe's performance.  "He is super-human," he said.  "That is all.  There is no stopping him."

The Indians would finish the season at 12-1-1.  A 34-26 loss at Pennsylvania cost them a national championship. 

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was closed in 1918, and the property was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers returning from World War I.  The Carlisle Barracks are now the home of the Army War College.

Jim Thorpe would go on to play professional football, baseball and basketball, but the man often considered to be the greatest American athlete of the twentieth century struggled later in life, particularly during the Great Depression.  He was stripped of his Olympic medals in a controversy over his amateur status (they were reinstated in 1982).  Failed marriages and trouble with alcohol plagued him. 

When he died in 1953, he was living in a trailer home in Lomita, California.  His family received a telegram from the White House, condolences from president Dwight Eisenhower.