Hey, look at that photo. I took that photo in the Austin College archives on a visit with Clayton Oliphint a few years back. And the date! October 25th, 1924. That’s 100 years ago today.
I first saw that football in 1988. Bob Mason had displayed it in Hughey Gym with pride, while regaling those who would listen about AC sports history. Sure, I thought, the Roos defeating Baylor in 1924 was neat. But if AC had so much athletics history, what was so special about one game that warranted saving the football for posterity?
I figured it out, and it turned into a Roo Tale.
AC battled many big school foes in Texas a century ago. But 1924 was special. 1924 was the year of Notre Dame, Knute Rockne, and the legendary Four Horsemen. The Fighting Irish went undefeated, earning the national title. Down in Texas, the 1924 Baylor Bears were putting on a show as good as the Irish.
The 1924 Baylor Bears won the Southwest Conference (SWC) title without a single loss. Defending 1923 champion SMU came up short. Arkansas failed to score a point. John Heisman (yes, that one) and his Rice Owls lost at home. Texas A&M fell in Waco. And the Longhorns got crushed in the first game ever at UT’s home stadium: DKR Texas Memorial Stadium.
That’s right. Down here in Austin this year, we are celebrating the 100th birthday of the Longhorn Stadium that Darryl K Royal (DKR) built. But that first game ever on November 8th, 1924, was one the Longhorns would like to forget. The 1924 conference champion Baylor Bears demolished UT by a score of 28-10.
But where all these big schools failed, little Austin College succeeded. Pete Cawthon’s Roos traveled to Waco on October 25th, 1924, and shocked the football world by defeating Baylor 7-3. AC’s team manager would later remark that with “their faces scratched and covered with bruises, the Kangaroos had the long hungry look of a team which had come to play.”
After Baylor’s conference title, Cawthon declared AC the “unofficial champions of the Southwest Conference.” The Baylor season certainly piqued the interest of Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne. His Irish hosted Baylor to kick off the 1925 season, and the legendary coach knew little about Baylor or the state of Texas football. He did have a friend, however, in Pete Cawthon.
Cawthon & Rockne reunited in the summer of 1925 in Austin, in the shadow of the new Longhorn stadium. There, they posed for my favorite AC picture of all time. Rockne asked the Roo coach how best to confront Baylor. Whatever Cawthon mentioned to Rockne must have worked, for Notre Dame did defeat Baylor to open the season. The Austin College & Notre Dame losses were bookends of an incredible run for the Baylor Bears of 1924.
On Saturday, November 9th, the Longhorns will play at home amidst celebrations of 100 years of DKR. This Roo will be chuckling though as the stadium is honored. For I’ll know that 100 years ago, that first game at DKR did not go so well. The Horns lost badly to a champion who romped and stomped through the SWC schedule in 1924, but who just weeks earlier had fallen at home to little Austin College.
Dianne’s & my daughter Ms. M. recently performed at a marching band competition at Baylor’s football stadium. We’re on the parent pit crew, helping to load and unload. Ms. M.’s high school finished in second place of 25 schools; Mom & Dad are proud of the work she is putting in.
We were both there at Baylor, and I snapped a pic of her. But I also knew that the 100th anniversary of this game was approaching, so I made sure that my pic of Ms. M. also included the Baylor championship year of 1924. Well done Bears on that SWC title. A damn shame though that you couldn’t run the table, coming up short on October 25th, 1924.
