When Wayne Gretzky was inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame, veterans
were asked to name the best of all time. They all answered the same.
Gretzky. Only Gretzky himself disagreed. He said Gordie Howe.
Nice try Gretzky. Points for humility.
Jim Thorpe is considered the godfather of professional football, and
maybe the greatest athlete of all time. In the ESPN documentary “30 for
30”, Bo Jackson is described as the second coming of Jim Thorpe. When
asked to name the most influential figure in the birth of professional
football, most historians would say Thorpe.
Not Jim Thorpe
though. Back in the early days of the NFL, he offered an alternative
name. His Canton Bulldog Quarterback: Austin College Kangaroo Cecil
Grigg.
Grigg played at AC in 1911 and 1912; the latter team was
one of Austin College’s best ever. AC beat Baylor, was robbed of a win
at UT, and demolished Rice. The victory over the Owls gave rise to a
legend of how the Kangaroo nickname was born. Grigg was a Texas
coaching legend at AC and Rice from the 1930s to the 1960s. He sits in
the Texas Sports Hall of Fame; you’ll see his photo quite a bit when you
visit.
Between his college playing and coaching days, however,
he was involved in something just as significant: the establishment of
professional football. At the birth of the league in 1920, Grigg and
Thorpe were both Canton Bulldogs. Thorpe was a halfback, and Grigg was
his quarterback. They won multiple championships that decade. More
importantly, they brought credibility and excitement to a professional
game that had only existed at the amateur level.
Behind the
efforts of Thorpe and Grigg, the NFL arrived to stay. The 1920s success
of the Bulldog team both on the field and in popular culture was so
overwhelming that there was only one logical place for the NFL to
establish its own Hall of Fame: Canton, Ohio.
The famous Texas
sportswriter Harold Ratliff wrote about Grigg in 1945. He mentioned his
playing and coaching days at Austin College, as well as his
professional career with Thorpe:
“Grigg is called by old-timers
the greatest football player Texas ever produced. He was a runner,
kicker, and passer. His feats if duplicated today being sufficient to
warrant all-America note. He played on college teams few ever heard
about beyond the confines of this state and when he got into pro
football to become a member of one of the most famous backfields of all
time, he became known as “the all-American Walter Camp didn’t see.”
The NFL released a clever ad during the Super Bowl. Some of the
all-time greats from today back to the 1960s were there, reenacting
their playing days. The ad was a celebration of the 100th season of the
NFL, set to kick off in the fall of 2019. Who appears in the ad? It’s
a comprehensive list of NFL stars:
0:01 – Roger Goodell 0:03 – (L to R) Dick Butkus, Joe Greene, Aaron Donald 0:04 – (L to R) Peyton Manning, Orlando Pace 0:05 – (L to R) Alvin Kamara, Drew Brees 0:06 – Michael Strahan 0:07 – (L to R) Rob Gronkowski, Brian Urlacher 0:08 – (L to R) Tyler ‘Ninja’ Belvins, JuJu Smith-Schuster 0:12 – Marshawn Lynch 0:26 – (L to R) Beth Mowins, Eli Manning, Ndamukong Suh 0:27 – Mike Singletary 0:29 – Christian McCaffrey 0:35 – Joe Montana 0:35 – Jerry Rice 0:36 – Michael Irvin 0:40 – Deion Sanders 0:46 – (L to R) Larry Little, Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka 0:47 – Todd Gurley 0:52 – Barry Sanders 0:57 – Emmitt Smith 1:00 – LaDainian Tomlinson 1:05 – Ed Reed 1:10 – Jim Brown 1:12 – (L to R) Baker Mayfield, Tom Brady 1:17 – Terry Bradshaw 1:23 – (L to R) Patrick Peterson, Larry Fitzgerald, Derwin James, Jalen Ramsey 1:28 – Franco Harris 1:35 – Odell Beckham Jr. 1:36 – (L to R) Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes 1:41 – (L to R) Sarah Thomas, Ron Torbert 1:42 – Tony Gonzalez 1:43 – Von Miller 1:48 – Sam Gordon 1:50 – Richard Sherman 1:55 – Saquon Barkley
NFL legend Jim Brown appears in the video at the 1:10 mark, saying “boy
this is a great party.” Brown led his Syracuse Orangemen (shout out to
AC Athletics Communications Director & Syracuse alum Jeff Kelly)
to the 1957 Cotton Bowl against TCU, after the Horn Frogs had defeated
Grigg’s Rice Owls in Houston. Rice, Grigg, and tri-captain Larry
Whitmire (shout out to AC baseballer Wayne Whitmire) were back the following year, and earned a trip as SWC champions to the Cotton Bowl in 1958.
You’ll be hearing a lot about #NFL100
nationwide as we approach the Super Bowl in 1920. And you’ll also be
hearing from me. Cause an Austin College Kangaroo is the patron saint
of the establishment of the professional league that transformed into
the NFL 100 years ago.
Sure, football was probably destined to
occupy a spot in the American sporting world, and professional football
might have eventually materialized naturally at some point. But the ad
we all enjoyed on Sunday was called #NFL100, and there would be no
#NFL100 without Canton Bulldogs running back Jim Thorpe, the greatest
athlete of all time, and Cecil Grigg, his all-star Austin College
Kangaroo quarterback.
2020 sounds like a great year to tell the
tale: “Jim Thorpe and Cecil Grigg: Austin College and 100 years of the
National Football League.”
There’s always a Roo connection, huh? Enjoy the ad.
