The 1930 Alabama Football Banquet

A telegram from Atlanta Georgian sports editor Jimmy Burns
to Alabama Coach Wallace Wade. 

Alabama's annual football banquet for the 1930 season was held  Dec. 2, at the McLester Hotel in Tuscaloosa with more than 250 people in attendance. The Tide team was on hand as well as members of numerous local high school football teams. Alabama varsity squad had gone undefeated through the regular season and, just days prior, had received an invitation to play Washington State in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day 1931.

"This team will go down as the greatest ever seen in the South," declared University of Alabama President George Denny at the banquet. "Greatest in exemplifying and illustrating the correct ideals of character, fine spirit, scholarship and devotion to duty in the daily walks under these old oak trees we love so well."

The event was bittersweet for Alabama fans as head coach Wallace Wade had announced his resignation prior to the season and his intention to accept the job as the head coach of Duke. Wade was presented a wristwatch from the the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Merchant's Bureau who sponsored the banquet.

William Little, the captain of Alabama's first football team spoke as did V.H. Friedman, a longtime supporter of the team. Incoming Alabama coach Frank Thomas sent a telegram with his praise for Wade and the 1930 team as did Jimmy Burns, the sports editor at the Atlanta Georgian. Burns covered southern sports for 17 years at the paper, decamping in the late 1930s for Florida where he became  the Miami Herald's sports editor for almost a quarter century. The text of his telegram is below.

The University of Alabama's Response to Collier's Magazine

On Jan. 4, 1941 Collier's magazine published an expose of the Alabama football program titled, "How to Keep Football Stars in College." The article was penned by a University of Alabama alumnus, William Bradford Huie, who claimed to have worked in the school's athletic department and witnessed firsthand many of the incidents he reported.

The Collier's story alleged the university used local high schools as a recruiting pool and when athletes arrived on campus they would be put in "sham" courses to maintain eligibility. Once the athletes were no longer able to play they were discarded, physically crippled and educationally bereft.

On Feb. 15 a report prepared by a University of Alabama faculty committee examining the allegations in the Huie article was released. The 14-page report broke down almost every detail of the story published by Collier's and concluded it was an almost complete fabrication. Moreover, the committee found that Huie had used unethical methods of reporting the article, deceiving the subjects of his intent to write a hit piece on the Crimson Tide program.

"The findings of the committee constitute an absolute and complete repudiation of Mr. Huie's claims and charges. These findings properly brand them as wholly false," wrote UA President Richard Foster in the report's introduction.

Collier's sent associate editor Kyle Crichton to Tuscaloosa to meet with university officials and investigate the charges against the magazine and its author. In the face of such overwhelming evidence Collier's published a full retraction of Huie's article and an apology to the university in its April 5, 1941 issue.

Freddie Russell, the sports editor of the Nashville Banner and Ed Danforth, the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal, interviewed Huie in Cullman, Alabama soon after the Collier's story was debunked. They reported that Huie confessed he had fabricated the tale in order to sell it to the magazine.

"They like to buy any stories that picture Southerns as illiterate or stupid," Huie said. "Look at 'Tobacco Road.' Then there would be no market for a story telling what fine manhood football at Alabama built. If there had been a market, I could have written one on that idea."

The full report issued by the University of Alabama's faculty committee on the matter can be found after the jump.

Dorsett Vandeventer Graves

A cartoon depicting D.V. Graves'
career before coaching at Alabama.

Dorsett Vandeventer Graves, better known as "D.V." or "Tubby," was the University of Alabama's football coach from 1911 through 1915. A native of Alabama, Graves attended the University of Missouri from 1906 to 1908 where he played football and baseball.

He was hired as Alabama's 12th football coach in 1911 and became the school's baseball and basketball coach the following year. Highlights of his tenure included a 1912 victory over regional powerhouse Sewanee and a 13-0 shut out of John Heisman's Georgia Tech team in 1914.

In 1912 George Hutchenson Denny became the president of the University of Alabama. Denny saw football as a way to increase the the profile of the school and became very hands on in the athletics department. And to do that he knew he needed a winner.

Alabama's 1912 team.

While Graves' Alabama squads never suffered a losing season, by 1914 it was clear he wasn't the coach to take the Alabama program to the next level. Denny replaced him with Thomas Kelly in 1915. Graves finished at Alabama with a respectable 21-12-3 record (.625).

Graves next popped up at Texas A&M as an assistant under Dana X. Bible. He assumed the head coaching responsibilities for the Aggies in 1918 when Bible served in the military for World War I. The team performed quite well under his leadership losing just one game, a 0-7 contest against the Longhorns in Austin on Nov. 28, 1918.

When Bible returned in 1919, Graves went back to his role as an assistant coach and was on hand as A&M rolled to an undefeated (and unscored upon) season that culminated in a national championship. In 1920, Graves had moved on to the head coaching position at Montana State, where he amassed a 5-5-1 over two seasons.

Graves then headed to the Pacific Northwest where he signed on at the University of Washington. Between 1923 and 1946 Graves served as an assistant coach on the football team and baseball head coach. He later became the assistant director of athletics.

Graves passed away in 1960. He is now enshrined in the Husky Hall of Fame and the school's former baseball field as well as its current intercollegiate athletics building were named in his honor.

A version of this entry first appeared on Burnt Orange Nation.

The Cramton Bowl

Montgomery's Cramton Bowl shortly after completion in 1922.

On Sept. 20, 1922, Alabama's freshmen football squad traveled to Montgomery where they defeated Sidney-Lanier High School 21-0. The game was the first gridiron contest ever played in the Alabama state capital's new multi-sport venue, The Cramton Bowl.

The stadium under construction.

The stadium was built on the site of a former sanitary landfill owned by local lumberman, F.J. Cramton. The businessman spearheaded the $33,000 fundraising effort to get the facility built after the City of Montgomery balked on the project saying it was too large an undertaking.

The completed Cramton Bowl was designed to host both baseball and football games. The first sporting event at the new stadium was baseball game played May 1922 between Auburn University and Vanderbilt University.

Montgomery attorney James Edson contacted University of Alabama President George H. Denny about arranging to have the Crimson Tide play open its football season in the new stadium. Denny agreed to a game but suggested instead the scheduled contest with Georgia slated for Nov. 25.

Thus the Alabama varsity team opened the season against Marion Military Institute at Denny Field in Tuscaloosa and the freshmen squad traveled to the Alabama capitol. (The Crimson Tide beat Marion 110-0 -- a score which remains the largest margin of victory in the program's history.)

The first major college football contest in the venue was Tulane vs Auburn on Nov. 11, 1922. The local paper implored residents to show up for the game "to show the world MONTGOMERY IS A GOOD FOOTBALL TOWN."

The Tigers, led by their legendary coach Mike Donahue in his final year, trounced the Green Wave, headed by their legendary coach Clark Shaughnessy, 19-0.

Two weeks later, the Tide varsity made the trip to Montgomery themselves and downed the Bulldogs 10-6 in the Cramton Bowl. The finished stadium could accommodate about 7,000 with its permanent seating but reports put the size of the crowd at almost 10,000.

The stadium also was the site of the first football game played under artificial lights in the South when Cloverdale taking on Pike Road High School on the night of September 23, 1927. More than 7,000 spectators were on hand to see the contest under lights that were shipped in from California.

Between 1922 and 1932, Alabama played at least one game every season and then returned to Montgomery intermittently until 1954. Alabama's all-time record at Cramton Bowl stands at 17 wins and 3 losses. The stadium was more renowned as the home of the annual inter-sectional all-star contest -- the Blue-Gray Football Classic, an annual college football all-star game which was held there each December from 1938 until 2001.

Charles Bernier: The Father of Alabama Homecoming

Orville Rush, president of the Washington D.C. UA Alumni group;
former UA President George H. Denny; former Alabama halfback
Johnny Mack Brown and UA Alumni Secretary Charles Bernier at the
1950 homecoming victory against Mississippi State (14-7).

Alabama's first Homecoming game was on Nov. 13, 1920, a 21-0 victory against LSU. The event was the brainchild of UA Athletic Director Charles Bernier who had arrived at The Capstone that year from Virginia Tech. He took over organizing many of the school's homecoming activities when he became the alumni secretary in 1942. Bernier, who coached baseball and basketball when he first arrived in Tuscaloosa, is also credited as introducing grant-in-aid scholarships at the school. 

The Hiring of Frank Thomas as Coach of the Crimson Tide

In April 1930, Crimson Tide head coach Wallace Wade shocked Alabama by announcing he was leaving at the end of the next season to take over the job at Duke University. Although the school was deluged with applications for the position, Wade recommended Georgia assistant Frank Thomas as his replacement.

Frank Thomas

A former player under Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, the 31-year-old Thomas had already earned a reputation among his peers as an offensive tactician. After a successful three-year stint as head coach at Chattanooga, he returned to Georgia to serve as backfield coach under his former Irish teammate Henry Mehre.

With Alabama president George H. Denny's approval, Wade phoned Thomas an set up a meeting with the younger coach at a  track meet at Legion Field. It was pouring down rain when the two talked beneath the stands. Wade told Thomas he was being considered for the job and to expect a call from Denny.

After the search committee vetted Thomas' candidacy and a release from his contract with Georgia was obtained a meeting to formally sign the Alabama contract was arranged for July 15 in the Birmingham office of Borden Burr, a former Alabama player who remained involved with the program. Also on hand was Ed Camp, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal who had also recommended Thomas for the job.

After a short talk, the three-year contract to succeed Wade as the coach of the Alabama football program after the 1930 season was presented and signed.

Then Denny addressed his new employee:

"Mr. Thomas, now that you have accepted our proposition I will give you the benefit of my views based on many years of observation. It is my conviction that material is 90 percent, coaching ability ten percent. I desire further to say that you will be provided with the 90 percent and that you will be held to strict accounting for delivering the remaining ten percent."

As Thomas and Camp left the office, the new Crimson Tide coach grabbed the newspaperman by the arm and said, "Those were the hardest and coldest words I ever heard. Do you reckon his figures were right?"

"I think the proportion was considerably off," Camp replied. "But there is no doubt the good doctor meant what he said."

1935 Rissman Trophy Presentation

The presentation of the Rissman Trophy to the Alabama Crimson Tide following their victory in the 1935 Rose Bowl. The award was presented during the football banquet in Tuscaloosa on Jan. 10, 1935. Pictured are (from left to right) Alabama Head Coach Frank Thomas, Alabama Team Captain Bill Lee, O. Elmer Anderson, acting president of the Tournament of Roses, President of the University of Alabama Dr. George Denny and Jack Rissman, a Chicago clothing manufacturer and the donor of the trophy.

Rissman's award had been presented annually to college football's national champion as determined by the Dickinson System, developed in the early 1920s by Frank Dickinson, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois. In 1930, that award was renamed the Knute K. Rockne Intercollegiate Memorial Trophy following the death Notre Dame coach. The arrival of the AP poll pushed the Dickinson System into obsolescence and the championship selector went defunct in 1940.

After the introduction of the Knute Rockne award, Rissman associated his namesake trophy with the Rose Bowl. A school was granted permanent possession of the award if its team had successfully won the New Year's Day game three times. Alabama's 29-13 win over Stanford in 1935 marked the Crimson Tide's third victory in the Pasadena classic.

Dr. George Hutcheson Denny

Dr. George H. Denny at the 1926 Rose Bowl. On his left is
 Dr. S.V. Sanford, the Southern Conference commissioner.

In 1912, Dr. George Hutcheson Denny was named president of the University of Alabama. The 42-year-old former head of Washington & Lee arrived in Tuscaloosa with a specific plan to use the sport of  football to help the school grow.

From the very start of his administration, Denny, who was commonly referred to as "Mike," took a direct hand in developing the football program, recognizing its potential as a way to increase enrollment as well as gain political and popular support for his policies.

Dr. Denny at Washington & Lee.

He placed the football program under the direct budgetary and administrative control of the university’s athletic department. He oversaw the hiring of coaches and supervising practices from the sidelines. In the latter capacity Denny was regularly knocked over by players and the team develops a superstition develops on the team that "bowling over" the UA president is good luck for bowl games.

During his tenure, the Crimson Tide appeared in four Rose Bowl games and he was an attendance at the first three of them. In 1935 Denny was unable to travel to Pasadena due to an illness that led him to retire two years later. He became president once again in 1941 after the death of his successor Richard C. Foster. He stepped down a final time in1942 when Raymon Ross Paty was named president.

Known for his wire rimmed glasses and pipe, Denny was reported to possess a prodigious memory and it was said he never forgot the name of any person he met. Denny died on April 2, 1955 at his home in Lexington, Virginia where he is buried.

The first permanent home for Alabama football was University Field which opened in 1915. It was renamed Denny Field in honor of the university president. When the first section of the team's stadium was built in 1929 it also was named in honor of Denny and it retains the designation to this day.

The 1927 Rose Bowl: Alabama vs Stanford

The 1927 Rose Bowl set an attendance record of 57,417.

While the 1926 Rose Bowl and subsequent National Championship brought unprecedented nationwide attention to Alabama football program, the season that followed was the opportunity to cement the program’s success.

To achieve that Coach Wallace Wade faced a difficult challenge. Gone were Alabama’s marquee names of "Pooley" Hubert and Johnny Mack Brown as well as a host of key playmakers. Yet Wade was convinced  the team still had enough of talent and determination to make it back to Pasadena. With disciplined play Alabama continued to be an immovable object on defense. The Crimson Tide outscored opponents 242-20 during the 1926 regular season, allowing just three touchdowns.

The closest game was an Oct. 23 matchup against the Tigers of Sewanee that was decided by a safety in the waning minutes of the contest. The victory ensured Alabama would retain the Southern Conference crown and an invitation to the Rose Bowl to face the Pacific Coast Conference champion, Stanford. As he had the year before, Wade insisted his players were to stay focused on the game and he made sure to provide plenty of practices to ensure they would.

Alabama's 1926 team

The team completed the 2,000-mile train journey to California on Christmas morning and Wade had them on the practice field that afternoon. The Crimson Tide had arrived in Pasadena the defending national champions riding a 20-game win streak and they were ready to play. Their opponent wasn't cowed in the least.

In the 1920s, Stanford was coached by Glenn Scobey Warner, better known by his nickname "Pop." Warner was a legendary figure due to his success at Georgia, Cornell, Pittsburgh and Carlisle Indian Industrial School where he coached Jim Thorpe. Warner had revolutionized football with his innovative strategies. One of which, the single wing, had become a standard of Wade’s dynamic offensive attack. Hired by the Cardinal in 1924, Warner quickly built the team into a West Coast football power.

He led Stanford to a 6-1 season and the Pacific Coast Conference championship. A Rose Bowl invitation followed matching the Cardinal against Knute Rockne and the famed Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. While Warner's team dominated the Fighting Irish for most of the contest, Notre Dame capitalized on three Stanford turnovers to win it 27-10. Two seasons later Stanford amassed a 9-0 record, another conference crown and an invitation to spend New Year’s Day in Pasadena.

On Jan. 1, 1927, a record Rose Bowl crowd of 57,417 showed up on a sunny and hot afternoon to see the showdown of the last undefeated and untied teams in the country. The United Press called it "the football championship of America" and demand for tickets was so great organizers had added extra stands to boost the stadium’s capacity by 4,000 seats. The game also boasted a national audience as NBC made it the first coast-to-coast radio broadcast with famed sports broadcaster Graham McNamee calling the play-by-play.

Stanford wasted no time trying to get the upper hand. On the Card’s first play from scrimmage the teams fullback and primary passer, Clifford Hoffman, threw a 40-yard pass to end Ted Shipkey. First down on the Alabama 27-yard line. The Crimson Tide defense stepped up and forced Stanford’s George Bogue to try an 18-yard field goal. The kick went wide and Alabama took over on downs. Yet, three unsuccessful running plays later the Crimson Tide was forced to punt.

Then things got a little crazy. Stanford’s William Hyland caught the ball but before he could return it he was hit Alabama’s Fred Pickhard. Hyland fumbled the ball and Alabama’s Herschel Caldwell scooped it up… only to fumble it himself. Shipkey finally fell on it giving the Card’s possession and starting their drive again. It wasn't until late in the quarter that Stanford completed a 63-yard drive with a five-yard-pass from Bogue to Ed Walker who scrambled the remaining yard into the end zone. A successful extra point kick by Bogue made it 7-0 Stanford.

The second and third quarters produced a scoreless defensive struggle. It wasn't until well into the final period that either team had a real chance to score. Late in the fourth quarter Stanford was forced to punt from their own 42-yard-line and Alabama’s Baba Pearce blocked the kick. The Crimson Tide recovered the ball at the Card’s 14.

Knowing he'd need fresh legs to run the ball, Wade sent in running back Jimmy Johnson who had not played all afternoon due to a dislocated shoulder. On the first play of the drive, Hoyt "Wu" Winslett carried the ball three yards. Johnson then got the ball and ground out four more. Two more carries by Winslett got the ball to the Stanford one-yard-line and Johnson made the final carry into the end zone for the score.

Wade was taking no chances on getting the extra point and relied on a bit of deception to make sure the kick went good. As Alabama got set for the play, running back and signal caller Emile Barnes stood up and yelled "Signals off!" Stanford’s players took this to mean Alabama was going to reset for the play and relaxed for a moment. Instead, Crimson Tide center Gordon "Sherlock" Holmes snapped the ball, Winslett placed it on the ground and kicker Herschel Caldwell put it through the uprights to tie the game at 7-7.

On the following possession, Stanford started at their own 22-yard-line but only had time to get off two plays. With no overtime the final score stood 7-7. The game would be the final Rose Bowl to conclude with a tie and the outcome resulted in Alabama and Stanford sharing the National Champion title.

Stanford returned to Pasadena the next year to face the University of Pittsburgh. The Cardinal edged the Panthers 7-6 to give Warner his only Rose Bowl victory. Although Alabama would not return to the Rose Bowl for another four years, the two successive New Year’s Day contests had cemented the program’s future. The Crimson Tide was now a household name across the country and that brought greater attention to both the football team and the university itself.

In addition, the proceeds from the two Rose Bowl games helped pay the $150,000 cost to construct Alabama’s own football stadium. On Sept. 28, 1929 the school opened the 12,000-seat Denny Stadium – named for the University’s president George Hutchenson Denny.

Perhaps the most important impact of the 1927 Rose Bowl for Alabama’s football program went completely unnoticed at the time. In rural Arkansas, a 13-year-old boy listened to the historic broadcast of the game on the radio and heard the siren call of his destiny.

"I never imagined anything could be that exciting," recalled Paul W. Bryant years later. "I still didn’t have much of an idea what football was, but after listening to that game, I had it in my mind I wanted to go Alabama and play in the Rose Bowl."

A version of this article first appeared on Roll Bama Roll.