The Opening Kickoff Read online

  In November 1894, in front of an overflow crowd of 25,000 fans in Springfield, Massachusetts, Harvard and Yale played one of the most violent games in the history of the sport. The newspaper accounts were vivid in their descriptions:

  “Hayes gained two yards around right end, and Hinkey, in attempting to stop him, hit him a blow right in the face with his fist.”

  “It seemed to be Hinkey’s main object to disable the best players of Harvard.”

  “In one of the quick line ups Murphy gave Hallowell a quick smash in the eye that escaped the notice of both umpire and referee.”

  “Butterworth had grown worse and was staggering about the field weak and useless.”

  “In one of the fierce rushes [Murphy] was knocked senseless. It was five minutes before he got up and rubbed his head with a ‘Mamma, where am I?’ look on his face.”

  “After a wait to two minutes [Murphy] staggered to his feet, but was plainly in no condition to play football. He did not even know which was his goal, and between each two plays had to have the situation explained to him.”

  Yale won the game 12–4, but the result was clearly secondary to the violence. Toward the end of the game, Murphy was taken off the field on a stretcher and transported to the local hospital. Word began to circulate that he had died. While those rumors proved unfounded, there were some who believed the game itself had been dealt a fatal blow.

  “An ordinary rebellion in the South American or Central American States is as child’s play compared with the destructiveness of [to]day’s game,” the New York Times proclaimed, while the Boston Globe asserted, “It is inevitable that what took place today should create no end of discussion as to whether the game should be continued or not.”

  Dr. William A. Brooks, a former Harvard captain, announced that he would not officiate the following week’s Princeton–Yale game due to his disgust over the state of the sport. “No more serious blow has ever been delivered against the American game of football than the manner in which the Harvard–Yale game was played today,” Brooks declared. “I am . . . convinced that unless representatives of both universities learn to play the game free from objectionable features, the game must stop.”

  Harvard’s president, Charles Eliot, an outspoken opponent of the sport, said of football in his President’s Report the following spring, “It has become perfectly clear that the game as now played is unfit for college use.” Though Harvard refused to play Yale for the next two seasons, the sport did go on. And more than a thousand miles away from Springfield, in the small isthmus city of Madison, Wisconsin, it soon spawned a new superstar.

  Chapter Five

  To Madison

  Andy O’Dea and four other young men stood on the shores of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, gazing at the choppy water. It was early on a Monday morning—April 6, 1896. Just two days earlier, they had been out on the lake, beginning their training for the upcoming season in the two newly purchased shells that now rested on the shore beside them.

  Andy and three of the other men had eagerly anticipated moments like this one all winter, training in the gymnasium on a stationary rowing machine, urging one another on. Though they wanted nothing more than to take the boats back out, it became clear that this was not a morning for crew practice. The northwest wind was howling, chilling them to the bone, and more importantly, the waves were high. While the boats were sleek, they were also fragile and easily swamped. Heading out at this hour would be too risky, and disappointed as they were, they all knew it.

  Andy was preparing for his second season as the coach of the Wisconsin rowers. Among those alongside him were three of the students who had helped him build a competitive team in 1895—sophomores L. C. Street, Curran McConville, and John Day.

  Andy hadn’t anticipated standing beside the other man, but he was certainly pleased to be in his company. Pat O’Dea had arrived in Madison only weeks earlier. Bored with his life in Australia and in search of a new adventure, he had come to North America at least in part to find his brother. He was aware that Andy was on the vast continent, though he didn’t know exactly where.

  Pat had arrived in Vancouver and, knowing of Andy’s interest in boxing and rowing, began to inquire in gyms and at boathouses about his brother. One of the oarsmen told him that an Andy O’Dea, practitioner of the unusual Yarra-Yarra stroke, had recently taken a job as the crew coach at Wisconsin. Pleased to get the tip, Pat shook the man’s hand in thanks. “There are maybe a thousand Andy O’Dea’s in the world,” he told him, “but only one who could be teaching the Australian stroke ‘Yarra-Yarra’ at Wisconsin.” So Pat hopped on a train and made the long journey to Madison.

  He stepped off into a thriving small city. Electric streetcars, which had replaced the wildly unpopular mule-driven models four years earlier, whirred busily through the town’s streets. Of Madison’s roughly 16,000 residents, about 650 had telephone service, a number that would more than double during the next four years. Electric lights, introduced to the city just eight years earlier, now illuminated its streets and homes. Still, the town’s leaders were wrestling with the perplexing issue of disposing with Madison’s raw sewage. The decision to dump it into the lakes that surrounded the isthmus city had proven to be a bad one, with the shorelines now “covered with fecal matter in varying stages of decay.”

  Human excrement aside, the lakes did provide a lovely backdrop for the university town, which doubled as the center of the state’s government. A gorgeous white-domed capital building dominated the downtown square, a hub of urban activity. A new city boathouse, designed by a little known native son named Frank Lloyd Wright, highlighted the Lake Mendota shoreline, just a few hundred yards from the university campus. The school itself was growing rapidly, with a total enrollment of nearly 1,300 students, a number that had increased more than 50 percent over the previous four years.

  When he arrived on campus, Pat quickly happened upon John “Ikey” Karel, who told the Aussie that he knew where to find his brother and ushered him down to the boathouse. Though the siblings hadn’t seen each other for years, their exchange was unsentimental and matter-of-fact.

  “Hello,” said Pat to Andy.

  “Hello,” said Andy to Pat, “what brought you here?”

  “I got tired of Australia.”

  “Well this is a good place.”

  That was apparently all the convincing Pat needed. He decided to stay. Ikey helped him find a place to live, and Pat O’Dea began to assimilate into campus life.

  Andy’s crew team had seemed like the perfect place to start, which was how Pat found himself on the shore that blustery early spring day. The five men stood in silence for a while, trying to will the winds to stop, but it was clear that conditions weren’t going to improve any time soon. The students among them agreed to head to class and to give it a shot again in the afternoon.

  They reconvened hours later. The weather was marginally better. Yes, the wind was still blowing, but it had died down a bit during the course of the day. The water wasn’t exactly placid, but it was an improvement over the morning. Thoughts of the long winter cooped up inside flashed through their heads. They decided to give it a whirl.

  The first boat hit the water at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Andy was seated closer to the bow, and Street sat behind him in the stroke position. They headed northwest, directly into the wind, aiming for a popular spot called Picnic Point, a peninsula that jutted out into the lake about a mile from campus.

  A few moments later, the other three men set out in the second boat. As the newcomer, Pat rode in the back, serving as the coxswain. McConville sat toward the front, with Day behind him.

  As great an athlete as Pat was, he might have met his match in John Day. In addition to being a gifted rower, Day had recently won both the high jump and the pole vault at the university’s mid-winter athletic meet. He was one of the most popular students at Wisconsin, as we
ll, serving as president of the sophomore class. He was also a gifted orator. Day had been trained on that front by his mother, Janette, a well-known elocutionist. In fact, she had made the 40-mile journey from her home in Janesville, Wisconsin, to Madison over the weekend. Though she always enjoyed spending time with her only son, there was a professional component to her visit. On Wednesday evening, John was slated to compete in an oratorical contest, the winner of which would represent Wisconsin in the Northern competition later in the school year. Janette was in town to help her son perfect his speech.

  Andy and Street had made it about three-quarters of the way to Picnic Point when the weather quickly began to deteriorate. The winds picked up dramatically. The two men forged on, hoping that the squall would pass. It did not. The tiny scull began rocking precariously as waves washed over it. Since they were closer to Picnic Point than they were to campus, they made the decision to keep rowing. The boat was filling up. They needed to turn it over to avoid sinking. The two rowers jumped overboard, and in the chaos, a stray oar hit Andy in the head. Street swam over to help his severely dazed coach. After much wrestling, they managed to position themselves over the underside of the boat. Clinging desperately to the hull, they shouted for help.

  About a quarter of a mile away and out of sight from the other boat, Pat and his fellow oarsmen were having similar problems. O’Dea’s hands were free, and he used them in an effort to bail out the boat. For a moment, it seemed that might work, but the winds picked up again and the waves crashed over them. It was clear to Pat that he was fighting a losing battle. He told Day and McConville that they would need to get out and turn the boat over. John’s eyes widened in panic as he revealed the secret he had never shared with his fellow oarsmen. John Day, regarded by some as the best athlete in the state of Wisconsin, didn’t know how to swim.

  Pat O’Dea sprang into action. As soon as they hit the water, he grabbed the flailing Day and pulled him up onto the underside of the boat, urging Day to hold on. The craft bobbed and swayed repeatedly in the turbulent waters. Their hands went numb from the bitter cold. They screamed for help.

  Back on dry land, a man named Stanley Wheeler was watching the rowers through the window of the engineering building, which afforded a beautiful view of the lake. His relaxation quickly turned to shock as he saw the men struggling. He scrambled down the stairs and out to the boathouse, yelling for help as he went. Several men came running, one of whom—Hereward Peele—would be a future football teammate of O’Dea. Wheeler quickly took charge. He helped Peele and another man get into a rowboat and launched them out toward the distressed crew members. Then, he and another responder got into boats of their own and followed closely behind.

  Exhausted, Andy and Street clung to their scull. The wind and waves tossed them off on a couple of occasions, but they managed to regain their grip. The situation on top of Pat’s boat was even more critical. Each time their group was tossed, they had to struggle mightily to get John Day back on board—a challenge exacerbated by the bitterly cold water.

  Pat gripped the boat with one hand and Day with the other. In the chaos, he saw Wheeler coming to rescue them, perhaps a hundred yards away. At that instant, a huge wave hit the boat, throwing the three men off, and Pat lost his hold on Day. By the time the Aussie got his bearings, Day had drifted a good distance away. Seeing that Curran McConville had regained his hold on the boat, Pat tried desperately to make his way over to John. But he had gone under. He never resurfaced.

  Devastated, Pat made his way back to the overturned shell just as Wheeler’s boat arrived. “Come on,” Wheeler screamed through the chaos. Pat looked at McConville. “You go first,” he shouted. “I’ll hold on here. Have them send someone for me once you get to shore.” He didn’t have to wait for long. Peele rowed up mere moments later and took Pat back to dry land with him.

  The third rescue boat reached Andy and Street a few minutes later. They had been in the frigid water for half an hour. Both men were sprawled across the now-overturned bottom of the boat, nearly unconscious. Andy was rushed to a local residence and Street was taken inside the gymnasium. Though the situation initially appeared dire, both survived.

  As his visiting mother cried uncontrollably on the shore and his father, alerted by telegraph, rushed to Madison from Janesville, a search party was dispatched in an effort to locate John Day. His body was recovered at just after nine o’clock that evening.

  A somber mood engulfed the university. An enormous group gathered the next morning at Fitch’s undertaking room, not far from the Wisconsin campus. Some mustered the courage to go take one last look at their friend. Others simply milled about in shock. Day’s body was placed in a hearse, and hundreds of students trailed behind as the procession made its way to the depot. From there, the coffin was taken by train to Janesville.

  John Day was laid to rest on Wednesday in a moving ceremony that included the reading of his contest speech. Pat and Andy O’Dea were among the many from the university in attendance. Perhaps due to that incident, Pat never competed for the Wisconsin crew team. He settled in as a law student, and the following fall, his athletic talents took him in a decidedly different direction.

  On a late September day in 1896, Pat was strolling through campus when he stumbled upon the football team going through its preseason practice. The Aussie was struck by the oddness of the sport. There were a few similarities to the Australian Rules game that was his specialty—lots of running and kicking. But this sport was played in fits and starts. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

  The next few moments border on the apocryphal—though Pat told and retold the story quite consistently throughout his life. A stray ball rolled in his direction. As he had so many times in Australia, O’Dea picked up the ball and booted it back toward the players. It flew far over their heads and landed perhaps 75 yards from where he was standing. The players looked at one another and started to shout at the unfamiliar figure. Thinking he had somehow made a breach of etiquette, Pat turned to walk away. But he was quickly intercepted by a short, curly-haired fellow who introduced himself as Phil King, head football coach.

  “Where did you learn to kick the ball like that?” King asked, sizing up the man who he instantly recognized as a potentially valuable weapon. O’Dea explained that he was Andy’s brother, and he had played footy in Australia.

  “How would you like to join our football team?” King asked. “We could really use you.”

  “That’s a Chinese game, not football,” O’Dea responded hesitantly.

  But the coach was apparently persuasive, as, by the next day, Pat O’Dea was a member of the Wisconsin football team.

  O’Dea joined at a time when the sport was beginning to pick up momentum on the Madison campus. Football had taken a little longer to gain a foothold at Wisconsin than it had at some other Midwestern universities. This was largely due to the resistance of John Bascom, the president of the school from 1874 to 1887, who, in the words of one university historian, “deplored college athletics.” His successor, Thomas Chamberlain, was only incrementally more enthusiastic, though he did allow the school to start competing in intercollegiate football in 1889.

  It was during the presidency of Charles Kendall Adams, who took over the university leadership in 1892, that football truly began to flourish in Madison. By the next year, the student newspaper, the Daily Cardinal, emphasized the need for all able-bodied students to participate. “Perhaps it is not morally wrong for a person who has athletic ability to keep out of competitive events,” the paper stated. “However there is no question but that it is very decidedly athletically wrong.”

  Within a few years, campus life in the fall began to revolve around the sport. “Football news filled the pages of the Daily Cardinal during the season to the exclusion of almost everything else,” a university history notes. “Victories were announced in bright red colors, defeats in funereal-black borders.�
�� Passion for the game occasionally got out of hand. A fight broke out at one off-campus boardinghouse after a Wisconsin student refused to pledge support for the team. By the time the scuffle ended, one young man had been shot in the foot.

  Adams initially hired Parke Davis, a former Princeton star, to coach the Badgers football team. He stayed for just one year and was succeeded by Stickney, the onetime Harvard player who had written Yale captain “Pa” Corbin a number of years earlier in search of a handout from Walter Camp. Stickney’s departure after two seasons paved the way for King to take over in 1896. When the former Princeton quarterback arrived on campus that fall, he became the seventh coach in the first eight years of the program’s existence.

  After King stumbled upon O’Dea, the Aussie had only a few days to acclimate himself before the Badgers’ season opener in Madison against Lake Forest College, a school located on the shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. Of that first game, O’Dea recalled many years later, “I didn’t even know the rules. I spent half the game watching it, and the second half playing.”

  Not much was expected of Lake Forest. The Badgers had won four of the five previous meetings between the schools, including a 26–5 victory in 1895. The general lack of enthusiasm was reflected in the crowd. A relatively small group of fans packed into the wooden covered grandstand that stood along one side of Randall Field, a former military base and fairgrounds that had been the site of Wisconsin sporting events for the past several seasons. In vintage student-journalist fashion, the Daily Cardinal reporter put his own (presumably nonpaying) job on the line when he wrote, “the present scribe will go out of business if the Varsity doesn’t win by 20 or 24 points to nothing.”