Forgotten Blue - Willie Heston
Recently my new BFF It's Harambe took on the thankless task of asking his fellow MgoBloggers to rank the top 25 Michigan athletes of all time. As the list was revealed it was clear to this reader that some of the most notable players who competed during the athletic stone age (pre-internet) had been forgotten about. This weekly diary will take a look at the more notable players from our past to remind everyone of what they did and why they deserve to be honored and remembered.
WILLIE HESTON
Notre Dame’s legendary coach Knute Rockne named Heston “the greatest back of all time.” He told a reporter:“Willie Heston gets my vote as the greatest back of all time. Since those days many wonderful backs have flashed on the gridiron, including Red Grange and my own Four Horsemen of 1924, and my choice is still Heston.”
With Heston in the backfield, the Michigan Wolverines had four of the most successful seasons in the history of college football. The 1901 to 1904 teams became known as the "Point-a-Minute" teams because they averaged more than a point for every minute played. The 1901 team was 11-0 and outscored its opponents 555 to 0. The 1902 team was 11-0 and outscored its opponents 644 to 12. The 1903 team was 11-0-1 and outscored opponents 565 to 6. And the 1904 team was 10-0 and outscored its opponents 577 to 22. In Heston's four years as the starting left halfback, Michigan compiled an overall record of 43-0-1 and outscored its opponents 2,326 to 40.
During his four years at Michigan, Heston was known as a work-horse of the Wolverines' offense. In a 1903 game against the Chicago Maroons, the Michigan team gained 267 yards rushing, and Heston accounted for 237 of them. Noting the frequency with which Heston carried the ball, Ring Lardner wrote, "Michigan called Heston's signal. Maybe it was the only one they had."[8]
Heston later wrote that his first touchdown at Michigan was his greatest thrill in football. His first game for Michigan was a September 1901 match against Albion College. Heston was put into the game in the second half. While sitting on the bench, he noticed that Albion's quarterback made long lateral passes to the backs. Heston snuck through the line, grabbed the ball as the quarterback was trying to throw it to a back, and ran the ball back 30 yards for his first Michigan touchdown.[9]
In the inaugural Rose Bowl game played on January 1, 1902, Heston rushed for 170 yards on 18 carries, as Michigan defeated Stanford 49 to 0. Heston held the record for most rushing yards in a Rose Bowl game for 59 years.
Historic accounts differ on the number of touchdowns scored by Heston. In a letter to Grantland Rice in 1925, Fielding H. Yost claimed that Heston had scored 106 touchdowns at Michigan.The University of Michigan gives the total as 72 touchdowns, which it reports is still the school record. Other sources have variously reported that Heston scored 92 touchdowns, 93 touchdowns, and "more than 100 touchdowns." In 2013 Heston was voted one of the best 25 Michigan football players of all time by the Victors Club and The Football Writers Association of America named Heston as the halfback for its all-time team for the first 50 years of college football.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Heston
https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2010/09/25/willie-who-willie-hesto…
September 7th, 2016 at 12:47 PM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 1:53 PM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^
Wow. Just wow.
I enjoyed reading this diary. Thanks for taking the time for put it together.
September 7th, 2016 at 2:30 PM ^
A good read.
September 7th, 2016 at 2:48 PM ^
Played for Yost at San Jose State. When Yost arrived he sent for Willie. After playing he became a lawyer and a judge in Detroit.
September 7th, 2016 at 3:15 PM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 3:17 PM ^
Yeah, I skipped the list for the most part as I figured it would just make me mad.
September 7th, 2016 at 3:30 PM ^
I seriously think I can make it to the start of OT season next April without too much trouble given the sheer number of great Michigan players from our past. I mean hockey & baseball alone (two sports completely missed on the poll) will take up 4-6 slots as will basketball (Bill Buntin, Henry Willmore, Ricky Green, Gary Grant, etc). And we have SO many amazing football players from the past 100 years that have slipped from our collective memory.
The "final five" of the list was pretty good IMO with the glaring ommission of Cazzie Russell IMO. The head-scratchers to me were Braylon Edwards at #9, Lamarr Woodley at #22 and Anthony Thomas at #25. None of them (again IMO) belonged on a list of the top 25 greatest Michigan athletes of all time.
Heston was the first because I think his ommission from the list was the most glaring and probably the most understandable given how long ago he played. Next week's will be far more recent and a player from my generation who's recently been inducted into his sport's professional hall of fame.
September 7th, 2016 at 3:48 PM ^
Braylon is #3 in a pretty spectacular list of receivers behind legends Howard and Carter, was an elite receiver for three years, and the dominant receiver in the nation his senior year. Perhaps he's high, but I don't think he's an inappropriate inclusion in the top 25 at all.
Good to know you'll be filling in some hockey players. We've had some great ones.
EDIT: if this is a series, can you create a tag for it? It will be handy for people to check them all out.
September 7th, 2016 at 4:31 PM ^
Yes, it's my plan to make this an on-going series so I'll tag them (never done that before) and I'll bet you a box of girl scout cookies that once you see the next 10-15 names on the Forgotten Blue list you'll rethink having Braylon on the top 25.
Not saying he wasnt everything you said and part of the greatest single Michigan game I've EVER attended, but does he belong in the top 25 of all time Michigan athletes in all sports?
Nope.
September 7th, 2016 at 3:58 PM ^
Now I'm mad.
It was seeing the A-train at 25 that tipped me off that the list would not be conducive to my sense of well being. I figure he was the poster child for two biases that drive me nuts: recency and stats generating positoins. Love the A train but is he even one of the 25 best football players since 1969?
September 8th, 2016 at 1:06 PM ^
Cazzie made the list, he just wasn't top 5 (he was 14).
September 7th, 2016 at 4:00 PM ^
Wait a minute...zero hockey players made it into that 25 greatest Michigan athletes poll?! I didn't pay attention to the poll, but wow that's a travesty.
September 7th, 2016 at 4:16 PM ^
MIchigan faced the Michigan Agricultural College (which became MSU) and beat them 119-0. Willie Heston didn't even play in the game! Right halfback Albert Herrnstein ran back a kickoff the length of the field and scored seven touchdowns in the game.
September 7th, 2016 at 5:23 PM ^
I had the same thought when I looked at the list. If we brag about having the most wins in college history, we should know about some of the greats that helped us achieve those bragging rights. I look forward to your list.
September 7th, 2016 at 6:21 PM ^
When was the vote held? They revealed the top 25 and I don't recall ever having the chance to vote.
September 8th, 2016 at 5:43 AM ^
Which means he got to watch Heston play in person. My grandpa died when I was 8 so I never had the opportunity to talk to him about his college days in Ann Arbor.
This is a page from his own photo scrapbook from his time in school, but unfortunately Heston isn't in it.
September 8th, 2016 at 8:53 AM ^
So you are saying your avatar picture is your actual picture? I'm old and my Father graduated in '42. Trying to make the math work without you being 100.
September 8th, 2016 at 9:54 AM ^
September 8th, 2016 at 12:13 PM ^
Interesting fact. I looked it up because i couldnt understand how that could happen but you are right. Tyler fathered a son in his 60s and his son fathered two sons in his 70s. Crazy to think someone alive today could have had a grandfather born in 1790.
If Don's family followed this timeline, and Don was the equivalent of the younger of the two Tyler grandchildren alive today, Don wouldnt be born until 1920.......
September 8th, 2016 at 8:26 PM ^
Somewhere on Youtube (I cannot locate it at this moment) there is a clip from the 1950's-1960's game show I've Got A Secret that has two older ladies as guests. Their secret: their grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War.
EDIT: Here it is. It's from 1961. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6swMZfNip0E
There's also another one of a 96 year old man on the same show (different episode) that witnessed Lincoln's assassination as a 5-year old boy.
September 10th, 2016 at 4:03 PM ^
September 8th, 2016 at 10:12 AM ^
September 8th, 2016 at 11:32 AM ^
September 8th, 2016 at 10:20 PM ^
My grandfather was born in Tecumseh in 1884 (amazingly enough, my daughter was born on my grandfather's 100th birthday), and spent a number of years in his youth in Ann Arbor; my great-grandfather was one of the co-owners of the old Ann Arbor Argus newspaper for a few years in the 1890s. My dad was born in Kalamazoo in 1915, but he lived in houses on Packard and then Wells for a few years in the 1920s. Eventually my granddad got a teaching position at Mizzou in Columbia, and that's where my dad spent most of his years growing up. I was born in '53, so you can do the math from there. Yes, I'm old—I still have memories of my father's frustrations being a U-M fan during the Bump era when MSU and OSU kicked our ass regularly.
I came by my active dislike of Ohio State as a matter of genetics and conditioning—my father despised two people in football: George Halas and Woody Hayes. Especially Woody.
September 8th, 2016 at 11:39 AM ^
It's his grandfather who attended during the Heston years, not his father. There can be large age gaps between two generations.
My dad was the youngest of his family, and his father was about 40 when he was born. He was then in his late 30s when I was born.
September 8th, 2016 at 10:23 AM ^
September 8th, 2016 at 8:29 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 8th, 2016 at 2:16 AM ^
I'll say it: Who really forgot about Willie Heston? I guess I don't take the people who voted in that farce of a poll to really have the kind of knowledge most people have about the history of MIchigan athletics.
September 8th, 2016 at 1:20 PM ^
Really depends on what you mean by "most people" here. I'm not at all surprised that a player who played a hundred years ago was not first to many people's minds when there are many excellent athletes that people remember actually watching perform.
September 8th, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^
September 8th, 2016 at 3:33 PM ^
September 9th, 2016 at 5:45 AM ^
Excellent Diary MGrowOld. I admit that I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to the legends so this was very interesting. That probably comes with the territory when you switch your allegence from MSU to Michigan as a Senior in High School.
September 9th, 2016 at 1:30 PM ^
I love posts like this.
Well done.
September 9th, 2016 at 11:11 PM ^
Great feature and I look forward to the rest that you do. I scoffed at the top 25 list because it had far too many recent players. "Darn kids have no appreciation of history!" Whenever my teenage son asks me things like, "Is Lebron the greatest baskeball player of all time?" I immediately answer, "No." Then he will ask, "Was Jordan the greatest?" and I will immediately answer, "No." I don't even really think about it rationally. I automatically assume the older generation players were better.
So I look at that top 25 list and wonder things like, "Do people not understand what Bennie Oosterbaan did?" But it's hard to compare such different eras. And people automatically gravitate to what they have seen themselves. But I'm guilty of the same things. Why do I love Anthony Carter and Rob Lytle so much? Because I saw them when I was a kid.
Anyway, it will be fun to see who you come up with in future posts. Thank you for doing these.
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