B1G history: Northwestern riots, 1925
I was inspired by the most recent MGoBlog roundtable at WTKA to look into the 1925 football season, specifically the Northwestern game played at Soldier Field in what must have been horrible conditions. The story is well-told by Northwestern Wildcat Football.
The weather was so bad that only 20,000 showed up at the game, well short of the number of tickets sold. Northwestern actually punted on their first play from scrimmage, and Benny Friedman fumbled the kick. The ball was recovered by an NU player, who started running towards the end zone. But he was so caked with mud that he was tackled by NU's captain, Tim Lowry, on the 2 yard line. NU couldn't score a touchdown and so had to kick a field goal. Those were the only 3 points scored against Michigan that year.
The only other score of the game was a safety that NU took intentionally to avoid disaster. At the time, the team that took a safety got the ball back on their 30 yard line. The aftermath, as described by the book:
The rest of the game was a series of punts... Northwestern put all 11 of its players on the defensive line... Northwestern pulled off one of the biggest upsets in history. Yost was furious and played a major role later in getting the rules of football changes, so that a team that has suffered a safety must free kick the ball to its opponent. .....
After the game the Wildcat fans waged riots across Chicago, Evanston and on campus. Ecstatic students returned from Soldier Field and doused an abanadoned fraternity house with oil, setting the buildingon fire. By the time firemen arrived, students had thronged the fire and were chanting and singing wildly. The firemen turned their hoses on the rioters in an effort to calm them. The students overpowered the stunned firemen, took their axes and destroyed the fire hoses. Students also attempted to burn down what remained of Northwestern Field, but were turned back by waves of police. The mob moved into downtown Evanston and built a bonfire so large that the heat melted the overhead wires for the city's trolley system, sending the trolley supports crashing. The Evanston chief of police had to send in men armed with tear gas to disperse the fans.
February 14th, 2015 at 11:56 AM ^
February 14th, 2015 at 11:57 AM ^
Now THAT is a riot.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:03 PM ^
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February 14th, 2015 at 12:03 PM ^
So basically your average run-of-the-mill autumn Saturday night in East Lansing?
February 14th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
not a word about burning couches. Maybe they didn't invent the couch yet.
February 14th, 2015 at 2:11 PM ^
February 14th, 2015 at 2:16 PM ^
February 14th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^
They burned the davenport.
February 15th, 2015 at 9:09 AM ^
Funny. My mother always says davenport.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^
not a word about burning couches. Maybe they didn't invent the couch yet.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
so I did it twice
February 14th, 2015 at 12:51 PM ^
MSU dreams of rioting like that. Sounds like they would've burned Evanston to the ground without police intervention. They took axes from firefighters! Sparty Bros would be telling them to calm it down a bit
February 14th, 2015 at 12:08 PM ^
with my oldest brother who played ball there in the 70's.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
February 14th, 2015 at 3:34 PM ^
That's smaller than some high school stadiums...
February 14th, 2015 at 12:22 PM ^
Ahhh, the good old days when it meant something to beat Michigan. I miss being hated.
Jim Harbaugh was born to fix this.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
I can't imagine being a Northwestern fan when they play Michigan. Losing to us the past four seasons with some of the most crap-tastic games I've ever seen.
February 14th, 2015 at 4:14 PM ^
That goes without mentioning the amount of luck Michigan has gotten as well.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
A little search of WeatherSource indicates that the observed max temperature in Chicago on that day was 48 degrees, so yeah, thunderstorm, wind and a cold, piercing monsoon....I kind of get the full picture on the decision of a few dozen thousand now. That being said, the Purdue game in 1995 - one of the worst weather games I can recall (but not the worst), and I stayed for the whole thing.
February 14th, 2015 at 7:20 PM ^
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February 14th, 2015 at 7:52 PM ^
February 14th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
And that's why Northwestern's not allowed to be good at football
February 14th, 2015 at 1:57 PM ^
back in 1925 all that dramatic activity and not a single tweet or video. What a different world that was.
February 14th, 2015 at 3:46 PM ^
February 14th, 2015 at 3:58 PM ^
In this year's HTTV I have a piece about Yost, focusing on the 1925 season and including the riots---not after the game---but after Yost proclaimed UM the BT champs. The NU fans threatened to burn down their own stadium until the NU team captain and other players stopped it---arguing there wouldn't be a place to play in the following year. Sound logic, I assume.
NU histories have spun it so the riots occured after the game, but I don't think this is right, since the Chicago papers reported it happening much later. Cost me a lot of money (well, $ 3.95) to dredge up the reporting on the event---and it did not happen post-game, as far as I can tell.
February 14th, 2015 at 4:22 PM ^
My 1st thought was I can't wait til it's that big a deal to beat Michigan in football again! Camp Randall '93 anyone?
I mean, people shouldn't die or anything, but beating Michigan should inspire dangerous levels of delirium among our rivals it should be so rare!
February 14th, 2015 at 6:51 PM ^
Thanks. It was your comment that made me go looking. Then, after I posted the story, I started wondering about what you had said on the broadcast.
The Tribute has a short story about the riots here, on November 26, whereas the game was on November 7th and the post-game article in the Tribune says nothing about riots. So you must be right (not that I doubted you).
PS This is really funny from my perspective (I teach the Classics) from the November 9th Tribute article:
That 3 to 2 score means more than just an athletic triumph.
Amateur sports are and should be part of university education. The academic is only one dimension of college life. Fathers send their boys to college from more than a tutoring in the principles of Latin and the rudiments of history, the fundamentals of economics, and the formulas of philosophy. They send them away from home to get a sort of character training they cannot receive in the shelter of the home, and sports--football notable among them--furnish their share of that education which is not found in the curriculum.
Northwestern's victory over Michigan will advertise to the country that they build backbone at Evanston as well as at Ann Arbor.
I'm looking forward to the HTTV piece!
February 15th, 2015 at 2:09 AM ^
...thanks for this, and for following up on my comment.
My sister, a NU alum, resident of Evanston and diehard Fighting Methodist/Bear/Wildcat fan remains in denial about the 1925 riot. But like for most NU fans, denial (and backbone) are valuable commodities.
February 14th, 2015 at 8:47 PM ^
Must really suck to be in Hawaii right now. My sympathies.
February 15th, 2015 at 1:06 AM ^
...no schadenfreude from me. I don't lack appreciation for my good fortune.
Keep warm, my friend.
February 14th, 2015 at 6:28 PM ^
February 15th, 2015 at 12:51 AM ^