ROSES OF CRIMSON

An episode of The Alabama Experience documentary series

STUDY GUIDE

This program was produced by Tom Rieland

Suggested grade levels: 8-12: This program is appropriate for classes in Alabama history and social sciences or as enrichment as it relates to Alabama and Southern culture.

The program is nearly 59 minutes long, but is divided into numerous titled subsegments, which provide convenient stopping points. We'd suggest two viewing sessions:

1. :00-28:20 (to the end of the segment entitled "Tusca-loser")

This first 28 minutes sets up the 1926 Rose Bowl victory with a history of Southern football ineptness and a profile of some of the key players and coaches who helped bring Alabama football to the forefront in the 1920s.

2. 28:21 - 58:45 (cut short by 1:25 if you stop before credits)

This segment begins with the "Those damn Yankees" segment and proceeds through the description of the Rose Bowl game and aftermath.

Introduction

It was the most important game in the history of Southern football. The University of Alabama was chosen in 1925 to represent the "East" and go to Pasadena, California, to play in the Rose Bowl against Washington. It was the first time a Southern team had ever been invited to the only collegiate bowl game of the time. This game would represent a turning point in the Southern mindset about the game of football. Some historians say if Alabama had lost badly (as it was expected to), the South wouldn't have spent so much emotional energy from the late 1920s to today on this sport. The South would instead have perhaps become widely known for its literature or some other activity.

As it was, Alabama shocked the country by beating Washington in what is still considered one of the most exciting bowl games ever played.

The Players

The list of major "players" at Alabama, which led to the school's football success begins with University President George Denny, who was committed to developing a successful football team. He hired a relatively unknown but well-respected young coach named Wallace Wade in 1922 and in only two years Wade won Alabama's first Southern Championship. Wade molded several players into stars.

•Johnny Mack Brown, the son of a Dothan shoe salesman, was an elusive and explosive runner and receiver. His key catches turned the Rose Bowl game around.

•Bruce Jones, whose father worked numerous odd jobs around Jasper, played offensive and defensive guard and served as team captain.

•Grant Gillis, one of 11 children out of Grove Hill, a strong passer, receiver and one of the best punters in the game.

•Alison "Pooley" Hubert, was the hard-nosed quarterback, linebacker and on-the-field coach who directed the team. Hubert was called "Papa" by his teammates since he was a 24 year-old senior on the team. He had dropped out of high school to serve in WWI. Hubert, of Meridian, Mississippi, was heavily recruited by Princeton after the war, but lasted only a few weeks on the New Jersey campus. He came back South to be closer to his family, calling the Princeton teachers "atheists" and landed in President Denny's office looking for a spot on the Alabama team. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Times

These years between the end of World War I and the collapse of the stock market in 1929 are called the "golden age" of American football. The sport's popularity on college campuses grew to new heights. Stadium building was in vogue. Concrete was poured on every campus harboring a respectable football team. In Alabama, both Legion Field in Birmingham and Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa were built in the 20's. Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, Pop Warner, Red Grange at Illinois, the Four Horsemen and hundreds of other figures made football the most loved and most criticized sport of the times.

It helped that collegiate football was able to promote itself through a group of pretentious but talented sportswriters such as Grantland Rice.

The South's universities found new emphasis placed on fielding a competitive football team, but the region's reputation was tainted (again) by the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial" in Tennessee and the rise to power of the Ku Klux Klan. It was in this intersectional atmosphere that Alabama emerged as not only a football power, but as a representative of what was "good and decent" about the South.

The Game

Hollywood couldn't have scripted a better game. Rose Bowl officials had reluctantly extended an invitation to the Crimson Tide to come west and take on the mighty Washington Huskies, led by one of the most fierce backs in the country - George Wilson.

As Alabama loaded the team train for the 3,000 mile trip to California, Coach Wade decided to bring along 55 gallon drums of Alabama drinking water to make sure none of the team contracted any illnesses from "foreign" water.

National sportswriters, who unanimously chose Washington to stomp Alabama, began to slowly narrow the odds as they watched the Alabama team practice in the California sun. Telegrams poured into Pasadena, urging Wade, Hubbert and company to fight for the honor of Dixie. In this era before television or national radio, people across the South gathered in lodges, auditoriums and theaters to hear recreations of the game as the details came in on tickertape.

The Rose Bowl of 1926 united the South as the people cheered for the underdogs, their gallant Southern soldiers. But the results didn't look promising as Washington led 12-nothing at halftime. Alabama must have been shocked themselves, because they had allowed only 7 points to be scored on them all season long.

Wade changed strategy at halftime. He had feared the Huskies great size would "kill Hubert" if he let him run the ball up the middle. Now, Wade told Hubbert to try and pound it down their throats. On defense, he replaced some of the lighter defensive linemen (including Wu Winslett, who in 1998 was the only player from the team still living) with heavier players to slow down Washington's offense.

These strategies, coupled with the fact that Washington's George Wilson was injured and on the sideline during the third quarter, resulted in an Alabama explosion. The Tide scored three straight touchdowns in just 7 minutes of playing time to take the lead, 20-12.

Wilson returned and the Tide hung on to pull out a 20-19 victory.

The Aftermath

The aftermath is best described by some of the interview subjects within the documentary:

"The 1926 Rose Bowl was the most significant event in Southern football history. What had come before was like a buildup, a preparation for this grand coming-out party. And it was a sublime tonic for Southerners who were buffeted by a legacy of defeat."

Andrew Doyle, Historian.

"This was the keystone of Alabama football. This is when Alabama football stopped being a totally regional affair and became a national affair."

Clyde Bolton, Sportswriter

"If the South had won at Gettysburg, the reports in the newspapers would've been just like the reports of January 2^nd, 1926. It was as if Southerners had proven something that the South had been trying to prove ever since the Civil War. That we are as good as anybody else."

Wayne Flynt, Historian

Classroom Tips Before Viewing

· Do the students believe football in the South holds more cultural relevance than collegiate football elsewhere? If so, why? What cultural reasons have led some to call football "a religion" and every Saturday "a holy day of obligation?"

· When did football fervor begin?

· When they think of great Southern football coaches and players of the past, who do they think of?

Classroom Tips After Viewing

· Compare your preconceptions about Southern football's history before watching this documentary and after. Have they changed? What, if anything, surprised you?

· What cultural impact do you think this Rose Bowl victory had on Alabama and the South?

· What do you make of Wayne Flynt's final interview segment: "What would have happened if Alabama had lost badly in 1926? Would football then had become the sort of important defining experience for the South that it is going to become over the next five decades?" What do you think? Why?

Student Project Ideas

Research projects related to this documentary might include:

· What was the Scopes Trial and how did it reflect nationally on the South?

· Who were the sportswriters who made the 20s the "golden age." How did they write differently than today's writers?

· Analyze your local high school's football history. When was desegregation an issue? Have any players made it in the collegiate or professional ranks?

· Were there any great African-American players in the 1920s? What teams fielded these players? What were the repercussions?

· Look at how football rules during the 1925 season compare to football rules today. How did this impact the players and coaches? (For instance: it was illegal in 1925 to have coaches signal or yell in plays or even send in a substitute player with a new play)

· Compare the talent level and physical nature of players in 1925 and today. How has "platooning" changed the game? (Note: Players were much smaller in the 20s, but had to play offense and defense without a rest. If you were substituted for, you could not play the rest of that half.)

· What happened to Alabama football after the 1926 Rose Bowl? Track the ups and downs of Crimson Tide on a chart and discuss how well future coaches performed.

· Report on the career of Johnny Mack Brown. He went back to California a year after his Rose Bowl heroics and became a cowboy movie star.

· Are any of these Alabama players from the 1925 team born and raised in your school's area? If so, find out about their descendents:

The 1925 Alabama Football Team
(Source: Birmingham News, December, 1925)

NOTE: Usually only 12-16 players played in the game for Alabama. All the players were from within the state with two exceptions.

Starters:

Top Reserves:

"Boys, I'd like to introduce you to Coach Wallace Wade. He's the man responsible for the great tradition of Alabama football." Bear Bryant introduced Wade at a 1980 practice. Wade lived to be 94 years old.

Bibliography

There are a few good reference guides to Alabama and Southern football history.

The Crimson Tide - A Story of Alabama football, Clyde Bolton, Strode Publishers, 1972.

Talk of the Tide - An Oral History of Alabama Football since 1920, John Forney and Steve Townsend, Crane Hill, 1993

Rose Bowl Football since 1902, Herb Michelson, Stein and Day, 1977.

The Impact of Southern Football, Zipp Newman, Bell Publishing, 1969.

Sport's Golden Age - A Close-up of the Fabulous Twenties, Allison Danzig, Editor, Books for Libraries Press, 1969.

Unforgettable Days in Southern Football, Clyde Bolton, Strode Publishers, 1974.

Alabama- The History of a Deep South State, Rogers, Ward, Atkins & Flynt, UA Press, 1994.

Produced by Tom Rieland at The Unversity of Alabama Center for Public Television & Radio.

For additional information about using these materials in your classroom, call Alabama Public Television Educational Services, 1-800-239-5233

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