Who Was Don Downs?

Recently Dianne and I had an enjoyable meal at Ragtime Cafe on Valleydale Road. The restaurant has been operating in Hoover for over three decades. The inside walls are decorated with lots of sports images, much of it related to the University of Alabama, sad to say. Yet I did notice the painting below of an Auburn football player. So who was Don Downs??

As it turns out, Don Downs played wide receiver during the 1960, 1961, and 1962 seasons under Auburn coach Shug Jordan. The Sports Reference site lists him with 21 receptions as a senior, ranked 9th in the SEC. His 13.4 years per catch ranked 7th. Football rosters at Auburn University note that in 1962 he wore number 88, weighed 205 lbs. and was 6-1. His hometown was Birmingham, and he graduated from Ensley High School.

Downs' obituary at al.com has a death date of December 3, 2019. That piece also tells us that he was the first Auburn football player to earn a degree in Forest Management. After graduation Downs worked as a distribution consultant, which allowed him to travel. 

The artist for this painting, which is dated 1959, is Warren Pratt. I have been unable to find anything about him except for a few more paintings similar to this one. One ink and watercolor from 1955 depicts Sonny Humphreys in his University of Tennessee playing days. I also found a pastel Pratt painted of Oakland Athletics pitcher Rollie Fingers and one of Baltimore Orioles player Andy Atchebarren from 1971.  

If you know any more about Don Downs or Warren Pratt, let us know in the comments!

Oh, and if Downs played at Auburn 1960-62, why are the dates on the painting 1958 and 1959??

 

Punt, Bama, Punt! Auburn Does It 17-16

As the most recent one demonstrated, the annual Iron Bowl football contest between Auburn University and the University of Alabama can have all kinds of craziness. That was certainly true for the 1972 contest, the immortal "Punt, Bama, Punt!" game. As my brother Richard and I continue to clean out mom and dad's  house in Huntsville, we keep encountering all sorts of interesting things, and this blog post is about one of them. 

The sound recording seen below was mailed to Auburn University alumni in 1973 as a fund raiser for the university's foundation. In the game played December 2, 1972, Alabama was undefeated, ranked 2nd in the nation and a two-touchdown  favorite over Auburn. With less than 10 minutes left in the game, the score was  16-3 with Alabama leading when the Crimson Tide had to punt.  Auburn player Bill Newton blocked and teammate David Langner ran the ball back for a touchdown. Several minutes later, Alabama had to punt again, Newton again blocked it, and Langner again returned it for a touchdown. Langner intercepted an Alabama pass to seal Auburn's victory.  See the Wikipedia entry "Punt Bama Punt" for more details about the game. This item has a portion of the official Auburn Football Network broadcast with Gary Sanders and Gusty Yearout.

Auburn vs. Birmingham-Southern in 1938

In 1938 Auburn [then formally known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, but seldom called that] and Birmingham-Southern College met in the first football game of the season for both teams. The contest took place on September 23 at Crampton Bowl in Montgomery. Auburn managed to win 14-0 with a "late spurt" as the article below describes it.

That article was written by Bill Rollow for the Montgomery Advertiser. Also below is an excerpt declaring that "Auburn's play was unimpressive" and noting the team will have to greatly improve before the next game against Tulane. Birmingham-Southern had been a three touchdown underdog.

The teams would finish that season with similar records. Under fifth-year coach Jack Meagher the Tigers had a record of 4-5-1. The Panthers coach Jenks Gillem completed his eleventh season at 4-5. 

The Panthers home stadium was Legion Field, but they only played two games there that year. Some of their other games were played in New Orleans, Memphis, Mobile and Gadsden. Auburn played Tulane in New Orleans, and other teams in Houston, Atlanta and Jacksonville, Florida. They lost to Villanova in Philadelphia. Two games were played at Crampton Bowl, and Auburn defeated LSU at Legion Field. 

Source: Auburn University Libraries Digital Collections

Harold McInnish, center, Birmingham-Southern 

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History

Lewis Holliday, end, Birmingham-Southern. He did not start, but according to the newspaper account below he did play. 

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History 

Rollow notes later in the article that Auburn attempted no passes in the first half and "did not open up with anything but country store football." Their fanciest play in that half was four laterals after an interception that gained about a yard. 

Montgomery Advertiser, Saturday 24 September 1938, written by Bill Rollow

Larger version can be found at the source

Source: Newpapers.com

That Time Auburn Scored on Sewanee!

I recently watched the 2022 documentary Unrivaled: Sewanee 1899 about that year's football team at the University of the South, a small, private liberal arts college in the Tennessee town. The film is a fascinating look at what is often called the greatest team in college football history. The Tigers played twelve games between October 21 and December 3 that season, including an incredible November road trip of five in six days. No opponent scored on Sewanee except Auburn. Let's investigate. 

College football was a very different sport in those days. The game had evolved somewhat from the ones played in the 1860's and 1870's that resembled rugby. In the 1880's the influence of Walter Camp brought a number of changes still in use today. Camp, who played at Yale and then coached there and at Stanford, introduced the line of scrimmage, the center snap to the quarterback, and the modern day size of the field. 

In 1899 touchdowns and field goals were scored at five points each and conversions [point after touchdown] were a single point. At the time of Sewanee's great season, the forward pass had not yet been invented. The quarterback took the snap and handed off to another player, then becoming another blocker. There were no offensive and defensive squads; players stayed in for the entire game unless injured too badly--which usually required a broken bone. 

Auburn and Sewanee were members of the same conference. As noted by Wikipedia, "The beginnings of the contemporary Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference start in 1894. The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was founded on December 21, 1894, by William Dudley, a chemistry professor at Vanderbilt.^[47] The original members were Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt. Clemson, Cumberland, Kentucky, LSU, Mercer, Mississippi, Mississippi A&M (Mississippi State), Southwestern Presbyterian University, Tennessee, Texas, Tulane, and the University of Nashville joined the following year in 1895 as invited charter members.^[48] The conference was originally formed for "the development and purification of college athletics throughout the South".^[49]"

The coach of Sewanee was Billy Suter, in his first year at that position. He had seven
starters back from the 1898 team, which went 4-0. By all accounts he was a strict
disciplinarian. He coached at Sewanee until 1901, then one year at Georgetown
before leaving the profession for publishing. 

Sewanee's victims in 1899 included Tennessee (46-0), Texas (12-0), Tulane (23-0), 
and LSU (34-0). They outscored opponents 322-10. Although the team had twenty-
one students who played that year, only thirteen made the brutal road trip.

The Tigers from the Plains were 3-0-1 going into the Sewanee game, so the players
were no doubt rested and ready. Auburn had not played a game since November
18 when they tied Georgia 0-0. Earlier in the season Auburn defeated by large
margins three teams, including Georgia Tech and Clemson, that did not score a
point. 

Auburn's coach John Heisman , in his fifth year at the school, had a much different
career. In addition to football, he coached basketball and baseball at various schools.
He coached at Oberlin before arriving in Auburn in 1895; he left there after the 
1899 season. Others stops in football included Clemson, Georgia Tech, Penn and 
Rice. His contributions to the game included an early player shift, the hidden ball
play, and efforts to legalize the forward pass and divide the game time into quarters.

The Sewanee-Auburn contest was played on November 30, Thanksgiving Day, at
Riverside Park in Montgomery. Accounts give the attendance as 3000 or 4000.
I wonder if the site was at or near the current Riverfront Park along the Alabama River.
I did find a description in The Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery's First Historian,
edited by Mary Ann Neeley, that seems to locate the park there. "The depot was near
the river on the west side of north Court Street. The area extended along the riverbank
and was later known as Riverside Park, where subsequent fairs and events took place." 
[p. 218]. 

An interesting sidelight to this game is the fact that Sewanee had two players from Alabama, both at the halfback position. Ringland F. "Rex" Kilpatrick was from Bridgeport and Henry "Diddy" Seibels from Montgomery. 

Early Auburn football has a connection with another interesting team and game. In 1914 the Carlisle Indians from Pennsylvania made a southern tour during the season and played both Alabama and Auburn. They defeated Alabama, but lost to Auburn. You can read the details here. 

Two descriptions of the game can be read below. Sewanee managed to win by one point even though Auburn gained 323 total yards to their 82. On December 4 a long article about the game appeared in the Birmingham Post-Herald under the title "Coach Heisman Scores Officials". Heisman was critical of the officiating, to say the least. 

Savannah Morning News 1 December 1899

Source: Chronicling America

Birmingham Age-Herald 1 December 1899

Source: Chronicling America

The 1899 Sewanee football team, known as the "Iron Men". Twenty-one different students played on the team. Not shown are the two black men who served as trainers, giving massages to exhausted players including during the famous road trip. Their story is included in the 2022 documentary. 

Source: Wikipedia 

Auburn's 1899 team

Source: Wikipedia

UAB Football in 1991 & 1992

On the way to its recent success the UAB football program has had some ups and downs. The Wikipedia entry will give you the basic facts. This blog post looks back at the team's two years at the NCAA Division III level in 1991 and 1992. Why am I doing that? Well, in some recent cleaning out I came across the two flyers and a ticket stub included below.

The program began with two years of club football in 1989 and 1990. In 1991 the university upgraded the program to Division III and Jim Hilyer was hired as head coach beginning that fall. He led the team for two years in Division III and two in I-AA; Watson Brown became head coach in 1995. 

Hilyer had played four years as offensive guard and linebacker at Stetson University. He was an assistant coach at the pro and college level for Mississippi State and Auburn [twice!] and the Washington Redskins and Birmingham Stallions. At UAB, his only head coaching post, he had a record of 27-12-2. Hilyer passed away in January of this year. 

My son Amos and I saw a couple of UAB's games in those Division III days. As you can see from the ticket stub below, we attended the October 12, 1991, contest with Lindenwood University played at Legion Field. Lindenwood, located in St. Charles, Missouri, had just begun football the previous year and played as an independent until 1996 when they joined the NAIA. The team began playing in the NCAA in 2012. The game ended in a 17-17 tie. UAB finished that first season with a 4-3-2 record; you can see the scores here. 

I've yet to find any ticket stub in my vast collection, but we also attended a game during the 1992 season. The opponent was Gallaudet University and the September 12 game was played at Lawson Field. We were among the crowd of more than 5300 people who watched UAB win 44-6. The Blazers finished that season with a 7-3 record. 

The game had an extra dimension not often seen--or heard--at football games. Gallaudet is a private school in Washington, D.C., that serves deaf and hard of hearing students. At the game we attended, a big drum on the sidelines sent signals to the team on the field. 

Gallaudet has been playing football since 1883. Interestingly, the huddle originated at the school. In the 1890's quarterback Paul D. Hubbard came up with the idea as a way to hide hand signals from opposing teams. 

Amos and I attended this Blazer win over Gallaudet played at Lawson Field. 

These buildings, now demolished, served as UAB football administrative offices for many years. 

Alabama's Female College Football Players

Recently Sarah Fuller made college football history by kicking an extra point in the December 12 game between her Vanderbilt Commodores and the Tennessee Volunteers. She had also kicked off in the November 28 game against the Missouri Tigers. She thus became the first woman to play and score points in a Power Five game. However, she was not the first female college athlete to play and score in football games in the U.S. In fact, two women playing for Alabama teams also have significant records in that sport.

The article linked above notes these female milestones in college football:

"Fuller joins Katie Hnida and April Goss as the only women to play in an FBS game. Hnida kicked two extra points for New Mexico against Texas State in 2003. She transferred to New Mexico from Colorado, where she did dress out but did not play in a game for the Buffaloes. Goss, who played at Kent State, kicked an extra point against Delaware State in 2015.

Four other women -- Willamette's Liz Heaston, Jacksonville State's Ashley Martin, West Alabama's Tonya Butler and Lebanon Valley's Brittany Ryan -- have also kicked in college football games at various levels ranging from NAIA to FCS. Heaton became the first woman to score in a college football game in 1997."

Let's look at the specifics for those two Alabama players.

On August 30, 2001, Ashley Martin kicked three extra points for Jacksonville State as they defeated Cumberland University 72-10. In doing so she became the first woman to score points in an NCAA football game. At the time Jacksonville played in Division 1-AA [now the Football Championship Subdivision.] The only previous woman to score in an American football game was Liz Heaston who played for Willamette University in 1997. Willamette played in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. 

Martin played soccer at Jacksonville and joined the Gamecocks football team as a backup place kicker. She had previously played for her high school football team in Sharpsburg,, Georgia. Martin was also homecoming queen at the school, and accepted her crown wearing her football uniform.

Tonya Butler had an outstanding career as a placekicker for her high school team in Fayetteville, Georgia, where she joined the team as a tenth grader. Butler played football at Middle Georgia College, where she received the first football scholarship for a female at a state school. After getting an associate degree there, she played soccer at Georgia Southern and graduated in 2003. 

Butler had two years of football eligibility remaining, and Randy Pippin, her coach at Middle Georgia, offered her a scholarship to play for his new team, the University of West Alabama. Butler enrolled in graduate school and made the 2003 squad. In the first game of the season against Stillman Butler kicked a 27-yard field goal and became the first female to achieve that feat in an NCAA football game. 

Butler played the entire 2003 and 2004 seasons for the Tigers and was voted special teams captain both years. She finished her master's degree at the school in 2005. 

Wikipedia has a running list of females who have played American football at various levels and on various types of teams. I noted at least one middle school and one high school player from Alabama on these lists. 

Ashley Martin kicking for Jacksonville State

Tonya Butler at the University of West Alabama 

That Time the Carlisle Indians Played Alabama & Auburn

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, formally known as the United States Indian Industrial School, opened in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on November 1, 1879, with 147 students enrolled. The institution was the first federally funded school for Native Americans not located on a reservation. By the time the school closed on September 1, 1918, over 10,000 children from 140 tribes had attended the school, but only 150 graduated. In 1951 the complex became part of the U.S. Army War College and today is a National Historic Landmark. 

Among its many notable activities while the school operated was the Carlisle Indians football team. In the early 20th century the teams competed with and often won against powerful college teams across the country. Players were usually smaller than their opponents, which resulted in the adoption of many "trick" plays. Two that have long been standard were fake hand-offs and the overhand spiral forward pass. 

During their 25 seasons the Indians compiled a record of 167-88-13. That 0.647 winning percentage is the best of any defunct major college football program. Over the years Carlisle played away games against these schools and many others and often won: Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, California, Virginia, Utah, Northwestern, Ohio State, Minnesota, Harvard, Brown, Army and Cornell. 

The most famous individual associated with Carlisle is undoubtedly Jim Thorpe. In the introduction to his Wikipedia article is this summary of his career:

Thorpe became the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, and played American football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball. He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateurism rules that were then in place. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals.

Thorpe played football at Carlisle in 1911 and 1912, so he was not a member of the team that played Alabama and Auburn. The 1911 team went 11-1 and the 1912 team 12-1-1 and captured the national championship. 

Thorpe's coach was Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, who was also coaching the team in 1914. Warner played football at Cornell and then built a spectacular college coaching career. His stops as head coach included Iowa State, Georgia, Cornell [twice], Carlisle [twice], Pittsburgh, Stanford and Temple. His teams won three national championship at Pittsburgh and one at Stanford. His final record was 319-106-32. He "retired" after the 1938 season at Temple, but spent the next two years coaching the offense at San Jose State.

The 1914 season was not one of Carlisle's best; the team finished 5-10-1. Wins included contests against Albight, Lebanon Valley, West Virginia Weslyan, Dickinson, and the tie against Holy Cross. Carlisle lost to Penn, Pittsburgh and Syracuse among others In their only game against Notre Dame, they lost 48-0 at Camiskey Park in Chicago.  

D.V. Graves coached Alabama in 1914, his final of four years as the school's head football coach. At that time he was early in his career coaching college football, basketball and baseball. He ended up coaching baseball at the University of Washington for 24 years, retiring in 1946. 

In those days Alabama played its home games in two places, the Quad on campus and Rickwood Field in Birmingham. In 1914 the team's record was 5-4, 3-3 in Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association play. Four games were played at The Quad: Howard, Birmingham College, Tulane & Chattanooga. All were won by shutouts except Chattanooga, which managed three points. Four games were played at Rickwood: Georgia Tech, Sewanee, Mississippi A&M & Carlisle. The only win at Rickwood was against Tech, 13-0. Carlisle beat the Crimson Tide 20-3. The Tennessee game, which the Tide lost 17-7, was played at Waite Field in Knoxville. 

Auburn's coach in 1914 became almost as legendary as Pop Warner. As Wikipedia summarizes:

Michael Joseph "Iron Mike" Donahue (June 14, 1876 – December 11, 1960) was an American football player, coach of football, basketball, baseball, tennis, track, soccer, and golf, and a college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Auburn University (1904–1906, 1908–1922), at Louisiana State University (1923–1927), and at Spring Hill College (1934).

In 18 seasons coaching football at Auburn, Donahue amassed a record of 106–35–5 and had three squads go undefeated with four more suffering only one loss. His .743 career winning percentage is the second highest in Auburn history, surpassing notable coaches such as John Heisman and Ralph "Shug" Jordan. Donahue Drive in Auburn, Alabama, on which Jordan–Hare Stadium is located and the Tiger Walk takes place, is named in his honor, as is Mike Donahue Drive on the LSU campus.

Donahue also coached basketball (1905–1921), baseball, track, and soccer (1912–?)^[1] at Auburn and baseball (1925–1926) and tennis (1946–1947) at LSU. He was inducted as a coach into the College Football Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class in 1951.

Donahue was a native of Ireland and attended Yale University where he lettered in football, basketball, track and cross-country. Even though only 5'4" tall, he also played substitute quarterback for the team. He graduated in 1903 and began his first stint as Auburn head football coach the following year. 

The 1914 team became one of Donahue's best, finishing 8-0-1 and outscoring opponents 193-0. They finished their 23rd year of football as champions of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. James Howell's power ratings system gives Auburn the national championship that year, but the school does not claim it.

Auburn played some  games in 1914 at Drake Field and others at Rickwood Field in Birmingham. Auburn defeated Clemson 28-0 and two other teams, Marion Military Institute and West Alabama Athletic Club, at Drake Field. Wins at Rickwood were against Mississippi A&M 19-0 and Vanderbilt 6-0 in bad weather. In the second contest of the season Auburn defeated Florida 20-0 in Jacksonville. In Atlanta the team beat Georgia Tech 14-0 at Grant Field and were held to a scoreless tie by Georgia at Piedmont Park. In the final game of their season Auburn defeated Carlisle 7-0 at Piedmont. 

In 1914 Auburn was a southern football powerhouse. Carlisle played them and the Tide in the waning days of the school's football program; its glory years had come and gone. In the 1920's Alabama would enter one of its periods of gridiron glory.

The South has produced many great football teams over the decades, but few can match the 1899 Sewanee Tigers. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the University of the South, or Sewanee, a small school in the Tennessee mountains, was a dominating force in the region's football. 

That 1899 squad reached a pinnacle, outscoring opponents 322-10 on the way to twelve wins. Five of those shutouts came on a six-day road trip during which the 13-man team defeated Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, LSU and Ole Miss. The only team to score against Sewanee? Why, the Auburn Tigers, of course! War Eagle! In that year they were coached by the legendary John Heisman in the last of his five years at Auburn. Sewanee was the only team to beat them that year.

Included below are brief contemporary newspaper items about the games Carlisle played with Alabama and Auburn. Unfortunately, I did not find any detailed accounts. However, we can get a few interesting tidbits of information from these pieces. 

Alabama met Carlisle at Rickwood Field in Birmingham on Wednesday, December 2. Carlisle's "superior weight proved too much" for Alabama, and the Indians won 20-3. Alabama could not make consistent gains against Carlisle's defense. The Indians used "variegated delayed passes which were very effective."

Carlisle arrived in Atlanta on Friday, December 4, for the last college game of the season in the South, a "post-season" game as one paper described it. Of course, no bowl games were played in those days. One had taken place in 1902;  an annual bowl did not begin until 1916 with the precursor of the Rose Bowl.

The Auburn team arrived the following morning. The game "which has attracted much interest over the South" probably took place on a soft field due to recent heavy rains. "Football critics" declared Carlisle to be superior in the open style of play and predicted a close game. Carlisle was favored even though Auburn had not been scored upon all season and had a weight advantage. Once again Auburn kept its opponent scoreless in a 7-0 win.

The Carlisle football team had traveled to the Deep South eight years earlier. They challenged Vanderbilt to a game, which was played in Nashville in November 1906. Vanderbilt won by a field goal, the only points scored. 

More information and comments are below the images that follow.

Carlisle pupils ca.. 1900

Source: Wikipedia

Jim Thorpe in his uniform for the professional Canton Bulldogs sometime between 1915 and 1920

Source: Wikipedia 

1914 Carlisle Indians football team

Source

Glenn Scobey Warner [1874-1954] in 1921

Source: Wikipedia

University of Alabama football team in 1914

Source

Alabama football coach D.V. Graves in 1945

Source: Wikipedia

Alabama Polytechnic Institute [Auburn] football team in 1914
You can read player identifications at the source, Wikipedia. Number 1 in the upper left is the coach, Mike Donahue.

Auburn football coach Mike Donahue, ca. 1909

Source: Wikipedia

The final item giving Saturday events includes the Auburn-Carlisle game.

Source: Topeka State Journal  [Kansas] 30 Nov 1914

Source: Norwich Bulletin [Conn.] 3 December 1914

Source: Bridgeport Evening Farmer [Conn.] 5 Dec 1914

Source: Ogden Standard [Utah] 5 December 1914

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch [Virginia] 5 December 1914

Postcard showing Rickwood Field on opening day 18 August 1910. Rickwood was constructed as a baseball stadium and primarily used for that sport ever since. The Birmingham Barons minor league team played there for many years before moving first to a new stadium in Hoover and then one in downtown Birmingham. 

 The facility is the oldest professional baseball field existing in the U.S. Over the years other sports have been played in it; rock concerts were held there in the in the 1970's. 

Source: Rickwood Field Timeline

A modern day scene at Piedmont Park 

Source: Wikimedia


In 1892 the park was the site of a football game between Auburn and the University of Georgia. Auburn won 10-0 in what has become known as the "Deep South's Oldest Rivalry". In those days Georgia's mascot was a goat; the team did not officially become the "Bulldogs" until 1921. Rumor has it that the goat was barbecued by Georgia fans after the game.