Born and passed on this day in history, the great Fielding H. Yost-era back Willie Heston. He tallied a remarkable 71 touchdowns in his career, and more importantly, never lost a single game in his four years in Ann Arbor. Join me in a toast to the great Heston! Here's more:
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The GOAT? Willie Heston #TWIMFbH
I mentioned last week that in the month of September, we don’t often get to travel too far back in time in history because, well, no one used to play football in September. We got a break this time because September 9th happens to be the date of birth and the date of passing of the iconic Point-A-Minute back Willie Heston, arguably the finest ever to suit up for the maize and blue. A couple of notes here: While the NCAA gives Heston 72 touchdowns, John Kryk pored over the records and box scores and says it’s between 69 and 71 – depending on how you interpret the records of two games (Wisconsin in 1902 and American Medical in 1904. No one had really come close until Jim Thorpe suited up in the 1920s. He averaged nearly 2 TDs a game, and no one touched that until Marshall Faulk in the early 1990s. Is he the best Michigan player ever? It’s so hard to compare eras but he’s probably right alongside Tom Harmon for me. Regarding Heston’s lengthy college career, starting San Jose State and and then still having Michigan eligibility. Back then the transfer eligibility rules were looser but in a nutshell, you were allowed to transfer from smaller schools and start over at larger schools. No,…
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Seeing and Hearing Willie Heston
Today marks the 110th anniversary of Willie Heston’s final game at Michigan. Heston was Michigan’s first superstar, a two-time All-American, who scored (somewhere around) 72 touchdowns. From 1901 to 1904, Heston’s teams went 43-0-1 and are credited with four national titles. I’ll have more on Heston later this year. Hearing WillieBack in 2012, I posted a short audio clip of Fielding Yost from the 1940 nationwide radio tribute the man titled, ‘A Toast to Yost from Coast to Coast’. Check it out if you missed it. In that post I promised to share a few more clips, and thanks to the Bentley Historical Library for passing these along. The man who introduced Yost to the crowd in attendance and the radio audience was none other than the great Heston. Here are two clips of the great Willie and in the first, we have a surprise. Before offering up his tribute to his old coach, Heston acknowledges that current student-athletes and national icon Tom Harmon is in the audience. Old 98 shares the mic & even has a little back and forth with Heston that is all in all pretty priceless. The second clip has Heston delivering his testimonial to Yost. Enjoy: As an aside, while I’m sure you’ll be hard-pressed to find another audio clip of the Harmon and Heston…
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Tom Harmon says ‘Vote Willie Heston’
Someone dug up some type of campaign pin touting Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon and his club's support for "Heston for Judge".
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Is Hart Really #1? How about Willie Heston?
Art director: “Wolf. Wolverine. Close enough. Just print it.” Just about the only good to come out of Saturday’s brutal game was of course Hart’s record. During the EMU broadcast M radio play-by-play voice Frank Beckmann suggested that Mike Hart may have some work to do to truly catch the Michigan man with the most rushing yards. That man? Willie Heston, the 2 time All-American that Fielding Yost convinced to come with him to Michigan from California. There’s no doubt Heston put up ridiculous numbers during Yost’s Point-a-Minute reign of terror. While they didn’t keep detailed individual statistics back then, we do know he scored a jaw dropping 72 touchdowns. Beckmann offered that by some estimates Heston tallyed over 7,300 rushing yards. That’d leave Hart way out of reach of Heston if true. Of course it was a different game at the turn of the 20th century. Teams didn’t pass and a durable back like Heston ended up running the ball on just about every play. Was Heston the greatest back ever? Again, there’s really no way to know. Certainly Hart, Harmon and Heston are in the conversation. I found a quote from a Time magazine on Harmon where Yost reminded folks of his great runner’s place in Michigan history: Surging out of the stadium, a majority of the 54,000…
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Why Michigan (really) Bought The Little Brown Jug in 1903
During a 2011 press conference, Michigan’s Ryan Van Bergen talked about The Little Brown Jug and joked, “I don’t think you’d want to drink any water out of that.” True, but even if you wanted to take a drink you’d be hard-pressed to make that happen. When I did my jug research a couple of years ago it was easy to notice that the top is sealed off: There used to be a cap and some ribbons affixed to the top, but at some point, they were removed (and from the looks of it, torn off). I asked Jon Falk about it –he’s not sure when exactly that happened. It’ll take a flathead screwdriver and some pliers to get that top off. You have to want it. Why Michigan Bought A JugSo obviously at one point, this jug did carry water for the team, but the truth of how and why it ended up on the U-M sideline in 1903 has shifted a bit over the decades. In the early days of the Jug rivalry, it was widely believed that Michigan brought the jug & water from Ann Arbor, and further, some suggested it was because Yost feared the Gophers would attempt to spike/poison their water. Of course, years later Tommy Roberts revealed that he simply bought the jug in Minneapolis before…
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Michigan Calls Cal & Stanford Chicken | Scheduling the First Rose Bowl (1901)
While most Michigan fans know that the Wolverines played in the first Rose Bowl in 1902, one detail that's misunderstood is that U-M actually had scheduled the trip out west BEFORE the season. Here's how it all played out - it's pretty cool stuff:
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Maize & Blue Sweatervest Hoodoo! (1904)
Originally posted in 2014, bumped given the mention of Yost's "noisy yellow and blue sweater vest" ahead of Saturday's maize for the Washington game.
