Check out this great shot of Old 98, Tom Harmon, on the sideline grabbing a drink. No, it wasn’t from a water jug or even from a cup. It’s 1939 and you got your drink from a ladle dipped from a trough LIKE A MAN:
This was shot during the game against once great rival Chicago in 1939, a game in which Michigan won 85-0 in front of a sparse crowd of 5,000, no doubt mostly Michigan fans. The hapless Maroons were pummeled all season, losing to Ohio State 61-0, Illinois 47-0, Harvard 61-0, Virginia 47-0, and were even shut out by tiny Beloit College 6-0.
Those are the kind of beatdowns that force you to think about the direction of a program, and the Maroons did some hard, hard thinking after the 1939 season concluded. In December it was announced the once-splendid Chicago would cease fielding a football team. This concluded a 15-year deemphasis on our beloved pigskin:
- In the mid-1920s they blocked attempts by the legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg to build a football stadium.
- Chicago restructured its academic program to meet a more rigorous schedule and standard.
- In 1932 they required Stagg to take a mandatory retirement at age 70 (he still wanted to coach).
Stagg was of course the first man to defeat a Fielding Yost-led Wolverine team at the conclusion of the Point-A-Minute era from 1901-1905. Chicago was Michigan’s first true rival and U-M’s 1898 victory in the Windy City inspired Louis Elbel to write The Victors, in turn inspiring a blogger to name his website MVictors.
Complete withdrawal from the conference for the rest of Chicago sports teams soon followed.
