I think you know plenty about the Little Brown Jug, but if you need a refresher course head this way. A few tidbits from recent days:
- SMU and TCU battled for one of the college football traveling trophies last night, with Texas Christian taking home the
hardwarealuminum. Check out the origins and inspiration of this tradition:
Ever wonder why SMU and TCU play for an iron skillet? The SMU sports information department has enlightened us:
According to a Nov. 30, 1946, article in The Dallas Morning News, the "Battle of the Iron Skillet" was started to prevent "mutilation of school property" by rowdy fans. The previous year, more than $1,000 in damage had been done to both campuses.
"The SMU student council proposed the skillet as a symbol of the rivalry and substitute for vandalism," says SMU Archivist Joan Gosnell.
Gosnell says minutes from fall 1946 student council meetings provide more clues. On Oct. 1, the agenda includes: "Further set up idea of Little Brown Jug Trophy," referring to the Michigan-Minnesota football rivalry. On November 12, the committee arranging an SMU-TCU banquet and trophy "was reminded of their job."
And on Nov. 19, a student reported that he had purchased the trophy — "an aluminum skillet." A motion was made that SMU and TCU would share the expense of the trophy.
- While I loved the UConn game program, as I mentioned on these pages after the game the producers of the program butchered the section on the Little Brown Jug, missing dates and continuing the mix-ups about what happened when the crock disappeared in the 1930s. Well, to my dismay this section on the jug wasn’t a one-time feature—it apparently is going to appear in every game program this season. That’s great but <ugh>– it’s wrong!
- A few cool LBJ-related items on eBay right now. Thanks to reader Brian to pointing this out, a wire photo is up for auction, allegedly from 1937 with Minnesota’s Oscar Munson (the man who found the jug in 1903) cradling the crock on the sidelines:
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This is probably worthy of its own eBay Watch feature and I love this one. It’s a lineup card from the 1909 Michigan-Minnesota game, the game that really started the tradition of playing for the jug:
Do you have any truly unique pieces of Michigan football history or did you spot a cool item in an auction or elsewhere? Let me know – I’d love to hear about it.
