Getting it Wrong: Early (Incorrect) Stories about the Origins of the Little Brown Jug Rivalry

 

Here is a clean edit of the piece. It tightens up the phrasing, smooths out the transitions, and polishes the punctuation while keeping your classic, conversational MVictors deep-dive style fully intact.

My fondness for the Little Brown Jug rivalry probably isn’t hard to explain to regular readers of this site. I run a weekly eBay Watch feature highlighting Michigan football memorabilia, so digging into the history of the jug—the ultimate piece of college football lore—was a natural fit.

But the work I began earlier this year was actually kick-started by accident. While looking for game recaps from the 1909 season, I stubbed my toe on a fascinating and unusual account of jug history while thumbing through the 1910 Michiganensian (the U-M yearbook for the 1909–10 school year). On a page completely devoted to the Little Brown Jug, I found a classic old photo of what I call the “Oscar jug”:

It’s a wonderful pic that I’ve seen before of the jug as it was decorated shortly after Minnesota obtained it in 1903 and returned to It’s a wonderful picture showing the jug exactly as it was decorated shortly after Minnesota obtained it in 1903 and before it was returned to the Wolverines that school year. Yes, the original jug was actually white, not brown (and it’s not exactly little!), reflecting its natural stoneware look. But what really caught my eye was the article accompanying the photo.

The coach of the 1909 Gophers was a gent named Henry “Doc” Williams, who was also on the sidelines back in 1903 when Yost and the Wolverines left the crock behind in Minneapolis. Williams is quoted in the Michiganensian piece offering a few curious details about the origin of the rivalry that left me scratching my noggin:

“The Michiganders had made much of the jug during the season of 1903. It went everywhere with them and the perspiring warriors of the gridiron drank from its heavy mouth during every contest on the schedule. After each game the score was emblazoned on the side of the jug.”

In addition to that, Williams openly “confessed that his men had willfully stolen the jug.”

Hmm.

For those not familiar with the commonly accepted origin of the Jug rivalry, it’s undisputed that Michigan equipment manager Tommy Roberts bought the jug in Minneapolis right before the 1903 game, and that it was simply found—not stolen—after the game by Minnesota custodian Oscar Munson. Personal accounts by Roberts, Munson, and others back up these details perfectly. That’s why Williams’ comments were so puzzling.

One has to assume that Doc Williams was playfully building up the stakes of the newly minted trophy by spinning a few tall tales for a willing media, suggesting that the water jug the Wolverines left behind six years prior was akin to Gollum’s precious ring.

And the tall tales didn’t stop in 1909. After the 1919 game, the Minneapolis Tribune took the thievery myth to a whole new level, suggesting that the jug was actually swiped straight out of Ann Arbor back in 1902:

Long years ago when Minnesota and Michigan were annual rivals, some enthusiastic Gopher players purloined that coarse, common little brown jug from the Michigan gymnasium and took it to Minneapolis with them. The Michiganders wrote for their jug, and were told they’d get it back only in the event of Michigan winning the next game.

A piece in the Michigan Daily from 1920 added its own brand of spice to the pile. After claiming “the jug had been stolen from the training quarters,” the author tossed in this absolute whopper:

“The jug had gained a place in the hearts of the Michigan players and rooters that could not be replaced. It was…the rabbit’s foot and the seven or eleven point combination. Its loss was irreparable and its presence in the hands of the enemy was a calamity.”

I love that one. A basic water jug—which we know was purchased on the fly right before kickoff—was suddenly a beloved, irreplaceable good luck charm for the players and fans? And its disappearance triggered a campus calamity?

The myths only grew more bizarre. An Associated Press report from 1925 claimed the entire trophy rivalry started because Minnesota replaced a broken Wolverine jug after the 1903 game, but told Michigan they would only deliver the replacement on the condition that Michigan beat them on the field.

The hard part about trying to uncover the truth behind a century-old football rivalry is that the people involved—and perhaps the sportswriters themselves—clearly felt they had a license, if not a outright duty, to embellish the story. They weren’t malicious; it’s a prize that serves as a fun subplot to the actual game, and it’s meant to be entertaining. But when you’re trying to separate fact from fiction a hundred years later, it definitely causes some challenges.

However, sifting through these fabricated stories actually helped my research. While Williams clearly made up large chunks of his story, he completely omitted one critical detail that remains a staple of jug lore today: he didn’t mention a single thing about Fielding Yost writing a letter to demand the jug back after the 1903 game. Wouldn’t that be a massive detail for the Minnesota coach to brag about, especially if the letter came directly from his legendary counterpart across the sideline?

This omission is what really got me wondering: Did Yost actually write to Minnesota asking for his water jug back, or is that just another layer of the myth?

More Little Brown Jug Lore here.