For Saturday’s This Week in Michigan Football History we headed back 78 years to 1938, the year Fritz Crisler made his coaching debut in Ann Arbor. Fritz was brought in to do a fixer-upper, as the Harry Kipke-era left the program in a shambles: As always, this segment appears on 1050AM WTKA and 1330AM WTRX’s epic KeyBank Countdown to Kickoff prior to each game. During home games you can hear it live inside the Go Labatt Blue Light Victors Lounge starting 4 hours prior to kickoff. Go Blue! You can listen to all of This Week in Michigan Football History clips here. Follow MVictors on Twitter script: This week we head back to 1938, a season when many changes were afoot in Ann Arbor both on and off the field. On this Saturday 78 years ago first year coach Fritz Crisler led his 4 and 1 Wolverines against one-time powerhouse Penn in a game played at the Big House. Michigan lured Crisler from Princeton where he successfully turned around the once proud Tiger program winning a pair of national titles.. Fritz would be tasked with another fixer upper in Ann Arbor, as previous coach Harry Kipke had managed only 10 wins over the four year stretch since Michigan’s 1933 national championship. That stretch included four straight losses over Ohio State where U-M was outscored, cover your…
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Wire Photo Wednesday | Fritz Watches Harry Wrestle
Good Wednesday to you, friends. WPW leads off with a classic shot of the B1G football coaches meeting prior to the 1931 season (see above). This photo, from the Big Ten meetings prior to the 1931 season, is probably worth its $44 auction price. On the floor you’ve got M headman Harry Kipke with Purdue coach (and former player under Rockne) Noble Kizer demonstrating life in the trenches. Minnesota’s Fritz Crisler, who would replace Kipke later that decade, watches from the back. Amongst the men seated is Illinois legend Bob Zuppke sitting next to the one & only Amos Alonzo Stagg. Great shot. Dress code in ‘31? White shirt, tie, Brylcreem in the hair (except for Stagg). I don’t know when wire photos started to be distributed to newspapers, but this has to be a fairly early one (from 1926) featuring the great Michigan quarterback and NFL HOF’er Benny Friedman. The seller claims it is an original and wants a mere $30. If it’s truly the original it’s worth over $100 easy IMO.
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Fritz Gives Reader’s Digest the Gas Face
I always like to check out the old letters that pop up on eBay for stuff just like this. Back in 1962 athletic director Fritz Crisler submitted a story to Reader’s Digest on his college coach and mentor, Chicago legend Amos Alonzo Stagg. [As an aside, there’s a copy of the story at the Bentley Library in Crisler’s archives and I plan to check it out.] Fritz clearly had a deep admiration for his former coach. Heck, Sports Illustrated, in its wonderful 1964 piece on Crisler ‘The Man Who Changed Football’ even suggested the ‘1’ in the Michigan Stadium attendance might actually be reserved for Stagg!: It was his secret. But anyone is entitled to guess, and one guess might be that somewhere in that vast stadium there is this one seat, and perhaps it is never sold. Perhaps it is reserved, now and forever, for someone who taught Fritz Crisler a way of coaching football and a way of life. For the Old Man, Amos Alonzo Stagg. So coupling Crisler’s demeanor, his air-tight professionalism, and his admiration for his mentor I’m guessing Fritz put a lot of thought into the words he chose for this story for Reader’s Digest. So what could go wrong? Well thanks to Mr. Myron Green of Worcester, Mass, we know that Crisler was none-too-happy…
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TWIMFbH: Crisler Gets it Back on Track with Winged Helmets and Super Sophs (1938)
Last week we talked about when Fritz Crisler and his Princeton Tigers faced Harry Kipke and his eventual 1932 national championship squad. Flash forward to this week in Michigan football history in 1938, and the two men are involved once again. Kipke is now the disgraced coach who couldn’t score a point against the Buckeye in four seasons and was at the helm when illegal practices and fake jobs for players were abound. Michigan inserted the straight-laced, no-nonsense Fritz Crisler to fix it all. Ironically, it was the boring, business-like Crisler who introduced to Ann Arbor arguably the most recognizable element of any football uniform anywhere—the winged helmet. Here’s this edition of TWIMFbH, as Crisler, his super sophs and those winged helmets faced Penn in the sixth game of the 1938 season. As always, you can listen to it out before the KeyBank Countdown to Kick-off on WTKA 1050AM tomorrow, or click play now: [display_podcast] You can hear all of the This Week… clips here. Related: 1932 –“I thought Crisler was a Violin Player” 1934 – Harry Kipke and the Fall of 1934 1937 – Fritz’s Secret Practice 1938 – Harmon and Old Number..Six? 1938 – Debut of Crisler’s Winged Helmet 1944 – Michigan’s Debut as a Nocturnal Eleven 1945 – Army Program from Yankee Stadium 1947 – 1948 Rose…
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TWIMFbH–Kipke, Crisler and The Dickinson System (1932!)
For the latest edition of TWIMFbH we step down to 1932 and check out when Harry Kipke’s undefeated crew, led by All-American quarterback Harry Newman faced a very familiar name—Fritz Crisler and his Princeton Tigers. We touch on that game played this Saturday back in 1932, but spend more time on the method to determine the national champion back then, namely, The Dickinson System. As always, you can listen to it out before the KeyBank Countdown to Kick-off on WTKA 1050AM tomorrow, or click play now: [display_podcast] You can hear all of the This Week… clips here. Follow MVictors on Twitter More on the Dickinson System here: See Dick Compute: How an Econ Prof determined the National Champion
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I Thought Crisler was a Violin Player (1932)
Take a look at this illustration from a 1932 newspaper featuring future Michigan head coach Fritz Crisler: Crisler is depicted giving an overhaul to “last year’s model” of a Princeton Tiger, trying to repaint the frightened kitty in the likeness of a ferocious feline. The disheveled subject was a fitting representation of the 1931 Princeton squad who finished 1-7. Fritz was brought in to fix the mess and he quickly did just that. Over the next six seasons, he went 35-9-5, claiming national titles in 1933 and ’35. The run ended when Fielding Yost lured him away from New Jersey to replace Harry Kipke in Ann Arbor. An early visit to Ann ArborIn the upcoming season, probably weeks after this cartoon was published, Crisler actually visited the town where he’d cement his legacy. On October 29, 1932, Kipke, Harry Newman, and crew defeated the Tigers 14-7 in front of 26,000 homecoming fans. Perhaps Crisler liked the digs. The Victors would go on to take the national championship that season and the next. For those reading closely, you noticed that Princeton also claims the national title in 1933. The most widely accepted method of determining the champ was the Dickinson Formula [more on this here]. Michigan earned the most points in ’33 and was awarded the Knute Rockne Trophy. Despite…
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The Debut of Crisler’s Winged Helmet
The day was October 1, 1938, as new Michigan coach Herbert 'Fritz' Crisler made his debut as the head man for the Wolverines. That day at Michigan stadium Crisler also unveiled the maize and blue version of the famed winged helmet.
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From now on, You’ll be Fritz
Great, great stuff from the bountiful Sports Illustrated Vault. I found this beauty via the excellent Winged Helmet message board posted by uber user BlueCheeseHead. It’s a lengthy piece on Fritz Crisler first published in February 1964 titled “The Man Who Changed Football“. Definitely check it out. It presents the former Michigan coach and AD’s influence on college football rule changes but it also provides a few nice nuggets. Among them: Specifically how he got the nickname Fritz: Coach [Amos Alonzo] Stagg fastened the nickname of ‘Fritz’ on him after he had fumbled three times in a row. Stagg made the sarcastic point that there was a violinist, a great artist, who spelled his name Kreisler. He said he was naming Crisler Fritz because he bore absolutely no resemblance to Fritz Kreisler, the artist. On his strategy to defend “the sleeper”….where the offense hides a player near the sidelines, hoping the defense doesn’t notice: “We would put a bugler up on top of the press box with instructions to watch for that sleeper, and when he spotted one to blast out reveille with all the fervor and wind that was in him. It worked, but we could only use him at home games. There was a limit on the number of men we could take on a trip. One time…
