Bo McMillan (Cody Rees, middle) is able to lead Middle Faculty to victory within the Kentucky stage play, “The Surprise Workforce” in regards to the Colonels that defeated TCU 63-7 in 1921.
Lexington Herald Chief
The TCU Horned Frogs had a sport in opposition to Faculty’s “Implausible Soccer Workforce”, Frogs had been underdogs.
Nobody outdoors of Fort Value gave the frogs an opportunity. It was a shock after they scored a aim.
positive file The ultimate rating was 63-7.
The yr was 1921.
TCU misplaced to varsity soccer darlings, the Colonels’ Prayer Middle – a small Kentucky college that Star gamers had been recruited from North Facet Excessive Faculty1915 state championship crew.
The sport was formally over The primary and solely Fort Value Traditional – The faculty’s second soccer sport after the Rose Bowl.
It was performed solely as soon as: January 1, 1921, earlier than 7,000 followers at Panther Park, a Twenties skilled baseball stadium north of downtown on North Throckmorton Road and northwest of Seventh Road.
The middle has change into the ‘little crew that may,'” stated Robbie Henson, inventive director at Pioneer Playhouse, a Kentucky theater. Within the play “The Surprise Workforce”.
TCU’s victory has been talked about as one of many middle’s biggest. It was additionally a homecoming for former Northside quarterback Bo McMillen and his teammates who adopted coach “Chief” Myers to Kentucky.
TCU was popping out of a file 9-0 season which included wins over Arkansas and Baylor.
The Fort Value Document, a morning newspaper, headlined: “Biggest Crowd Will Jam Panther Park At the moment” and suggested that each one trains to Fort Value had been offered out.
The middle favourite, with former Texas A&M coach “Uncle Charlie” Moran on the helm, had a margin “all the best way from two touchdowns to 6,” the Document reported. (However “TCU’s optimism has not waned”).
The Star-Telegram headline warned: “TCU protection could come as a shock.”
The subsequent day’s headline was extra modest: “TCU Scores In opposition to Middle.”
TCU’s GP “Jack” Jackson caught McMillin’s deep cross and returned it 90 to attain.
The Star-Telegram sport story principally describes that play after which says “The following landing seems to have been misplaced within the shuffle…. Additional dialogue of what occurred could be very private.”
Middle ran for eight touchdowns.
The TCU Skiff campus newspaper led the story of the sport this fashion: “They got here. We noticed. They conquered.”
The play “The Surprise Workforce” tells the story of a younger underdog’s rise to fame after World Struggle I based mostly on Myers’ “achievement and religion” philosophy.
“I took these Fort Value youngsters within the Hell’s Half-Acre period,” Henson stated, referring to the previous downtown saloon district well-known for its brothels and playing halls.
Henson stated McMillin “was a poker participant from the fallacious aspect of the tracks” however Middle embraced it.
McMillen starred with North Facet alumni James “Pink” Weaver, Invoice James, Lee MacGregor and Sully Montgomery, later Tarrant County Sheriff. 4 different colonels had been from Dallas.
From 1917 via 1924, the place went 58-8-2, together with wins over Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn and New York sportswriters’ darling of the day, Harvard.
McMillin was an All-America quarterback and went via 26 years {of professional} and collegiate teaching together with a Huge Ten Convention championship at Indiana. He recruited and coached the Hoosiers’ George Taliaferro, later of the Dallas Texans and the primary black participant drafted by the NFL.
For the TCU followers, I ought to point out that there was one other future coach on the market that day.
The Horned Frogs’ left deal with was “Dutch” Meyer.
Eighteen years later, he coaches the Horned Frogs to the nationwide championship.
Columnist Unhealthy Kennedy is a Fort Value man who lined highschool soccer on the age of 16 and traveled to 2 Tremendous Bowls, seven political conferences and 18 Texas legislative periods. For the primary time on the website of the DFW airport crash in 1988, he interviewed passengers working from the burning aircraft. He first appeared within the newspaper earlier than he was even born: he was offered for $600 within the adoption classifieds.