Fun fact about that 1892 Alabama team: one of its recognized lettermen was a reserve named Bibb Graves, who was later twice elected governor of Alabama. Graves graduated in 1893 and enrolled at the University of Texas as a law student that same year, and in the fall of 1893 he was a substitute on the very first UT football team. He is not a recognized letterman at Texas, but the fact that he played on the first varsity teams at two different universities has to be pretty unique.
I've actually seen many of those photos before! Auburn uniform archivist Clint Richardson shared one of the campus photos and the game photos appeared in a book or journal article, the title of which I now can't recall. The game photos had some connection to a Trinity (Duke) player I believe.
And of interest to me is the 1894 Iron Bowl in which Alabama tried to get two former UNC players to play. They didn't, but they show up in the team photo!
I found about 2/3 of the image online, plus others not shown. Still, I could not find several of John's images on the web.
Also, one newspaper report commented on Penn's captain enticing Abbot of Alabama with a Penn scholarship. He stayed and played at Bama the next few years, but there's a reason we have arrived at the NIL we have today.
Fun fact about that 1892 Alabama team: one of its recognized lettermen was a reserve named Bibb Graves, who was later twice elected governor of Alabama. Graves graduated in 1893 and enrolled at the University of Texas as a law student that same year, and in the fall of 1893 he was a substitute on the very first UT football team. He is not a recognized letterman at Texas, but the fact that he played on the first varsity teams at two different universities has to be pretty unique.
I read that he became the governor but did not the Texas side of the story. Interesting and worthy of a separate Tidbit!
I've actually seen many of those photos before! Auburn uniform archivist Clint Richardson shared one of the campus photos and the game photos appeared in a book or journal article, the title of which I now can't recall. The game photos had some connection to a Trinity (Duke) player I believe.
And of interest to me is the 1894 Iron Bowl in which Alabama tried to get two former UNC players to play. They didn't, but they show up in the team photo!
I found about 2/3 of the image online, plus others not shown. Still, I could not find several of John's images on the web.
Also, one newspaper report commented on Penn's captain enticing Abbot of Alabama with a Penn scholarship. He stayed and played at Bama the next few years, but there's a reason we have arrived at the NIL we have today.