Jimmy DeHart, star quarterback under Pop Warner at Pitt, led the Panthers to the 1916 national title. Besides football, he lettered in basketball, baseball, and track at Pitt. Commissioned as a lieutenant in the Army Aviation Section, DeHart was an instructor and football player-coach at Mather Field in California during the 1918 season. He and other team members often flew themselves and a teammate to games in their two-seater planes, making them the first or among the first football teams to fly to their games.

Mather Field went undefeated during the regular season but lost in the Western Service Championship playoffs that sent the Mare Island Marines to the 1919 Rose Bowl versus Great Lakes.

After the war, DeHart returned to Pitt for his senior season in 1919 and later coached Washington & Lee and Duke.

To learn more about the 1918 Wester Service Championship playoff, click below.

Football Archaeology

The Playoffs for the 1919 Rose Bowl

Among the lesser-known chapters in the history of American football is the round of playoffs that determined the Western representative for the 1919 Rose Bowl. The Great Lakes Naval Training Station was the undefeated, though twice tied, representative of the Eastern side of the country, but the regular season ended with the Rose Bowl committee unsure of which team should represent the West. None of the Western college teams warranted an invitation, so the committee looked to the strong service teams representing the training camps located in the West…

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4 years ago · Timothy P. Brown

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