Today's Tidbit... State Pride and the 1931 Wisconsin-Minnesota Game
Like most, I enjoy learning about games involving top players and coaches with championship implications. Yesterday's story about the 1932 Colgate-Brown game was one of those. But there are many other games involving teams of no particular note, and the 1931 Wisconsin-Minnesota game was one of the latter, though no one knew it at the time since they were both undefeated in Big Ten play.
Played on Halloween, Wisconsin entered the game 3-1-1 and 1-0 in Big Ten play. They started the season beating Bradley and North Dakota State on the same day in one of those doubleheaders that were all the rage at the time. They tied Auburn, beat Purdue, and lost to Penn before heading to Minneapolis.
The Fritz Crisler-coached Gophers looked similar coming in at 4-1. They, too, had beaten North Dakota State as part of a doubleheader in which they also took down Ripon College. A victory over Oklahoma State, a loss at Stanford, and a win over Iowa set the tone for the contest with the Badgers that would keep one in competition for the conference title while knocking the loser down a peg.
(As an aside, Michigan recently claimed its 1,000th football victory, making it the first school to accomplish that feat. The Wolverines’ claiming a 1,000th win led some to complain about the many schools that count victories over high schools and miscellaneous other teams in their win totals. Not to throw fuel on the fire, but teams universally count both ends of doubleheaders in their all-time records as well. See The Good Old Days of Football Doubleheaders for more)
Anyway, Minnesota and Wisconsin did not like each other at the time, and their relationship has only grown cooler since then. Both states were filled with Northern European immigrants of the dour kind, though the Germans in Milwaukee brewed beer, so the Wisconsinites were more fun to hang out with.
As the smiling Badger fans headed to Minnesota for the game, some chose to drive, a trip that was more arduous then since none of the major highways between here and there were fully paved. Despite Wisconsin’s highway department suspending construction along those routes for the weekend, most fans opted to go by train.
The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad had a flexible ticket policy that allowed fans who bought round-trip tickets to take any train from Madison to the Twin Cities from Friday through Saturday morning while returning any time before midnight Monday. Of course, the smart set took Friday's 3:00 PM out of Madison to hang with the team during the 6 1/2 hour trip, while those who worked for a living grabbed a Pullman for the overnight trip. Today, you can make the trip in four hours by driving on I-94, while Amtrak takes 12 1/2 hours.
Each team had one star whose name most readers would recognize. Minnesota's captain and one of the game stars was Clarence "Biggie" Munn, who joined Crisler's staff at Michigan in 1938 before becoming head coach at Michigan State. Wisconsin had Buckets Goldenberg, a guard and quarterback for the Badgers who later made the NFL's All-1930s team.
Unfortunately for the Badgers, the game was over almost before it started. Following a Gopher kickoff, the Badgers failed to move the ball and punted to the Gophers. On the second play from scrimmage, the Minnesota fullback, Jack Manders, took the ball off the right side, broke through, and sprinted 55 yards for a touchdown. He then kicked the extra point to put his team up 7-0.
Midway through the second quarter, Biggie Munn swapped spots with Jack Manders and became the lateralee in a hook-and-lateral play, racing over the goal line for the Gophers' last score of the game.
The rest of the game saw the teams throw interceptions, fumble, and otherwise play a mediocre game, and while the teams were evenly matched statistically, the Gophers held the advantage in the only stat that mattered.
Speaking of stats, in the days before consistent methods of cumulating statistics, the reporters rolled their own, and the Badgers-Gophers stats were something to behold. My favorite is "Punts rolled dead or over goal line or out of bounds or fair catches," for which the Gophers held a 5 to 3 advantage or disadvantage.
Like the 1931 game that proved of little national consequence between a Gopher team that finished 7-3 and the 5-4-1 Badgers, the two teams renew play for the 133rd time this Saturday in a battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe. The series is tied 62-62-8, and while the game will mean little nationally, the Gophers are looking to become bowl-eligible while the Badgers are playing for a better bowl. More important, state pride is on the line, as is the advantage in the most-played series in FBS.
Unless you were dropped on your head as a child, join me in sending good wishes to the Badgers as they take on the Baja Manitoba Goofers on Saturday.
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My Dad, John Lockney (inventor of the Lockney lines), took me by train to see Badger-Goofer game sometime in the early 60's I believe. First time ever on a train, and Badgers won. I remember Jim Bakken kicking at least one field goal. Fun to read about the trip decades before that.