Today's Tidbit: The Kicking Women Of 1937

American University in Washington, D.C., has a football history, but not much of one. They fielded teams from 1925 to 1941, dropped the sport due to WWII, and never brought it back. With good reason. They went 24-67-6 during its time with their 1926 record of 4-3-1 marking their only winning season. Two years later, they played and lost four games in four weeks to Gettysburg College 81-0, Catholic University 69-0, St. John's University 63-0, and Gallaudet University 37-7.

Trying to make a go of it in 1937, American hired Gus Welch as its coach. Welch was Carlisle's quarterback during the Thorpe era and made the 1912 Olympic team but did not compete due to illness. Welch then played pro football in Canton for five years before entering coaching. He did pretty well at Washington State but not so much at Randolph-Macon, Haskell, and his two years coaching American.

Besides losing a lot, the American team struggled for attention, with Welch claiming:

The only way for us to get a crowd is to play at the half of a Redskin game.

Morse, Ben, 'Thoroughly Defeated, Hopelessly in Debt and Utterly Ignored," Eagle, December 13, 2021.

So, sometime in mid-October, during Welch's first season leading the American Eagles, word spread of Welch’s plans to use a "coed" as the team's kicker. The young woman supposedly kicked barefoot and was good from 30 yards out. Others called the barefoot kicker a phantom since Welch had not yet held tryouts.