Today's Tidbit: The University of Mexico Football and International Play
Cinco de Mayo is more widely celebrated in the U.S. than in Mexico, so it seems like a good day to discuss the history of football at the University of Mexico. The University of Mexico's football team, hereafter referred to as UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), began playing in the 1920s. It sometimes dominated Mexican collegiate football, dropped the game at others, and now plays in the Organización Nacional Estudiantil de Fútbol Americano, last winning the national title in 2017.
I previously wrote about the first American football games played in Mexico when Missouri and Texas played south of the border in 1896, so it is appropriate that some of UNAM's games occurred north of the border, including an appearance in one of America’s oldest bowl games. Rather than recite the history of UNAM football, we'll pick our spots by discussing their history with two pre-WWII examples and two that occurred during the war.
The Mexican playing of American football began after a pair of brothers returned from school in the U.S. having become Notre Dame fans. They started an informal team and adopted Notre Dame's color, a tradition that continues at UNAM today. Things really got moving when the National Football Coaches Association sent Michael Bennett, the AD and football coach at Sewanee, to Mexico to encourage them to play American football. After meeting with UNAM's president and the president of Mexico, both of whom agreed to promote the game, he returned to the States and got things moving.
The coaches' association helped fund efforts in Mexico, including sending Reginald Root, a former Yale player and assistant coach, to Mexico City to coach UNAM for the 1929 season, and he stuck around for a few years. From the beginning, UNAM played other Mexican universities and semi-regular games with American schools such as Louisiana College (now Louisiana Christian), Mississippi College, and Occidental. The 1929 games versus American schools set the pattern that continued through the next 40 years when UNAM lost to Louisiana College 59-0 and Mississippi College 28-0. However, UNAM completed 23 of 28 pass attempts in the Mississippi College loss. Both games occurred in Mexico City, though the teams played home and away in the future.
The next year, UNAM opened the season by traveling to Los Angeles to play Occidental, a game set up by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, hoping it would encourage friendly relations between businesses in the two countries. Played under the lights at the LA Coliseum, the game attracted 15,000 who watched UNAM score first after an Occidental fumble, but the Tigers dominated the rest of the game, winning 31-6.
The Oxy series continued with a game in 1935. By then, Reginald Root had been named head coach at Yale in 1934, so UNAM opted for some new coaching blood in Dixie Howell. Dixie starred in Alabama's 1935 Rose Bowl before taking the UNAM job, as did his line coach, Charles Marr. The 1935 UNAM team made a four-game sweep through the U.S., starting with Occidental.
UNAM lost 26-7 in a day game at the Coliseum, then lost to Lamar and Louisiana College. In their fourth game against St. Mary's College of Texas, Dixie Howell and Charles Marr suited up for UNAM to try to even things out.
Moving on to the WWII era, the end of the 1941 season saw the inaugural playing of the Orchid Bowl. Seeking a bowl game in Mexico City on New Year's Day, the American wife of a Swedish business magnate agreed to foot the bill for the game. Plans were made for Louisiana College to visit Mexico City, and despite Pearl Harbor throwing a wrench into the festivities, the game went forward. Whether it was the war conditions or budget limitations, Louisiana College drove to Mexico City by ca, a 22-hour drive under today's road conditions, where they won 10-0.
Despite winning a few games against American opponents over the years, the height of UNAM's football experience in the States came when they played in the 1944 Sun Bowl against Southwestern (Texas). Southwestern beat Texas and Rice that season, so they were not a pushover, and their UNAM matchup resulted in a 35-0 win.
After WWII, UNAM continued venturing north or hosting American teams with limited success, though they remained competitive against other Mexican universities. Student protests in Mexico shortly before the 1968 Olympics resulted in scores of UNAM students being massacred while protesting, leading to the football season being canceled to avoid further student gatherings. College football in Mexico has never fully recovered from that period, though dozens of teams play ONEFA football today.
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My first college game at Occidental was against the University of Mexico at home in LA in 1980. Still am not sure why so many of their players seemingly drove their own cars to the game…