Ode to Pre-War Football Cardboard

[cfhofer]

Carl,

That is a great lineup card. Charles "Buck" Wharton was another Penn All-American in 1895 and 1896. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1963. Below is an 1894 Penn team photo, with Wharton in the back far right.

"I wonder why they didn't play Yale"....Likely because of graduate students playing for Penn.

In 1893 Yale commented after a tightly fought contest that Penn players were "mature married men, age twenty-two to thirty, one with a child eight years old". The Intercollegiate Football Association (where Yale had a heavy influence) made attempts to restrict the use of graduate students at the end of that season, therefore Penn withdrew from the league. In 1894 only six of the eleven Penn starters were students of the College (undergraduates).

Yale didn't play Penn for over thirty years after that 1893 game.


Mark

[clamendo]

He looks like a pretty tough customer. That would have been a heck of a game in 1895. Yale (13-0-2) vs. Penn (14-0)....wow !

[Angyale]

Mark,

When Win Osgood left Cornell in 1892 he enrolled at Penn in 1893 and 1894 and played football for them. Likely his 6th or 7th year playing college football. Does he appear in your photo?

Eric

[jefferyepayne]

Great pickups, Carl and Mark!

Finally snagged this 1905 Rotograph of Fielding Yost.



Love what someone wrote on the front about Yost!

"More Prominent than the President"

jeff

[cfhofer]

Jeff: That is my favorite photo of Yost. As a huge Michigan collector and fan, you couldn't post a better picture on this forum. Very cool piece. Congrats!

Eric: Osgood is not in that photo, but he was on the 1893 and 1894 Penn teams. Here is another 1894 Penn photo I acquired from the George H. Brooke estate. Brooke is seated in the center, middle row. Osgood is to the left of him.

[jefferyepayne]

Great Penn photo, Mark. That's a beaut.

Also picked up this Dominoe Post Card of the 1905 Yale team that went 10-0.

College HOFer Tom Shevlin is on this PC.



Also have a photo of Shevlin hanging out with football legend Frank Hinkey at a game in 1914.



jeff

[cfhofer]

Jeff,

Two fantastic pieces, congrats. Here is a great short story about Shevlin and Hinkey (from "Big Games" by Michael Bradley):

Back in the early 1900's Tom Shevlin was the best player in all of football. He was big, strong, fast (and extremely rich, even for Ivy League standards). He was also an arrogant brat. One day, he asked Mike Murphy, the longtime Yale trainer, how he compared to Frank Hinkey. Murphy admitted that Shevlin was faster and stronger than Hinkey. And since Shevlin outweighed Hinkey by nearly 50 lbs, he was certainly a more imposing physical specimen than the Yale legend. "Now tell me one more thing," Shevlin said to Murphy, no doubt impressed with the trainer's assessment, "How do I compare to Hinkey as a football player?"
Murphy smiled. "Do you really want me to tell the truth?"
"Sure thing"
"Well, then, Frank Hinkey makes you look like the change from a counterfeit nickel."

That is how good Hinkey was....