Bowdoin’s 1921 Football Team A winning season

by Brian Swartz

Football Coach Fred V. Ostergren was unsure as to how much gridiron talent Bowdoin College would field for the 1921 season, but he got his answer soon enough: a lot of talent. Ostergren and Captain Al Morrell announced in early September that practice would start at Whittier Field in Brunswick on Monday, September 12. Qualifying players would run through their exercises and drills each morning and afternoon for the next two weeks.

Ostergren wanted his players in tiptop shape for their seven-game schedule. Bowdoin’s “varsity eleven” (as the local press dubbed the squad) would open their season with an at-home practice game on Saturday, September 24 against the Army team from Fort

Williams in Cape Elizabeth. The popular annual matchup with Bates had dropped off the schedule, leaving October 29 open.

Tryouts started a day late on Tuesday, September 13, and Ostergren reported that around 40 candidates showed up, including some veterans. Most candidates quickly suited up and got down to business.

Ostergren split the football candidates into Team A and Team B for the team’s first scrimmage played on Wednesday, September 21. “Both teams played well and the new men made an excellent showing,” a sportswriter noted. Playing across three 15-minute periods, Team A won, 17-0.

Bowdoin officially opened on Thursday, September 22, with a record 162 freshmen joining the upper classes returning for the college’s 120th year. Enrollment stood at 448 students. The day kicked off with a chapel service, during which Bowdoin President Kenneth Sills stressed financial responsibility and “the necessity of work.”

Fort Williams bowed out of the practice game, but Rhode Island State (cont. on page 20)

College arrived in Brunswick to open the regular season on Saturday, October 1. Some 800 fans watched the action seesaw back and forth, with Bowdoin stopping Rhode Island drives at the sixand 15-yard lines. The visitors jammed up Bowdoin at its one-yard line late in the second period.

Not until the fourth period did Bowdoin score on a carry from two yards out. A safety boosted the home team’s winning score to 9-0.

The next Saturday Bowdoin traveled to Williamstown, Massachusetts to play Williams College in a rain-soaked game that resulted in a 0-0 tie. Bowdoin running back Joe Smith ran 45 yards to the home team’s 15-yard line in the fourth period, but Williams stifled the Bowdoin offense. A field goal attempt from the Williams’ 30-yard line missed, and the home team could not capitalize on its own field-goal opportunities.

Bowdoin fans awaited news of three football games on Saturday, October 15. The varsity team went to Hartford, Connecticut to play Trinity College. Bowdoin defenders blitzed their opponents’ line to block a punt and regain possession on the Trinity 32-yard line less than six minutes into the first period. Bowdoin quickly scored, got the extra point, and took home a 7-0 victory.

Meanwhile, Bowdoin’s “second eleven” beat Thornton Academy, 7-0, at Saco, and Bowdoin’s freshman squad defeated Bangor High School, 7-0, at Bass Park. Butler, the right tackle for Bowdoin, “caught the kickoff and ran through the Bangor team, nearly the length of the field for a touchdown,” wrote an awed sportswriter.

That evening in Brunswick, “a jubilant crowd of freshmen … pulled the chapel bell in celebration of the triple

victory.”

Colby came to Brunswick on October 22 for Bowdoin’s first Maine college-series game. “A very large crowd” turned out on an “afternoon just perfect for football,” except for the “strong cross wind.” The Bowdoin varsity took Colby apart, gaining 121 yards versus the visiting team’s 50 on the ground and 105 yards versus eight yards for Colby in the air. Bowdoin claimed an 18-6 win.

With October 29 a bye, Bowdoin geared up for the Saturday, November 5 “final game in the State championship series,” to be played at Orono against the University of Maine team. A few Bowdoin players nursed injuries from the Colby game, but overall the squad was “for the most part in excellent condition.”

Rain fell overnight November 4-5, the sun briefly shone Saturday morn- ing, and then “a gale began to sweep over the field[,] bringing with it a snowstorm that froze the very blood,” a sportswriter said. Snow continued falling throughout the game, “and the field was a veritable marsh” as 4,600 fans jammed the bleachers.

The snowstorm “increased in fierceness,” and many fans left, “but the hardy players still fought on, with freezing hands and muddy bodies.” The wind essentially shut down the aerial attacks, and the teams scored on the ground. Small, a UM runner, broke around his team’s left end and slogged 67 yards through the muck to score. Bowdoin fullback Morrell “made a beautiful flying tackle” late in the run, but slipped and caught Small’s foot square in his face. That was Maine’s only touchdown, however, and Bowdoin scored twice to win the state championship, 14-7. After spending much of the sea- son sidelined with a damaged tendon, Al Morrell came off the bench and “made several wonderful punts considering the weather.”

The ecstatic Bowdoin players hoisted Coach Ostergren to their shoulders

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and paraded off the football field with many other Bowdoin students in tow. The Bowdoin College band played the familiar “Bowdoin Beats” as the visiting team celebrated Bowdoin’s first win against UMaine since 1918.