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— General history
— J.F. “Pop” McKale
— The games
— Comparisons then and now
— Wildcats nickname
— Military service
— Rankings
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Excerpt from L.A. Times, Nov. 8, 1914, authored by Bill Henry:
“Arizona’s cactus-fed athletes, despite heroic efforts on the part of their two halfbacks, (Asa) Porter and (Franklin) Luis, went down to defeat before the Occidental Tigers yesterday afternoon, the tally with all precincts heard from being 14 to 0 in favor of the Tigers.
Confident of rolling up a big score, the Tigers took the field with grins on their faces, but before the game was 10 seconds old they knew they had a battle on their hands.
The Arizona men showed the fight of wild cats and displayed before the public gaze a couple of little shrimps in the backfield who defied all attempts of the Tigers to stop them.”This site will conduct a countdown in a 100-day period, leading up to Arizona’s 2014 football season-opener with UNLV on Aug. 29 at Arizona Stadium. The 100 Days ‘Til Kickoff countdown will include information daily about the historic 1914 Arizona team that helped create the school’s nickname of “Wildcats” because of how they played that fateful day against Occidental.
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Football officiating in 1914, when Arizona became known as the “Wildcats”, was nothing close to what we know of today.
Arizona was not affiliated with a conference in 1914. No director of officials was employed. Heck, no officials were employed by a central agency. The “crew”, if you can call it that, consisted of only two people: Umpire/referee and head linesman.
Today’s alignment consists mostly of an officiating crew of seven people: Head referee, umpire, head linesman, line judge, field judge, side judge and back judge. Conferences such as the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and ACC will utilize eight-person staffs in 2014 including a center judge, who will line up in the offensive backfield opposite the head referee.
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The 1914 Arizona football team that earned the honor of being named the first “Wildcats” was composed of (front row, left to right): Verne La Tourette, George Seeley, Leo Cloud, Richard Meyer, Asa Porter. Second row: Franklin Luis, Lawrence Jackson, Ray Miller, J.F. “Pop” McKale (coach), Turner Smith, Harry Hobson (manager), Orville McPherson, Albert Crawford, Ernest Renaud. Back row: Albert Condron, Emzy Lynch, Charley Beach, Vinton Hammels, Bill Hendry, George Clawson, Harry Turvey.
(AllSportsTucson.com graphic/Photo from University of Arizona Library Special Collections)
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The Pac-12 is the only Power 5 conference that will continue to use a seven-person crew. Whether or not that is ideal is a topic for another blog.
Abe Chanin, in his 1979 book They Fought Like Wildcats, includes a couple of paragraphs on the officiating of Arizona’s games in 1914 and thereabouts.
In Arizona’s three home games in 1914 — against Douglas YMCA, Tempe Normal (ASU) and Pomona — the umpire/referee was Tucson mayor Ira Ervan Huffman (who was nearing the end of his two-year term) and the head linesman was local Methodist minister L.W. Wheatley Huffman.
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“How could I lose in those days?” coach J.F. “Pop” McKale told Chanin. “Huffman was the mayor of Tucson, and Mr. Wheatley, he was, well no one cussed at him, because he was our local Methodist minister.”
Huffman was a noted physician when he moved to Tucson from Beaver, Utah, in 1906. In 1913, Dr. Huffman with seven associates, all physicians, purchased the Rogers Hospital and changed the name to the Arizona Hospital. He was a straight-shooter. And of course, Wheatley was a religious man, so how could he lack ethics as a referee? … Right?
Arizona defeated its three visitors in 1914 by a combined score of 62-6. Much of that had to do with the inferior talent with Douglas YMCA and Tempe Normal at the time. The “Varsity” had to fight it out for its 7-6 win over Pomona on Thanksgiving Day.
In the following season, McKale was forced to take over the role of umpire/referee and his student trainer, Jim Maffeo, the head linesman spot because of an emergency involving a Pancho Villa raid. Arizona was set to play the 22nd Infantry at Douglas when Villa, a noted Mexican revolutionary general, and his men were spotted crossing the border.
“Almost every one of those soldiers were called out after the Mexican bandit,” McKale told Chanin. “All that was left was the 22nd Infantry band and the soldiers who were in the hospital. Even the officials for the game had taken off.
“I ended up as umpire and referee for the game and Jim Maffeo, my student trainer, took over as heads linesman. Needless to say we won the game. The score was 49 to 0.”
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He also writes articles for Bleacher Report and Lindy’s College Sports.
