Dick Hanley's resignation brought Lynn "Pappy" Waldorf to the
head of Northwestern's football program, where he would stay
for 12 years. Waldorf had been an All-American tackle at Syracuse,
and was fresh from taking Kansas State to a Big Six championship
when he arrived at N.U.
Waldorf's first conference game was also the first night game
in Big Ten history -- the Wildcats lost 7-0 to Purdue. The team
then lost to Minnesota (on its way to a second-straight undefeated
season) and won their first conference game against Illinois,
10-3. After that, however, came the real surprise of Waldorf's
first year at Northwestern -- a victory against an undefeated
Notre Dame squad.
The Irish were on their way toward a national championship
going into the game. They ended up struggling against the Wildcats,
going into the fourth quarter with a 7-7 tie. In the closing
minutes, All-American guard Paul Tangora recovered a Notre Dame
fumble on the Irish 35-yard line; sophomore Don Heap carried
it in from the 12 to win.
Once again, the Evanston campus proved its enthusiasm for football
victories. Paulison wrote:
The victory set off a spontaneous student celebration.
The team received a riotous reception on its arrival at the
12th Street Station, students snake-danced through the Loop
and held a fanfare in Fountain Square. Classes were canceled
on Monday, and the celebration was climaxed by a dance that
evening.
Waldorf's 1936 team was starless but solid, anchored by three
sophomores: future coach Bob Voigts, Bernie Jefferson, and Cleo
Diehl. The team began a streak of conference wins, beginning
with an 18-7 victory over Iowa. Ohio State, the previous year's
co-champions, fell to the Wildcats at Dyche Stadium; Illinois
lost 14-2. An undefeated Northwestern went up against an undefeated
Minnesota in a decisive game.
The game was a scoreless draw heading into the second half,
but a Minnesota fumble and an unneccesary roughness penalty
put the Wildcats on the goal line -- a single touchdown put
an end to the Gophers' 28-game winning streak. Journalist Harry
MacNamara wrote this in the Chicago Herald and Examiner:
Northwestern beat Minnesota yesterday! And as long
as you live history will be dated from that rainy, murky last
day of October, 1936, whenever and wherever football lore is
discussed.
Northwestern won, 6 to 0, but the score didn't matter much
to the capacity gathering of 48,307 spectators, all that could
be jammed into the limited confines of Dyche Stadium, Evanston.
They came harboring faint suspicions that this Wildcat team,
coached by Lynn Waldorf, might achieve the impossible -- beat
the mighty Golden Gophers. However, their suspicions were
fathered purely by the hope that is supposed to spring eternal
in the human breast.
Northwestern went on to beat Wisconsin and Michigan, but their
chances for a national title were killed by a 26-6 loss to Notre
Dame. The Wildcats went home with a single, non-conference loss
and a Big Ten Championship.
The 1937 team, despite the graduation of a good deal of the
previous years main players, struggled to an even 4-4 record;
the following season ended 4-2-2. 1939's team looked more hopeful
for Northwestern, filled as it was with lettermen and veteran
seniors. The year also marked the debut of football star Bill
DeCorrevont, one of several new players from Chicago's Austin
High School national championship team. A season
plagued by
bad luck and turnovers, however, ended with a 3-4-1 overall
record.
It was the 1940 team that came through on some of the previous
year's expectations, winning four of six conference games and
ending the year with an upset over Notre Dame. DeCorrevont and "Red" Hahenstein scored at will throughout the season, which
opened with a 40-0 rout of Syracuse; Wisconsin was beaten by
20 points, Illinois by 18. Minnesota squeaked past 13 to 12,
mainly due to a missed point-after on the Wildcats' part --
Michigan put in a more solid 20-13 win.
The game against Notre Dame had little meaning in terms of
title hopes for Northwestern, but the rivalry of the past
few
years made the game important in the eyes of both schools.
All-American Alf Bauman, a tackle who played with DeCorrevont
at Austin High, rose
to the occasion defensively; DeCorrevont kicked off the
game with a completion to Don Clawson,
who ran
45 yards
for
a touchdown.
At the second half's opening, DeCorrevont made a fifty-yard
run to Notre Dame's 5-yard line, then ran in for a touchdown.
The final score: a twenty-point shutout of the Irish.
1941 saw the addition of Otto Graham, one of Northwestern's
football greats, but the team ended with a fourth place conference
standing due to close losses to Michigan and Minnesota. Graham
put together plenty of touchdowns throughout the season, though
-- two in his conference debut against Kansas State, one against
Michigan (during a 14-7 loss), two more against Ohio State ...
and so on for the rest of the season. The team's one-point loss
to Minnesota was made more bitter by a few controversial calls
by the officials. Don Clawson played what Walter Paulison refers
to as "one of the best games of his career" during a 20-14 win
over Indiana, but it was followed by another one-point loss
-- this time to Notre Dame. The Wildcats finished off the season
with a 27-0 win over Illinois, and a 4-2 conference record.
During the 1942 wartime schedule of 10 games, the Wildcats
won only one -- a 3-0 triumph over Texas. Alan Pick, a senior "who had done little but gather bench splinters," entered the
game, kicked a 22-yard field goal, then returned to the sidelines.
The season ended without a single conference victory. The next
year's team, however, went through the conference with only
one loss to Michigan (who ended the season undefeated.) Otto
Graham took fire as a quarterback, putting the Wildcat offense
in high gear during 13-0 wins over Great Lakes and Ohio State,
a 42-6 blowout of Minnesota, and a 41-point shutout of Wisconsin,
during which Graham put in three touchdowns and three extra
points in the first 12 minutes alone. The team lost to Notre
Dame, but ended the seaon with a 53-6 trouncing of Illinois.
After that, his final game, Graham rushed onto the field in
plain clothes and ran off with the game ball.
The 1944 season was quite a reversal, since many of Northwestern's
key players had been lost to graduation and active service in
the war. Once again, the team couldn't muster a single conference
win. Their first game -- a 62-0 win over DePauw which must have
raised hopes for the team -- was their only win for the season.
The following years found the Wildcats hovering near the bottom
of the conference rankings, ending both seasons 4-4-1 overall.
The 1946 season -- the first post-war season for Big Ten football
-- was "Pappy" Waldorf's last: he moved on to the position of
head coach at the University of California. His position was
taken by one of his former players, Bob Voigts -- who, two years
later, would take Northwestern to a Rose Bowl battle against
his former coach.
...next...
