The Tide Has Quite a History with “The Granddaddy of Them All” (Part 1)

For my entire life, I’ve heard the tales of Alabama’s exploits in the Rose Bowl. My father was born in 1920 in Mobile, Alabama. My Dad was a lifelong Tide fan who was just old enough to begin to understand football and really cheer for the Tide the year Alabama was first invied to the Rose Bowl.

For him, Bama exploits in the Rose Bowl were central to his fandom and for me they became the stuff of legend. Over the course of this week, I’m going to take a walk down memory lane and unpack a ton of what I’ve learned over the years. I hope you’ll enjoy the journey with me. It’s quite the tale.

The Beginning

In the 1920s, football in the South wasn’t what it is today. World War I put a temporary halt to college football. As things began to return to normal, schools resumed playing, and many schools in the region had teams. It’s hard to believe now, but southern football was far from the central activity it has become today. In fact, it was little more than an after thought in the minds of most.

The seat of college football prior to the mid-1920s was in the north and the midwest. The sport had been dominated by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton from its inception. The formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (the precursor of the NCAA) and the evolution of the rules of football opened the sport to more schools.

While the popularity of the sport grew, football also faced strong headwinds from academicians. University professors and presidents alike fought the development of bowl games following the regular football season. Their reasoning was the negative impact that additional games, practices, and travel has on the academic lives of the student-athletes involved (they must be spinning in their graves today). Over the years both university presidents and professors unions used their influence to keep teams from the north and the midwest from playing in bowl games to which they were invited. This bias from the administration and faculties of the more prestegious schools in the north and midwest would come to benefit Alabama and other southern schools significantly.

Opportunity Knocks

In 1925, Alabama’s football team went 9-0 and won the Southern Conference championship. Coach Wallace Wade’s team was on the radar of the Rose Bowl, the game that has by this time become the defacto national championship game. Unfortunately, representatives of the Rose Bowl saw Alabama’s game against Georgia Tech and were not impressed enough to invite the team to Pasadena for the 1926 Rose Bowl. Fortunately, the three teams they did invite rejected the invitation, and Bama got a second chance.

While the presidents of the first three schools rejected the invitations under pressure from their faculties, President George H. Denny had no such issue. Unlike the eastern school presidents, Denny (and other southern school presidents) recognized this as an opportunity. Relatively speaking, the south was lagging behind the rest of the country and had been since the Civil War.

The invitation to the Rose Bowl represented the opportunity for the University of Alabama to get visibility on a national stage. By the 1920s, national magazines and wire services were covering college football, and the sport was growing a huge following across the country, and the following was soon to explode. The 1926 game would be the first to be broadcast nationally on radio. The recognition brought by a Rose Bowl appearance would be a bonanza for a school, in the midst of an economically lagging region, that was struggling to recruit students from the rest of the country. In fact, even Auburn president Spright Dowell sent a telegram wishing the team good luck in recognition as the old saying goes, “if the tide rises, all the ships in the harbor rise.”

The Trip West

The Tide headed west on a 4 day train ride, playing poker and studying the gameplan. Once in California, star halfback Johnny Mack Brown and his teammates were caught up in a whirlwind of reporters, photographers, and distractions. To combat the chaos, Coach Wallace Wade sequestered the team and put them through gruling practices. By gametime, the team was ready. Despite trailing 12-0 in the opening half, the Tide roared back and won their first Rose Bowl 20-19 over the Washington Huskies behind the play of Brown and Quarterback Pooley Hubert.

The Aftermath

The Crimson Tide won not only for themselves, the university, and even the State of Alabama. In the end, they won for the south.

The team was received as conquering heroes at every train stop along the way through the region culminating with a huge celebration even attended by over 1,000 Tulane University students. With the the Tide win, the south could no longer be overlooked on a national stage. In winning the 1926 Rose Bowl and the 1925 National Chapionship, the Crimson Tide became the stuff of legend, and opened the door to a wealth of opportunity.

Johnny Mack Brown vaulted from his place on the Tide squad to become a movie star. The University of Alabama attracted notariaty and students from across the country. Southerners in general looked upon the game as validation that they were not in fact inferior. The 1926 Rose Bowl was truly “The Game that Changed the South.