The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the historical significance of football during the World War II era, mainly focusing on an intriguing narrative from 1941 involving a train journey undertaken by fans to witness a game between Minnesota and Washington. Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeology.com delineates the rich tapestry of events surrounding this journey, illustrating how the logistics of travel and the societal context of the time shaped the experience of attending a football game. As we traverse this narrative, we encounter the remarkable coaching career of Bernie Bierman, whose achievements during the 1930s rendered him a pivotal figure in college football history. Moreover, we delve into the unique aspects of this journey, including the nuances of train travel and the presence of military personnel attending the game, highlighting the interplay between sport and the broader historical landscape. Join us as we explore these captivating stories that not only commemorate the sport but also reflect a bygone era steeped in rich historical significance.

This information comes from his original post titled: All Aboard for 1941 Minnesota at Washington

Join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website and the Sports Jersey Dispatch to see even more Positive football news! Sign up to get daily football history headlines in your email inbox @ Email-subscriber

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel for additional content and the regular Football History Minute Shorts.

Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

You're just in time to go back in time with football in the World War II era.

Timothy Brown of FootballArchaeology.com is going to take us on a long travel train ride and a long destination to a game.

It's all coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And welcome to Tuesday and footballarchaeology.com day with Timothy P.

Brown of that site.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darren, looking forward to getting on board with you on this discussion this evening.

Go out of the station.

Okay.

I thought for a second, I thought you said waterboard, and I got a little bit nervous.

I thought this was going to be a torturous affair here.

No, never, never.

Not with you.

What can you tell us about that story?

Yeah, so, you know, I mean, I'm always scarring ebay for miscellaneous items of football memorabilia and hopefully they're dirt cheap when I acquired them.

But, you know, there's a, you can take almost any item and there's a story behind them.

Whether it's a story worth telling is another, is another issue.

But I just, I get a real kick out of the stories that are based on an itinerary.

So I, I published a, you know, if you went to the link to the article, you'd see I linked several other AR articles that I'd already written about, like a, a package trip for Chicago Loyola alums or, you know, fans to go to St.

Louis for.

I think, I think we, we did an episode on that, on that one.

Some of your, a couple of your traveling ones, I believe.

And so I just think they're just really fun because it just, it's just like a lot of, like almost anything in history.

I mean, it takes you back to a different time.

And it, you know, now, and I checked, I confirmed it today before we, before we spoke.

But you know, if you want to fly from, from Minneapolis to Seattle, it's a four hour flight.

So.

Yeah, I mean it takes, that takes a little while, but it's still just four hours right to when they left the station in Seattle or in Minneapolis to get to Seattle.

And then on the way back it was a two day trip, you know, so that meant that they were traveling, you know, they had Pullman cars, you know, with the sleeping compartments and they had dining cars to get all their meals.

They, you know, and they would get off like partway through the trip they might get off and have the guys run up and down the, you know, in, in the town, you know, run to the city hall and back, know, just to stretch their legs and things.

So I mean, it's just a very different, it was a different world.

The other thing I like and this one was the case, some of these brochures just have great period commercial artwork.

So they're kind of fun.

And so obviously you're not going to see that artwork listening to this podcast, but you know, go to the links and you can take a look.

The other thing that was really striking in, in doing this one is just that Bernie Beerman is, he's a guy that I think most people probably just aren't very familiar with, but he without, I mean, I can't think of anybody else who had a better decade of football, at least in the 30s than Bernie Bierman.

He was the football coach of the 30s, no matter what level you talk.

He won five national titles, seven Big Ten titles and had four perfect seasons.

Now those were eight game seasons, but nevertheless, and they were playing, you know, they're playing a Big Ten schedule non conference with, you know, teams like Washington at the time, you know, one of the better, you know, Pacific Coast Conference teams.

So, you know, and the boy knew what he was doing.

He, his first year coaching is a Butte Montana high school, wins the state championship.

He ends up, you know, going off to a couple of plays.

Didn't have a whole lot of success at Mississippi State, but then he goes to Tulane and takes them to the Rose bowl, you know, and that's the only time they've ever been, you know, so, so he had something to do with it and then, then he has just his run of success at Minnesota.

So I mean, he's just this really underappreciated guy, you know.

But you know, other things, I just, you know, cool things about the story like they, they took like the Milwaukee Road Railroad.

Railroad to get out there and Then they came back on the Great Northern so that they were taking different site or different tracks and presumably, you know, you know, I guess when you're crossing North Dakota, it really doesn't matter, you know, which is which one you're on, because it's not going to be all too exciting.

I, I've made that.

And you got to hit the, the Rockies somewhere along the way.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, you're out in like Idaho before you do that, which is then fab, you know, just absolutely gorgeous.

But so anyways, you know, there's stuff like that.

And then another great thing about the, you know, they're.

One of the articles leading up to the game of preview talked about how Beerman, you know, this was, it was the first year where you, you had free substitution but.

But nobody freely substituted.

You know, they still stuck to the old method.

They did free substitution because, you know, the teams were going to be smaller, you know, due to guys entering the military, yada yada.

And so they've, you know, freed up the substitution rules, but everybody pretty much still kept to the same practices for the, for the next few years.

And.

But like Beerman for the Washington game, you know, one of the articles in the newspapers talks about he's going to start his defensive lineup, you know, so this is something, you know, fans and coaches don't think about nowadays.

But back then, part of the strategy of the game was who are you going to start?

You start your best defensive players or your best offensive players.

Right.

Because you could only substitute, you know, it was still limited substitution or at least that was still the mindset.

And you know, so he decided to, you know, he figured if they don't score, they can't win.

And you know, they did give up a touchdown, but they ended up winning, I think 14 to 6 or something.

So anyways, that's.

That was kind of cool.

I mean, another thing that I just, you know, I found intriguing was the game.

There were like 7,000 soldiers and sailors from the Washington Seattle area because there's big ports and then Fort Lewis is out there and Camp Lewis, whatever it was called at the time.

But they also had a bunch of sailors from a British battleship that it had been torpedoed off of Crete in the Mediterranean, made its way through the Suez Canal and then the Indian Ocean trying to get over to Singapore where they figured it could get repaired and.

But Singapore was filled up, so they sent it to Seattle.

So it had to cross the Pacific.

Yeah, right.

Right across the street, you know, so.

It'S like these Guys.

And a good part of the time they had to.

This ship was going backwards because, know, the way that the torpedo would damage the ship.

So anyways, I mean, it's just like these crazy things that.

That happened, you know, because, I mean, the US Wasn't in the war, but, you know, there was a war going on.

Right.

Yeah.

And yet, you know, these guys had to stay with their ship.

Right.

So anyway, just crazy stuff.

And, you know, anyways, just crazy stuff.

And then, you know, by the time World War II ended, there'd been so many advances in aviation that.

And so many pilots available.

The commercial aviation literally took off.

Right.

And it just changed the nature of team travel.

And it became very normal for college football teams and the pros, you know, to fly, you know, to games.

And so it's no.

After the war and it's no accident that, you know, Major League Baseball puts a team out in California, you know, not too long after the war.

And AAFC has.

Team.

Has a team, The San Francisco 49ers, you know, Cleveland.

Cleveland Rams moved to LA in 46.

Yeah.

I mean, that's all because of aviation, right?

Yeah.

And so now, you know, teams still travel by train, you know, into.

Probably into summon, into the 60s, who knows, but.

But a lot more teams flying to games.

So just.

So that kind of made this whole.

This itinerary of fans traveling, you know, two days each way to get to a football game just makes it a little bit more kind of romantic in not.

Well, in one sense of the word.

It's kind of the end of an era, like you said, you know, it's the end of train travel was the.

The main way to go long distances.

So that's pretty.

Very cool.

Very cool.

So, yeah, I mean, anyways, it's.

Yeah.

I mean, now we just.

We jump on a plane and go.

You know.

That's definitely true.

And Tim, you just have a way of making the mundane interesting and, you know, just.

Just your thought process.

That's what makes you very intriguing.

Reading what you write down and having your visit each Tuesday.

But you make it interesting to us and put it the application to football in, into the world in general.

So maybe you could share with listeners where they can partake in some of your tidbits.

Yeah, just, you know, my site is footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site, which means you can subscribe for free, in which case you'll get the email every time I publish something.

You can also just have it sent to your to the app if you prefer to get the use the substack app so you can subscribe for free for a limited amount of information in it or the paid subscription.

So anyways, it's all out there and you can also follow me on Blue sky if that's your choice for social media.

Well, Tim, we really appreciate your preservation of football history and making it interesting and telling these little stories that really mean a lot to help propel the game to what it is today at all levels of football.

So we appreciate that and we appreciate you for coming on tonight and we'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday.

Yeah, look forward to it.

It's fun stuff.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well as our own football comic strip cleat marks comics pigskindetspatch.com there's also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and don't forget the Big Skin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our broadcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports.

History Network, your headquarters with a yesteryear.

As your favorite sport.

You can learn more at Sports History Network that.