Join Darren Hayes as he welcomes Timothy P. Brown to explore the fascinating history of the 1918 Rose Bowl, focusing on the unique military teams that competed in this iconic game. The episode delves into the impressive coaching figures of the time, particularly Red Stanton of Camp Lewis and Hugo Bezdek, who played pivotal roles in shaping the teams. Timothy shares insights from his book, "Fields of Friendly Strife," and recounts how the wartime context influenced football during this period. Listeners will learn about the dynamics of the game, the contrasting styles of the teams, and the significant impact these coaches had on the players. With engaging anecdotes and historical context, this podcast offers a captivating glimpse into the intersection of sports and history during World War I.

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The podcast takes listeners on a captivating journey into the world of American football, focusing on the rich history of the 1918 Rose Bowl. Host Darren Hayes engages with Timothy P. Brown from footballarchaeology.com, who offers insights into the unique context of this historic game. The conversation dives deep into how military teams rather than traditional college squads participated during a time when the nation was embroiled in World War I. Timothy shares fascinating stories about the coaches of the two teams: Mare Island Marines and Camp Lewis, detailing their backgrounds, coaching styles, and the challenges they faced during wartime. The Mare Island team, trained at a San Francisco Bay military base, showcased a physical, smash-mouth style of play, while Camp Lewis, located in Tacoma, brought a more agile approach to the field. The episode also touches on the broader implications of military football during the war, shedding light on how the sport served as a morale booster for troops and a unifying force for the nation. The engaging dialogue not only recounts the specifics of the Rose Bowl but also reflects on the evolution of football coaching during a transformative era in American history.

Links referenced in this episode:

• footballarchaeology.com
• sportshistorynetwork.com
• pigskindispatch.com

You're just in time to join us as we sit down with Timothy P.

Tim's up in just a moment to tell us all about these famous coaches.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of american football events throughout history on a day to day basis.

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You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com dot hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com dot welcome once again to the pig pet, your portal of positive football history.

And welcome to another edition of Tuesday in Football Day.

We visit with the host of that site, Timothy P.

Brown.

Tim, welcome back to the pig pen.

Hey, Derek.

Looking forward to chatting and coming out smelling like roses.

Smelling like roses indeed.

Now, Tim, you were a big help a few years ago when we were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Rose bowl.

We had umpteen days of Rose bowl history, and you were a big part of that.

And we got to talk a lot about the Rose bowl, this story, I don't know if we covered it in the detail that we probably should have.

I don't know if we got into the coaches as much as we, we should have, but we're going to get into them tonight.

So please share.

Not anyways, but it was like 100 years after the event.

And they were, they had military teams rather than college teams playing in those rose bowls.

So I basically kind of covered how it all came about, why they had military teams, who they were, where these guys came from.

And then in the case of the guys who played in this, in the game we're talking about, I also covered what happened to them when they went over to France or wherever they went, you know, during the war.

So.

But, you know, this particular story was more about the coaches of the, of that, of those teams.

So the two teams, one was Mare Island, Marines, and Mare island was and still is, but, you know, it's an island that's in, I'll just say San Francisco Bay, general, generally, you know, you know, if you're from San Francisco, you might say, oh, no, it's over this direction.

Okay, whatever.

It's.

It's in the big body of water, you know, that ends up, you know, going under the Golden Gate Bridge.

And so it was at the time, it was, if you joined the Marines and you were located west of the Mississippi, you went to Mare island for training camp.

You know, they didn't have, you know, they didn't have Pendleton and everything down in San Diego at the time, so, so that was.

That was the training camp for folks west of the Mississippi.

And then the other team that played was called Camp Lewis.

It is now joint Base Lewis.

You know, it's like a.

I think it's a joint Army Air force base or something like that, but it's in Spokane, or, I'm sorry, Tacoma area.

And that was a base that, during World War One.

Most of the training camps for the army anyways, they were organized regionally.

And so if you were, you know, if you grew up in Michigan and kind of that general area, then you trained at Camp Custer, which is west of Detroit.

And then they, you know, wherever you lived in the country, there were different bases like that.

All the.

All the draftees went there and trained, and then they shipped over to France.

So Camp Louis was the place for pretty much anybody from California, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, you know, because those weren't heavily populated areas at the time.

So that's who, you know, that was a, you know, that was an army base.

So the coaches let me talk to the camp, Camp Lewis first, because their coach was a guy named Red Stanton, and he.

He had.

He bet he was in the army during the spanish and american war, which is kind of crazy to think about, you know, but, you know, he was.

And so.

And then after that, he.

Then he ended up coaching at Pomona and Occidental, so la area, you know, smaller schools, but he was, you know, very successful coach.

And then when world war one starts, he.

He enlisted.

And so he's at Camp Lewis, you know, and he's at least as far as west coast people are concerned.

He's considered a, you know, pretty, pretty big name from a coaching standpoint.

So he's a camp Lewis.

And so naturally, when they start a football team, they say, hey, you know, captain, captain Stanton, guess what you're going to do?

So he ends up taking on responsibility for coaching the team.

The Marines, on the other hand, didn't have a coach.

They had an athletic officer.

And so he handled kind of the ad sorts of things, scheduling and the money and all that kind of stuff.

But the team was basically coached during the regular season by the captain, you know, and or, you know, a couple of other players.

And so during the season, the Marines took a trip to the northwest, and they end up training for a week at Oregon, where a guy named Hugo Bezdek is the coach.

And now the Marines captain and three or four other top players had played for best at Oregon the previous year.

So they were, you know, they had a very nice, comfortable, you know, relationship, and he trained them, you know, as they were kind of traveling around.

He trained him for like one week, you know, in between games.

And then once they got the Rose bowl invitation, they, they were like, hey, coach, you know, can you help us out here?

So he came down and, you know, and he coached the team as they prepared for the Rose bowl.

Now, again, he wasn't really their coach during the regular season, but he was for the Rose bowl.

But Bezdek's a really interesting character.

He was one of the first real showmen, you know, showboaters in the coaching profession.

He had, he played at Chicago under stag.

Then he goes and coaches at Arkansas, and it's while he was there that they became known as the Razorbacks.

So, you know, a little tidbit within a tidbit, and then he ends up out at Oregon.

And then the next year he's coaching this marine team in the Rose bowl.

So it's kind of a cool thing.

Then later on, he ends up at Penn State and he coaches Penn State in the Rose bowl.

So he was the first guy to coach three teams.

All the time he was doing this, he was coaching the Philadelphia Phillies in the major leagues.

So that was back at the time where coaches, like football coaches would show up for a four month period and head out.

They weren't involved in recruiting.

They were coaches.

And then they went back and became, went and did their medical or law practice or they coach something else.

So anyways, guys like Pop Warner, they're coaching like three time, three teams at the same time in one season.

Well, Bezdek, you know, he got.

He coached.

He coached, you know, Oregon end of the season, then goes down, and I'm sure he got paid, you know, got paid something for coaching the Marines.

Bezek's gotta be.

He's interesting.

Cause you sit there and think about the coaches that era.

Most of the time, it's like eastern coaches, they cut their teeth in the east, and then they go out west and sort of, you know, finish their careers out there.

This is guy that's sort of makes his name out west and then comes east to Penn State, you know, and does pretty well at Penn State, too, like I said.

Yeah, no, that's a good point, because, yeah, you know, by the time he was coming around, you know, so he played.

He may have been there one more year, I'm not positive, but he played with Walter Eckersall and those kinds of guys, and Walter Steffen, who is pictured right there, by the way.

So he ends up.

Yeah, I mean, you make a really good point.

He's a western guy from the Midwest, and then, you know, and then all of a sudden he's coming back east and, you know, but I think it was because he was doing the baseball that he ends up getting the Penn State football job, right?

Yeah, probably baseball on east.

It's amazing that he gets the Philadelphia baseball job from, because there's any western teams really, at that, unless you go to, like, St.

Louis or something.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, he had coached, and he had coached, like, at Arkansas, and.

And then he.

He was doing a lot of scouting, you know, I think mostly for the.

For the major leagues, maybe did.

Maybe.

I don't remember right now.

You know, he could have.

He could have managed, like, in the summer, but he was just one of those guys who, like, he was one of those classic guys.

He never turned down a buck, you know, he's like, you know, Warner and Rockney, you know, those guys, if they could make a nickel doing something, they did it, you know?

Yeah.

So he was one of those guys.

Yeah.

Very, very cool.

So, yeah, you got some high profile coaches for the time, so that's definitely no wonder.

Those teams had a great game in Rose bowl, and you have some.

Some great mentors.

Yeah.

And then, you know, the game itself, you know, the Mare Islands ended up winning at 13 to nothing, you know, in the Rose bowl.

But I, but he was pretty competitive game.

And so, but, you know, different, different styles.

You know, the Marines were kind of a rough and tough, smash mouth kind of team, and camp Lewis was a little bit lighter on their feet, you know, more of a sweeping kind of team.

Neither one of them threw the ball a heck of a lot, but, you know, that was the nature of the.

Game, Beck, and that's the game when, that's when George Hallis and Patty Driscoll played in May.

That's right.

Okay.

That's right.

They played Mare island also, though.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Things didn't work out.

So they ended up, you know, grabbing camp Lewis because the two, you know, Camp Lewis and Mare island had played during the regular season with Mary island winning that game.

So they ended up beating him twice, you know, in the course of the season.

Well, very, very interesting stuff.

Great, good stuff there.

Now, Tim, you have some really, some great military football articles and your tidbits.

You probably a couple times a month, I think, regularly.

Like you said, you wrote, you wrote a book on military football teams, and that's really mean.

That's your, your sweet spot, I think you can tell you have a great passion for it.

So, you know, where can people find your tidbits and find these military stories and these other great football historic stories that you have?

Yeah.

So, you know, it's basically just, you know, go to footballarchaeology.com, subscribe, and once you do that, you'll get an email every, every time I publish an article there.

You know, probably most of the articles are free.

I also have paid subscriptions.

So in those you'll get to read maybe a quarter or a third of the article and then it kind of cuts off.

But that's the best way.

I also tweet and I post on threads, but when I tweet it, like five people get the message.

Right.

So if you want to make sure you get it just the way the algorithms work.

The algorithm says if you, if you subscribe, you're going to get access to the story every time, you know, through an email.

So.

All right.

Well, that's how you get it, folks.

And make sure you check that out because he's got some great stuff coming out regularly.

So, Tim, we really thank you for joining us and telling the story of football history.

Very good.

Thanks, sir.

We're taking a peek over at the chains and the down marker.

It's fourth and long.

We're going to have to punt the ball and get on out of here.

But we'll have another series tomorrow, your football history headlines, so be sure to tune in.

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