Who Knew the HooDoo? (1936) | Syracusefan.com

Who Knew the HooDoo? (1936)

SWC75

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1936

1936 was the year everything fell apart for Vic Hanson. The season opened with the usual, meaningless 31-0 win over Clarkson. Then came a shocking 0-19 home loss to Baldwin Wallace, which was not even a major college team. The losses piled up after that, 7-20 to Cornell, 0-20 to Maryland, 0-18 to Penn State, 7-9 to Indiana, (their one credible performance- the Hoosiers were 5-2-1 that year). But Columbia handled the Orange 0-17, giving SU a disheartening six game losing streak heading into the Colgate game.

“Vic Hanson surveys the worst athletic season he has ever had a part in, either as boy or man, undergraduate or coach. He may find an answer to one question that has been bothering him a long time. He has often expressed wonder as to whether Orange followers would be satisfied to lose every game if Colgate could be beaten. Vic will know the answer if he beats Colgate.” Actually, the answer came sooner than that as speculation that Hanson was on his way out started before the game was even played.

The New York Sun actually reported that Hanson had already resigned effective the end of the season. “It was expected Hanson would continue on the payroll at SU in some other job. There was another report that “alumni chapters all over the East had petitioned the Chancellor to make sweeping changes in Syracuse football” and also to appoint a new athletic director.

Vannie Albanese was still on the team but overall the talent and experience level had declined and things just snowballed after the Baldwin Wallace shocker. Hanson’s past successes were forgotten. There did not seem to be any issue of keeping Hanson as coach. Talk instead was about who should be his successor. Naturally, coaches who had been successful elsewhere were prominent. Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf, an SU grad, class of ’25, led Northwestern to an upset of mighty Minnesota, two time defending national champions, and the Big Ten title. They were going to win the first “official” AP poll as national champions until Notre Dame upset them in their last game. Then there was Howard Jones, who had coached SU in 1908 and later turned Southern California into a national power. Rumor had it that he was interested in coming back east. Hugo Bezdeck, the former long time Penn State coach, was mentioned as a football coach or an Athletic Director, another spot that was open at SU. Gus Dorais, Knute Rockne’s old teammate who had wowed Army back in 1913, was a successful coach at Detroit. Maybe he might want to come to Syracuse. Then there was the new coach at Temple, who had taken over for Pop Warner, Fred Swan, who had once been Andy Kerr’s line coach. And there was former Colgate coach Dick Harlow, now at Harvard. Ike Armstrong of Utah, “who has had sensational success in the Rocky Mountain Conference” was considered even though he was not an easterner. Maybe he could shake things up. For some reason, Chick Meehan who had left NYU and was now marking time at tiny Manhattan College, was not mentioned. Then there was the coach at Iowa, Ossie Solem.

Lawrence J. Skiddy wasn’t so sure that the Vic Hanson era was about to end. He had invented someone he called “The Old Insider”, (a predecessor to Arnie Burdick’s “The Old Scout”), who had a different view. “There isn’t going to be a new football coach. There will be some wild shouts but Vic Hanson will be on the job again as head coach next fall….Hanson has been fired so often in the conversation leagues in the last 6 weeks that it was interesting to see another view taken.” The OI’s theory was that with an interim Chancellor, (William Pratt Graham, who would become the permanent Chancellor a year later), it was unlikely that any changes would be made now “and leave his successor holding the bag”. Also, they’d still have to pay Hanson for the last year of his contract and in the depths of the depression, paying two football coaches at once seemed like an unaffordable luxury. Skiddy noted that Cornell had fired Gil Dobie and replaced him with Carl Snavely despite the imminent retirement of their President.

On criticism of Hanson was that “Victor wants not only fellow Syracuseans but his own classmates as his assistants”. His staff included several members of the Class of ’27, including old hero “Gotch” Carr. It was suggested that surrounding oneself with old cronies was perhaps less effective that bringing in people who had shown they could coach the game well elsewhere. The OI suggested that maybe the best way to handle the situation was to tell Hanson that he could stay but that his staff needed to be restructured with some new blood from successful programs who might revitalize things at SU. If he didn’t want to go along with that, he could resign. (The same deal was offered to long time assistant Reeves Baysinger, who’s two year term as head coach in 1947-48 was a disaster. He said “no” and Ben Schwartzwalder was brought in to rebuild the program).

Colgate had problems of its own, with “the most crippled squad in it’s history….Colgate hopes Syracuse is as bad as it looks to be. Syracuse hopes Colgate is as weak as it has indicated….Colgate has its worst line and its poorest backfield while Syracuse has its most ineffective team of modern football.” The Red Raiders had been shut out by Duke, 0-6 in their opener, gotten beaten badly by Tulane in New York, 6-28 and also lost to Holy Cross, 13-20. But these were strong teams, (Duke went 9-1 that year, Tulane 6-3-1 and Holy Cross 7-2-1), and Colgate had won four other games. But only one of those was against a major college team, a 14-7 win over Army. Still, they were heavily favored to beat Syracuse for the 9th year in a row.

Skiddy tried to conjure up interest in the game by once again sighting the number of upsets in the series history, including the tired old stories of the 1915 and 1923 games, although he mentioned that “middle-aged fans” would remember those games. “The Orange hope that 1936 will continue the jinx on favorites: Joe Louis, (losing to Max Schmeling), the underdog New York Giants, (who had won the National League pennant), 30-1 shot Bold Venture winning the Kentucky Derby, (Seabiscuit was two years away).” But he agreed that Syracuse “has no runner equal to Colgate’s Whit Jaeger who has 9TDs”, although he conceded that Vannie Albanese was ”back in form the last two weeks”. Colgate’s Red Chesbro would be the best lineman on the field and, their punter, Marshal, was better than anybody SU had. He also said that Colgate typically played the game with more precision and better execution that Syracuse did.

The Sunday morning headlines did not mention the game. “Hanson out in Syracuse shake-up…Reorganization of FB leadership complete…Simmons to be only man retained of present coaching staff.” The article inside read “Colgate’s flag continues to wave high over the gridiron of Syracuse University in Archbold Stadium, the Red Raiders having brought their season to a glorious climax Saturday afternoon by defeating Syracuse 13-0 before a crowd of 20,000, which little more than half filled the big bowl.“

Under the circumstances one might expect SU’s players to go out and win one for their old coach. They clearly had tried, playing Colgate tougher than their predecessors had. “Captain Vannie Albanese concluding his career in Orange, turned in one of the finest individual efforts any athlete has ever given in a Syracuse-Colgate game, crashing the line effectively as a ball carrier, making sensational catches of forward passes and making some fine tackles which brought down Colgate’s backs on the two long runs the Red Raiders managed to make in the game.”

Colgate scored first, nine minutes into the game. Johnny Ritschko again figured in things. A photo in the paper showed SU’s Ray Reckmack climbing up Johnny’s back to prevent a completion at the SU seven. He was flagged for interference and shortly afterwards Maroon fullback Eddie Lalor bucked over form the one.

“No Colgate team of the 12 seasons since Syracuse has won a game from its traditional rival has been as badly outplayed in a quarter as the Colgate squad of Saturday was in the second but when defensive strength was at a premium, the Raiders managed to show enough of it to turn back the scoring tide.” The Orange manufactured three drives into Colgate territory only to be forced to punt from the Colgate 33, get stopped on fourth down from the 17 and get called for a touchback when Reckmack’s incomplete pass went through the end zone, (a rule that has long since been changed).

Colgate put the game away early in the second half when Whit Jaeger broke off a long punt return. Albanese caught him but Lalor again plunged over from the one to put Colgate up 0-13, which proved to be the final score. Whereas the previous year’s team, unbeaten and dreaming of Roses, had been outgained 84-324 and out-first downed 4-17 this much put-upon team was outgained by only 213-227 and the first downs were even at 15-15. It was sloppy game with Syracuse having 6 turnovers but Colgate 5 of their own.

But it wasn’t enough to save Hanson’s job. A university announcement on the following Tuesday confirmed the Herald Journal’s scoop of Sunday morning, except that Reeves Baysinger was also retained for the new coaching staff, along with Roy Simmons. No new head coach was announced yet. A committee that had been working since summer to determine a new athletic director now added the task of determining a new coach.

Captain Albanese led a committee of players who spoke with acting Chancellor Graham and “declared the players of the squad were unanimous in the belief that no man could handle Syracuse’s coaching better than Hanson. Dr. Graham thanked them for their advice, expressed appreciation of their loyalty and added that careful consideration would be given to their remarks.” Hanson’s resignation was formally announced the next day. It wasn’t much of a “Resignation” as it was also announced that he’d continue to be paid his salary of $5,000/yr in ten monthly installments through 6/1/38.

Skiddy wrote an angry article blaming the university for its limited football budget. A series of investigations of college football by the Carnegie Foundation had college Presidents concerned about “over emphasis” and Syracuse Chancellor Flint had been a leader in the movement to limit the football program. When the complaints about Hanson having too many cronies on his staff got to be too much, Vic got permission to interview assistants at other schools for jobs at Syracuse. He gave up the attempt when he found out they were making more money than he was. Skiddy also decried the restrictions placed on athletes. ”The simplest privileges were taken away from athletes until the athletic group was considerably below the non-athlete group in freedom of movement when there wasn’t the slightest reason they shouldn’t be exactly the same”. Skiddy suggested that the administration might have now realized the folly of their ways and that the next coach might benefit from the changes. His record could thus be better than Hanson’s through no fault of Vic’s.

Hanson immediately got offers from several other schools for contracts that probably would have paid him more than he was getting at SU. One of them was from Colgate, who wanted him to be their baseball and basketball coach. He wound up, however, coaching high school football at Freeport High School on Long Island. He was drafted into the Army when World War II began and was assigned to teach physical education at West Point. After the war he became an insurance executive. At some point he developed a mysterious malady that left him bed ridden, (his 1982 obit called it simply “leg problems” and said he died after a long illness). Every time I saw him interviewed on TV he was lying in his bed, obviously in bad shape. He lived to see the building of the Carrier Dome and was listening to the radio from his bed when his basketball jersey was retired in 1982. Shortly before his death he was quoted as saying “I really coached from the heart. I gave it everything I had…I ask for longevity and to be remembered as a good guy.”

The HooDoo had longevity but just one more year to go….
 
1936

1936 was the year everything fell apart for Vic Hanson. The season opened with the usual, meaningless 31-0 win over Clarkson. Then came a shocking 0-19 home loss to Baldwin Wallace, which was not even a major college team. The losses piled up after that, 7-20 to Cornell, 0-20 to Maryland, 0-18 to Penn State, 7-9 to Indiana, (their one credible performance- the Hoosiers were 5-2-1 that year). But Columbia handled the Orange 0-17, giving SU a disheartening six game losing streak heading into the Colgate game.

“Vic Hanson surveys the worst athletic season he has ever had a part in, either as boy or man, undergraduate or coach. He may find an answer to one question that has been bothering him a long time. He has often expressed wonder as to whether Orange followers would be satisfied to lose every game if Colgate could be beaten. Vic will know the answer if he beats Colgate.” Actually, the answer came sooner than that as speculation that Hanson was on his way out started before the game was even played.

The New York Sun actually reported that Hanson had already resigned effective the end of the season. “It was expected Hanson would continue on the payroll at SU in some other job. There was another report that “alumni chapters all over the East had petitioned the Chancellor to make sweeping changes in Syracuse football” and also to appoint a new athletic director.

Vannie Albanese was still on the team but overall the talent and experience level had declined and things just snowballed after the Baldwin Wallace shocker. Hanson’s past successes were forgotten. There did not seem to be any issue of keeping Hanson as coach. Talk instead was about who should be his successor. Naturally, coaches who had been successful elsewhere were prominent. Lynn “Pappy” Waldorf, an SU grad, class of ’25, led Northwestern to an upset of mighty Minnesota, two time defending national champions, and the Big Ten title. They were going to win the first “official” AP poll as national champions until Notre Dame upset them in their last game. Then there was Howard Jones, who had coached SU in 1908 and later turned Southern California into a national power. Rumor had it that he was interested in coming back east. Hugo Bezdeck, the former long time Penn State coach, was mentioned as a football coach or an Athletic Director, another spot that was open at SU. Gus Dorais, Knute Rockne’s old teammate who had wowed Army back in 1913, was a successful coach at Detroit. Maybe he might want to come to Syracuse. Then there was the new coach at Temple, who had taken over for Pop Warner, Fred Swan, who had once been Andy Kerr’s line coach. And there was former Colgate coach Dick Harlow, now at Harvard. Ike Armstrong of Utah, “who has had sensational success in the Rocky Mountain Conference” was considered even though he was not an easterner. Maybe he could shake things up. For some reason, Chick Meehan who had left NYU and was now marking time at tiny Manhattan College, was not mentioned. Then there was the coach at Iowa, Ossie Solem.

Lawrence J. Skiddy wasn’t so sure that the Vic Hanson era was about to end. He had invented someone he called “The Old Insider”, (a predecessor to Arnie Burdick’s “The Old Scout”), who had a different view. “There isn’t going to be a new football coach. There will be some wild shouts but Vic Hanson will be on the job again as head coach next fall….Hanson has been fired so often in the conversation leagues in the last 6 weeks that it was interesting to see another view taken.” The OI’s theory was that with an interim Chancellor, (William Pratt Graham, who would become the permanent Chancellor a year later), it was unlikely that any changes would be made now “and leave his successor holding the bag”. Also, they’d still have to pay Hanson for the last year of his contract and in the depths of the depression, paying two football coaches at once seemed like an unaffordable luxury. Skiddy noted that Cornell had fired Gil Dobie and replaced him with Carl Snavely despite the imminent retirement of their President.

On criticism of Hanson was that “Victor wants not only fellow Syracuseans but his own classmates as his assistants”. His staff included several members of the Class of ’27, including old hero “Gotch” Carr. It was suggested that surrounding oneself with old cronies was perhaps less effective that bringing in people who had shown they could coach the game well elsewhere. The OI suggested that maybe the best way to handle the situation was to tell Hanson that he could stay but that his staff needed to be restructured with some new blood from successful programs who might revitalize things at SU. If he didn’t want to go along with that, he could resign. (The same deal was offered to long time assistant Reeves Baysinger, who’s two year term as head coach in 1947-48 was a disaster. He said “no” and Ben Schwartzwalder was brought in to rebuild the program).

Colgate had problems of its own, with “the most crippled squad in it’s history….Colgate hopes Syracuse is as bad as it looks to be. Syracuse hopes Colgate is as weak as it has indicated….Colgate has its worst line and its poorest backfield while Syracuse has its most ineffective team of modern football.” The Red Raiders had been shut out by Duke, 0-6 in their opener, gotten beaten badly by Tulane in New York, 6-28 and also lost to Holy Cross, 13-20. But these were strong teams, (Duke went 9-1 that year, Tulane 6-3-1 and Holy Cross 7-2-1), and Colgate had won four other games. But only one of those was against a major college team, a 14-7 win over Army. Still, they were heavily favored to beat Syracuse for the 9th year in a row.

Skiddy tried to conjure up interest in the game by once again sighting the number of upsets in the series history, including the tired old stories of the 1915 and 1923 games, although he mentioned that “middle-aged fans” would remember those games. “The Orange hope that 1936 will continue the jinx on favorites: Joe Louis, (losing to Max Schmeling), the underdog New York Giants, (who had won the National League pennant), 30-1 shot Bold Venture winning the Kentucky Derby, (Seabiscuit was two years away).” But he agreed that Syracuse “has no runner equal to Colgate’s Whit Jaeger who has 9TDs”, although he conceded that Vannie Albanese was ”back in form the last two weeks”. Colgate’s Red Chesbro would be the best lineman on the field and, their punter, Marshal, was better than anybody SU had. He also said that Colgate typically played the game with more precision and better execution that Syracuse did.

The Sunday morning headlines did not mention the game. “Hanson out in Syracuse shake-up…Reorganization of FB leadership complete…Simmons to be only man retained of present coaching staff.” The article inside read “Colgate’s flag continues to wave high over the gridiron of Syracuse University in Archbold Stadium, the Red Raiders having brought their season to a glorious climax Saturday afternoon by defeating Syracuse 13-0 before a crowd of 20,000, which little more than half filled the big bowl.“

Under the circumstances one might expect SU’s players to go out and win one for their old coach. They clearly had tried, playing Colgate tougher than their predecessors had. “Captain Vannie Albanese concluding his career in Orange, turned in one of the finest individual efforts any athlete has ever given in a Syracuse-Colgate game, crashing the line effectively as a ball carrier, making sensational catches of forward passes and making some fine tackles which brought down Colgate’s backs on the two long runs the Red Raiders managed to make in the game.”

Colgate scored first, nine minutes into the game. Johnny Ritschko again figured in things. A photo in the paper showed SU’s Ray Reckmack climbing up Johnny’s back to prevent a completion at the SU seven. He was flagged for interference and shortly afterwards Maroon fullback Eddie Lalor bucked over form the one.

“No Colgate team of the 12 seasons since Syracuse has won a game from its traditional rival has been as badly outplayed in a quarter as the Colgate squad of Saturday was in the second but when defensive strength was at a premium, the Raiders managed to show enough of it to turn back the scoring tide.” The Orange manufactured three drives into Colgate territory only to be forced to punt from the Colgate 33, get stopped on fourth down from the 17 and get called for a touchback when Reckmack’s incomplete pass went through the end zone, (a rule that has long since been changed).

Colgate put the game away early in the second half when Whit Jaeger broke off a long punt return. Albanese caught him but Lalor again plunged over from the one to put Colgate up 0-13, which proved to be the final score. Whereas the previous year’s team, unbeaten and dreaming of Roses, had been outgained 84-324 and out-first downed 4-17 this much put-upon team was outgained by only 213-227 and the first downs were even at 15-15. It was sloppy game with Syracuse having 6 turnovers but Colgate 5 of their own.

But it wasn’t enough to save Hanson’s job. A university announcement on the following Tuesday confirmed the Herald Journal’s scoop of Sunday morning, except that Reeves Baysinger was also retained for the new coaching staff, along with Roy Simmons. No new head coach was announced yet. A committee that had been working since summer to determine a new athletic director now added the task of determining a new coach.

Captain Albanese led a committee of players who spoke with acting Chancellor Graham and “declared the players of the squad were unanimous in the belief that no man could handle Syracuse’s coaching better than Hanson. Dr. Graham thanked them for their advice, expressed appreciation of their loyalty and added that careful consideration would be given to their remarks.” Hanson’s resignation was formally announced the next day. It wasn’t much of a “Resignation” as it was also announced that he’d continue to be paid his salary of $5,000/yr in ten monthly installments through 6/1/38.

Skiddy wrote an angry article blaming the university for its limited football budget. A series of investigations of college football by the Carnegie Foundation had college Presidents concerned about “over emphasis” and Syracuse Chancellor Flint had been a leader in the movement to limit the football program. When the complaints about Hanson having too many cronies on his staff got to be too much, Vic got permission to interview assistants at other schools for jobs at Syracuse. He gave up the attempt when he found out they were making more money than he was. Skiddy also decried the restrictions placed on athletes. ”The simplest privileges were taken away from athletes until the athletic group was considerably below the non-athlete group in freedom of movement when there wasn’t the slightest reason they shouldn’t be exactly the same”. Skiddy suggested that the administration might have now realized the folly of their ways and that the next coach might benefit from the changes. His record could thus be better than Hanson’s through no fault of Vic’s.

Hanson immediately got offers from several other schools for contracts that probably would have paid him more than he was getting at SU. One of them was from Colgate, who wanted him to be their baseball and basketball coach. He wound up, however, coaching high school football at Freeport High School on Long Island. He was drafted into the Army when World War II began and was assigned to teach physical education at West Point. After the war he became an insurance executive. At some point he developed a mysterious malady that left him bed ridden, (his 1982 obit called it simply “leg problems” and said he died after a long illness). Every time I saw him interviewed on TV he was lying in his bed, obviously in bad shape. He lived to see the building of the Carrier Dome and was listening to the radio from his bed when his basketball jersey was retired in 1982. Shortly before his death he was quoted as saying “I really coached from the heart. I gave it everything I had…I ask for longevity and to be remembered as a good guy.”

The HooDoo had longevity but just one more year to go….
Great as usual SWC. My grandpa was a freshman that year. Better times were on the horizon.
 

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