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Subject: This article from today's Contra Costa Times about St. Mary's football during the 1920s and '30s may be of interest. You'll have to regsiter to read the whole thing,


Author:
JoltinJoe
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Date Posted: 15:30:41 11/26/04 Fri

All Aboard for Greatness

[St. Mary's coach Ed "Slip"]Madigan faced a problem similar to the one mentor Knute Rockne faced at Notre Dame when public universities refused to schedule the Fighting Irish. Rockne had taken his team on the road, traveling to Los Angeles to play USC and to New York for an annual game against Army.

Madigan's response to his own predicament was even bolder in 1930. He didn't follow Rockne's example. He trumped it. He wasn't going to New York to play any team, but the Fordham Rams and their famed "Seven Blocks of Granite," which hadn't lost in two years. And this wasn't just a football trip. This was also a sight-seeing tour for fans and alumni.

There was a lot at risk. If his team was defeated soundly by the powerful Rams, St. Mary's budding reputation as a big-time college football team would be greatly diminished.

The 16-car "Slip Madigan's St. Mary's-Fordham Special" included 150 fans, media and enough bathtub gin for it to be dubbed the "World's Longest Bar."

* * * * * * * * * * *

The Fordham trip would become a chief recruiting tool and a way to increase the team's visibility in coming years. High school bands appeared at train stations to serenade the visitors from California. Impromptu parades down Main Street were not uncommon. Players did calisthenics on railroad sidings and scrimmaged local teams along the way.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Fordham had a 16-game unbeaten streak dating back to 1928. The attraction of one of the top teams from the West Coast playing the best team in the East produced a sellout at the Polo Grounds. Public demand was so intense that the Columbia Radio Network decided to broadcast the game nationwide with top announcer Ted Husing drawing the assignment.

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Subject Author Date
Poor ole Ramses – the target of our foes even way back then. Click on this message to read a passage from the piece inside.ramMan19:43:58 11/26/04 Fri

Times have changed since student-athletes could take a couple of weeks off for riding trains and getting reporters drunk. San Francisco was so impressed with Gael football, St. Mary's dropped its program. Think Fordam will set aside an Ivy long enough to play an intersectional game? (NT)Life, Liberty, and Giuliani22:27:05 11/26/04 Fri


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