Sport: Pop’s Game

Records of the class of 1894 at Cornell University list Glenn Scobey Warner as a law student. But as a law student, husky, alert Glenn Warner chafed at the legalisms of case books and lectures. So Warner went elsewhere for his mental work outs. In that era of knock-’em-down, drag-’em-out play, the burly (215 Ibs.) undergraduate set out to prove to Cornell and the world that brains mean as much as brawn in winning football games.

Older than, most of his classmates, Glenn Warner was naturally nicknamed “Pop.” He had never played football before, and he developed a beginner’s taste for trick plays. Soon after graduation he deserted the law and turned to coaching. Football was never the same.

The Hidden Ball. In 1899 Pop was hired as a combination athletic director, coach, trainer and father confessor for the incomparable athletes of the Government school for Indians at Carlisle, Pa. Eligibility rules were simple: students had to be Indians. Practice schedules were remarkably uncluttered by classes.

In those days Pop had a hard time outguessing his own team. The Indians hated to play in the rain, but on fine fall days they could do anything. They made up plays to suit their fancy. Against Army in 1912, Jim Thorpe, the unstoppable Sac and Fox, scored 27 points* all by himself. Once, back in kick formation, he laughingly told the referee: “They think I’m gonna kick, but I ain’t.” He didn’t; he charged 80 yards for a touchdown.

Pop’s own skulduggery included outfitting his men with leather elbow guards which looked so much like a football that defensive tacklers went wild trying to find the ball carrier. Harvard Coach Percy Haughton put an end to that by threatening to paint the ball red, white and blue. But the Indians had an unending supply of good-natured guile. Once before, Quarterback Frank Mount Pleasant had waited patiently for the right opportunity, shoved the ball under Teammate Charlie Dillon’s jersey, and almost beat Harvard with a hidden-ball touchdown.

Pretty Pass. Pop was famous for far more than trickery. All over the country other coaches taught their teams the Warner unbalanced line and the fast-breaking Warner single wingback formation. Pop went right on building winning teams. He went back to Cornell for a few years, later to Pitt, where he had four unbeaten seasons in a row. In the mid-’20s he moved to Stanford, developed such All-America stars as jolting Fullback Ernie Nevers and End Ted Shipkey. Pop continued to try new tactics. In the Rose Bowl in 1925, his team showed a flashy double wingback formation against Knute Rockne’s Four Horsemen of Notre Dame. Stanford lost, 27-0, but the double wingback became part of American football.

Pop Warner once explained that Ernie Nevers was a greater player than Thorpe because Nevers never stopped trying—rain or shine. Pop probably meant what he said, but he loved Thorpe because the old Indian shared his own uncomplicated love for football. Until the day he died, in Palo Alto last week, at 83, Pop never forgot Thorpe’s excuse for failing to break up an opponent’s pass: “It looked so pretty.” Pop understood.

*And continually outsmarted a promising cadet halfback named Ike Eisenhower.