On Nov. 7, 1908, Whitworth College made a name for itself in the world of college football. Outweighed at virtually every position and a heavy underdog going into the game, Whitworth outplayed the University of Oregon and defeated the Ducks by a score of 16-10. Led by the likes of Percy Colbert, Claude McQuillan, William Paul and Ernie Tanner, Whitworth laid an early claim to football prominence in the Pacific Northwest. One hundred years after the fact, the story is not only fun to remember, but it’s a story that deserves a special place in the annals of Whitworth history.
Without doubt, Whitworth’s success a century ago depended heavily on its football coach, Arthur Reuber. Arriving a year earlier, Reuber set about the unlikely task of creating a football team that could compete with the University of Washington, Washington State College and the University of Oregon. Not much is known about coach Reuber other than the fact that he had previously coached at the University of Chattanooga in Tennessee. Why he came to the distant Pacific Northwest we may never know. Reuber had played his collegiate football at Northwestern University in Chicago and had been their captain. We know that he brought with him a passion for some of the new-style football that incorporated the forward pass — an “invention” that had been recently legalized in part because of the substantial number of football deaths that had occurred in 1905. But Rueber also believed that football could build character among the young men if properly taught.
In that first year under Reuber in 1907, Whitworth, then located in Tacoma, played a schedule that included the sailors from the Battleship Nebraska, the local YMCA, the Aberdeen Athletic Club, as well as the University of Washington, the Oregon Agricultural College, and Whitman. In that first year under Reuber, Whitworth knocked off the sailors, and the YMCA and played respectably against the UW losing only 5-0. Whitworth also lost to the O.A.C. (which later changed its name to Oregon State College) 6-0, as well as to Whitman (the real football power of the Northwest) 17-0.
But Reuber never lost enthusiasm. He envisioned a program at Whitworth built on character and competitiveness. In an October 1907 edition of The Whitworthian he wrote, “If a college is represented by a band of ruffians who depend upon their brawn, brute force and questionable tactics to win, it will not be long before that school will have the undesirable reputation of being a school filled with 'muckers' and men without principle. But on the other hand, let the same college be represented by a football team that is composed of clean men who depend upon superior brains, speed and determination for victory and that school will have a reputation among its neighboring schools of which it may well be proud.”
It’s probably hard to imagine what coach Reuber thought when he called for tryouts at Whitworth the following year; there were only 31 males in the entire student body. But nevertheless, Reuber met an eager group of players.
Two of Reuber’s players were unusual to say the least. Ernie Tanner became the first African American player on any football team in the Pacific Northwest, according to the Oregonian. Born in Indianapolis, Tanner’s father was a trapeze performer and his mother was a nurse. They moved to Tacoma in 1900, and Ernie graduated from Stadium high school where he was an outstanding athlete in track, basketball, football and baseball before coming to Whitworth.
One of Tanner’s teammates was William Paul, Whitworth’s quarterback. A Tlinget Indian raised in Sitka, Alaska, Paul became a Christian after his family had been converted to the Presbyterian Church by missionaries. At age 14 he was sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Dickinson. Pennsylvania. Carlisle stripped students of the native culture and attempted to assimilate them into white society. Paul was taught to speak English but was forbidden to speak his native tongue. He had to cut his hair and forsake all contact with his native culture. But Carlisle also taught him football skills--he played for the legendary Pop Warner at the Pennsylvania school, the same school that taught the great Native American football player Jim Thorpe.
Paul left Carlisle went back to his native Alaska but could not find work. Years later he remembered finding a catalog for Whitworth with the cover torn off—scrounged up $125 and came south to Tacoma. He did every odd job possible including sweeping sidewalks, cutting grass, milking cows and even doing some bookkeeping for the college. He played football, basketball, baseball, edited the newspaper, helped start the literary society and later made the debating team, played the lead role in the senior class play, and married his college sweetheart.
In the fall of 1908, Tanner and Paul joined several other Whitworth male athletes and let Coach Reuber have his way.
The first game of the year was a big one — the University of Washington. The UW had a new coach, Gil Dobie, who would go down as one of the legendary coaches in school history. Dobie’s teams beginning in 1908 won 58 games, tied three and lost none – Washington tallied 1,938 points while holding their opponents to 119 in those years..
But on that October day in 1908, Whitworth gave the UW all they could handle before falling 24-4 on a couple of late touchdowns. Indicative of the struggle to establish rules in those early years, apparently the first half was played in 25 minutes and the second half in 35 minutes and it was in those last ten minutes that Washington scored most of its points. A few years later in the Seattle P-I, coach Dobie recalled “Washington University rooters would never concede it, but I’m telling you now that the greatest victory Washington won in the last three years was that over Whitworth College of Tacoma … We have beaten Oregon, Washington State and all the rest of the them since then, but no victory ever gave me such satisfaction as that one over coach Reuber’s Whitworth team.”
Whitworth’s next game was against its emerging rival in Tacoma, the University of Puget Sound, and Whitworth prevailed by a score of ten to nothing.
Whitworth’s next scheduled opponent was Whitman College which at that time was regarded as the strongest private college in the northwest and a rival of the University of Washington. In another extremely physical game by all accounts, Whitworth upset Whitman 17–11. The Whitworthian noted that this was “the first important intercollegiate football victory" in the history of the school. Claude McQuillan was credited with a number of tackles in the Whitman backfield and Bill Paul played a great game at quarterback.
With little time to recoup, tiny Whitworth traveled to Eugene the following week to play the University of Oregon. There was no question that Oregon was a prohibitive favorite. The team featured Fred Moullen, an all-Northwest player for four seasons and apparently one of the best place-kickers in the country. Oregon also featured Dudley Clarke, who was named to the all-Northwest team three years at fullback.
Of the 14 players on Whitworth’s team, (virtually half of the males in the student body), freshman Roland Dennis, who was listed at 156 pounds, surely would have his hands full. But from the beginning Whitworth played Oregon evenly and by half-time Oregon led only by a score of 6-5. However, in the second half, Whitworth’s Percy Colbert took over and returned two punts for touchdowns and Whitworth defeated Oregon by a score of 16-10.
According to the Eugene News, “No better men ever played on Kincaid field than the Whitworth backfield taken as an aggregation. Every man outplayed Oregon, particularly in team work. Their linemen brushed aside the Oregon warriors with the greatest ease and their back field excelled the Oregon team in all departments.” In the University of Oregon’s yearbook the following summary appeared: “Our only two defeats came at the hands of Whitworth and Washington respectively. Whitworth had us badly outplayed on team work ... The Oregon men seemed unable to get together on the Whitworth rushes and teamwork was woefully lacking on our side. At that, we would have won had not the brilliant Whitworth halfback, Colbert, whirling, spinning and twisting, made two long runs for touchdowns through scattered fields of Oregon men. However, the victory was fairly and cleverly earned by Whitworth and the writer does not wish to detract in the least from their glory.”
With the victory over Oregon in hand, Whitworth played the University of Puget Sound again and this time crushed them by a score of 45-0.
The final game of the year was played against Willamette, and the Whitworthians shut out the Bearcats by a score of 18-0. But some of the flavor of the football experience that year is best captured in an article in The Whitworthian: “After the Willamette game, Whitworth girls entertained in the Residence in honor of the two teams. Later in the evening an informal program was given, consisting of selections by the orchestra, vocal group by Miss Dykeman, and piano solos by Miss Robinson and Miss Rolleston. After dainty refreshments were served by the Misses Bernice George, Russell, and Brown, the Willamette boys left to catch their train, saying that they didn’t mind being beaten by Whitworth at all, after the jolly time we had given them.”
At the end of the season, Claude McQuillan was named all-conference, even though Whitworth was not officially in the conference. But the stories of several players after graduation are worth noting. One player, David Guy, became a beloved professor at Whitworth after the school moved to Spokane in 1914. Ernie Tanner, after college, worked as a Tacoma elevator operator and in 1918 joined the Tacoma chapter of the International Brotherhood of Longshoreman and remained a member until his death in 1956. In an era when racial discrimination was common against African Americans in the labor movement, Tanner rose to a position of leadership. He served as a trustee of Local 38-97, and also was a member of the union’s executive board. From the beginning, Tanner insisted that African American dockworkers be paid the same wages and work under the same conditions as white longshoremen.
Tanner’s defining moment as a longshoreman came in the bitter strike of 1934. He was the only African American on the strike committee and worked closely with labor leader Harry Bridges to keep black and white workers united during the strike so that employers would have difficulty breaking the union. In 1936 he was elected by his peers to serve as the chairman of the union publicity committee.
Bill Paul’s life after Whitworth was quite remarkable as well. He went to seminary in San Francisco for a year, but eventually returned to Alaska and began a life-long battle for native Alaskan rights. He went to law school, passed the bar exam in Alaska, and became an attorney. Paul became the first native elected to the Alaska State territorial legislature. In some ways, he did what Martin Luther King Jr. later did in the South by challenging the segregation of native Alaskans from Caucasians. He won a case in federal district court which gave the vote to Indians, and in another case the judge ordered that the doors of public schools to be opened to all the children of Alaska. Along with other native Alaskans, he successfully challenged segregation in restaurants, theaters, and public transportation. He spent decades fighting for native land rights.
One hundred years ago, Whitworth made a name for itself in the history of the football in the Pacific Northwest. Increasingly an important part of collegiate life across the country, football was still surrounded in controversy in 1908. Serious injuries and deaths related to football were at their peak because of both the nature of the rules and the inadequacy of the equipment. Yet manliness was clearly at stake not just on college campuses but in American society as a whole. Regional identity if not pride seemed at stake in the season of 1908; the Pacific Northwest was still only a few steps beyond the frontier. Compared with the Midwest, East, South and even California there was a sense of inadequacy and perhaps inferiority. But football provided one of the earliest measures of excellence as well as school pride. One hundred years later, we simply tip our hat to the group of young men who bore the name of Whitworth against the likes of Washington and Oregon in what was our first great season of football.
Dale Soden is a professor of history at Whitworth and executive assistant to the president. He can be contacted at dsoden@whitworth.edu.
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