1899 Sewanee Tigers football team

The 1899 Sewanee Tigers football team represented Sewanee: The University of the South in the 1899 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association football season. Sewanee was one of the first college football powers of the South and the 1899 team was one of its best. The 1899 Tigers won 12 games and lost none, outscored opponents 322–10, and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) title.

The team of 21 players was led by head coach Herman "Billy" Suter and future College Football Hall of Famer and captain Henry "Ditty" Seibels. The team also featured Ormond Simkins, and the team's manager was future US Senator and newspaper publisher Luke Lea. The 11 extra points against by Bart Sims is still a school record. John Heisman's Auburn team was the only team to score on Sewanee.

With just 18 players, the team known as the "Iron Men" embarked on a ten-day, 2,500 mile train trip, where they played five games in six days. Sewanee had five shutout wins over Texas (in Austin), Texas A&M (in Houston), Tulane (in New Orleans), LSU (in Baton Rouge), and Ole Miss (in Memphis). Sportswriter Grantland Rice called the group "the most durable football team I ever saw." The road trip is recalled memorably with the Biblical allusion "...and on the seventh day they rested."

Before the season Despite being from a small Episcopal university in the mountains of Tennessee, the Sewanee team came to dominate football in the region during the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Like several other football powers of yore, Sewanee today emphasizes scholarship over athletics. The Sewanee Tigers today play in Division III, which does not allow for athletic scholarships.

Sewanee had seven starters return from the undefeated 1898 team. Before play started, the Sewanee men trained hard for several weeks under coach Suter. With experience and leadership, the team was hopeful for an undisputed southern championship.

The team also had a pair of African-American trainers or "rub down men", one whose name was Cal Burrows. They would rub the players after games and on the trains to lessen their pain and help the players to sleep. They also gathered the water from nearby Tremlett Springs. The mountain water was one reason given for Sewanee's superior athletics at the time.

Schedule After a disagreement with traditional rival Vanderbilt University over gate receipts resulting in the 1899 game being canceled, manager Luke Lea sought a way to make up for the lost revenue. To accomplish this he put together an ambitious schedule of five big name opponents in six days. Playing so many games in a short period minimized costs while maximizing revenue.

Game summaries Georgia

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Fullback Ormond Simkins was the star of the 12–0 opening win over the Georgia Bulldogs, netting the first touchdown with a fine line buck of 12 yards through center "amidst thunderous applause". Halfback Rex Kilpatrick scored a second touchdown on a 4-yard run.

The starting lineup was: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), and Simkins (fullback).

Georgia Tech

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Sewanee followed the defeat of Georgia with a 32–0 victory over Georgia Tech on the following Monday. Sewanee won easily, the first score coming soon after the kickoff on a blocked kick recovered by halfback Quintard Gray. Gray scored the next touchdown on a 25-yard end run. Just fifteen minutes had passed when halfback and captain Ditty Seibels scored the third touchdown. The next three touchdowns were also scored by Seibels, including pretty runs of 35 and 40 yards. He had one long scoring run called back due to a penalty. The team played its substitutes in the second half.

The starting lineup was: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Gray (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), and Simkins (fullback).

Tennessee

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In a driving rain at McGee Field, "where each 5-yard line was a miniature stream", Sewanee beat the Tennessee Volunteers 46–0. Ditty Seibels led the scoring with three touchdowns. "Touchdown followed touchdown, until Sewanee finally stopped scoring from sheer exhaustion" to quote The Sewanee Purple.

The starting lineup was: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), K. Smith (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Kilpatrick (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), and Simkins (fullback).

Southwestern Presbyterian

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Sewanee next defeated Southwestern Presbyterian (now Rhodes College) 54–0. The Sewanee Purple wrote: "Never before in the history of football at Sewanee have we piled up such a score against an opponent." That would change several weeks later when they played Cumberland.

The starting lineup was: Sims (left end), Jones (left tackle), Keyes (left guard), Poole (center), Claiborne (right guard), Bolling (right tackle), Pearce (right end), Wilson (quarterback), Gray (left halfback), Seibels (right halfback), and Simkins (fullback).

The Road trip: 5 shutouts in 6 days The 1899 Iron Men team's most notable accomplishment was a six-day period from November 9 to 14 which is arguably the greatest road trip in college football history. With 18 players, Lea, Suter, and the trainers left Sewanee on November 6.

During this road trip, Sewanee outscored its opponents for a combined 91–0, including Texas, Texas A&M, LSU, and Ole Miss. Sewanee defeated each one, traveling by train for some 2,500 miles. This feat, barring fundamental changes in modern-day football, can never be equaled.see e. g. Contemporary sources called the road trip the most remarkable ever made by an American college team.

Texas

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After leaving the Cowan train station, manager Lea discovered they had left all the cleats at the train station. Without alerting the team of the problem, Lea cleverly arranged for them to be shipped on later trains to arrive in time for the Texas game. He had to wire an alumnus in Nashville to meet the first train, and transfer the cleats to another train in the middle of the night.

The train carrying the players pulled into Austin on the night of the 8th to face the undefeated Texas Longhorns the following afternoon. Sewanee won 12–0. They scored five minutes into the first quarter, and a minute before the end of the game, "and the intervening time was devoted to the liveliest battle ever witnessed here". Ditty Seibels played throughout the game, scoring both touchdowns, despite having his head "split open just above the left eye, and he bled profusely." He had his wound patched by plaster and he stayed in the game. By the end of the game his head was coated with blood.

Texas A&M

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Not 20 hours had passed since the Texas game before the Tigers faced the Texas A&M Aggies. The Tigers won 10–0. Guard "Wild Bill" Claiborne was blind in one eye, and used his discolored eye for purposes of intimidation by lifting his eye patch, goggling his eye around and saying, "This happened in the last game," leaving his opponent to worry about that. Ormond Simkins first ran in a touchdown from the 1-yard-line near the end of the first half. He also saved a touchdown with a crushing tackle of the A&M running back. Texas A&M's campus paper, the Battalion, reported :..."(the Sewanee Tigers) are unmistakably the champions of the South this year..." Part 2 Part 3

Tulane

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After another 350-mile overnight train leg, the Tigers beat Tulane in New Orleans 23–0. Rex Kilpatrick scored first. Quintard Gray scored twice more. The lone score of the second half was another, 5-yard run by Kilpatrick. The game was called early due to darkness.

The team went to see a play on Saturday night in New Orleans. One of the characters was dressed in purple, which was Sewanee's color, and the team rose up and gave the Sewanee cheer that aroused the whole audience.Unrivaled: Sewanee 1899 By Norman Jetmundsen, Jr

LSU

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On Sunday, before the trip to Baton Rouge, the Sewanee team toured a sugar plantation owned by John Dalton Shaffer One source reported center William H. Poole "drank heavily" on the one day off. Sewanee then defeated LSU 34–0.

Ditty Seibels scored first. Sewanee's next run from scrimmage was another Seibels touchdown; this time a 65-yard run. Rex Kilpatrick had one score, and Sewanee managed three further touchdowns. One account reads: "In spite of their long, tiresome trip, the Sewanee men were lively as school boys out for a day off." The Sewanee players enjoyed the grass field in Baton Rouge after playing on their rocky home field.

Ole Miss

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The Tigers arrived in Memphis to play Ole Miss on their third pre-game overnight train ride in five days. At the beginning of the game, Ole Miss objected to some Sewanee players wearing their meagre leather helmets, but the referee overruled their objection. Ole Miss kept the game close. Ditty Seibels scored the first touchdown with fifteen seconds left in the first half, and Kilpatrick scored the second with thirteen to go before the final whistle. The game was attended by "several hundred spectators".

The local Commercial Appeal praised the Tigers: "Yesterday's score against (Mississippi) marked the two hundred and fortieth point for which the Tennesseans have scored to nothing for their opponents, during the present season. The trip of the Sewanee eleven, along with record, will probably remain unequaled for generations."

The road trip is recalled memorably with the Biblical allusion "...and on the seventh day they rested." But the fact is, they didn't rest. They had three more games to play, including two of the toughest teams in the South, Auburn and North Carolina.

Cumberland

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Seemingly unfazed by the travel, the following week the Tigers crushed the , 71–0. One account reads: "For five minutes after the beginning of the game Cumberland made some good gains, but the Sewanee defense suddenly grew strong, the ball was secured on downs, and Seibels crossed the line for touchdown seven minutes after play began." Bart Sims had a school record 11 extra points, and Ormond Simkins rested instead of playing.

Auburn: The only points scored

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1899 Sewanee Tigers football team

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