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Iron Indians Video - bubbadog57 - 09-12-2018 05:42 AM
The Athletic Department has put together a short (1:30) video commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the fabled Iron Indians of 1953.
A team that started with 24 players, ended with 18 after injuries and still had a winning season (5-4-1) against teams like Wake Forest, Navy, Virginia Tech, NC State and Cincinnati.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRt0Dvj8grg&feature=youtu.be
RE: Iron Indians Video - Blow Gym rat - 09-12-2018 07:55 AM
(09-12-2018 05:42 AM)bubbadog57 Wrote: The Athletic Department has put together a short (1:30) video commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the fabled Iron Indians of 1953.
A team that started with 24 players, ended with 18 after injuries and still had a winning season (5-4-1) against teams like Wake Forest, Navy, Virginia Tech, NC State and Cincinnati.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRt0Dvj8grg&feature=youtu.be
Very nice video, but it's odd that there are no photos included.
RE: Iron Indians Video - nogretheogre - 09-12-2018 07:55 AM
What is legendary is the assistant coaches name seen in the credits, Pappy Gooch. This will forever be my alter ego.
RE: Iron Indians Video - billymac - 09-12-2018 08:36 AM
Bill Bowman (Detroit & Pittsburgh) and Charlie Sumner (Chicago & Minnesota) both had solid NFL careers.
RE: Iron Indians Video - Tribe4SF - 09-12-2018 10:46 AM
(09-12-2018 08:36 AM)billymac Wrote: Bill Bowman (Detroit & Pittsburgh) and Charlie Sumner (Chicago & Minnesota) both had solid NFL careers.
Great team following the academic scandal.
RE: Iron Indians Video - bubbadog57 - 09-12-2018 11:49 AM
Bowman, who went back to school and became a lawyer after his NFL career (as well as a nationally ranked Bridge player), played on two NFL Champions with the Detroit Lions. Lou Creekmur, a great W&M lineman
who played for the top Tribe teams of the late 1940s, also played on those Lion teams and was eventually elected to the NFL Hall of Fame.
Charlie Sumner, who punted, kicked off, quarterbacked, returned kicks and played safety on defense for the Iron Indians (and, I suppose, also carried the water during timeouts), won a couple of Super Bowl rings under John Madden for the Oakland Raiders as their longtime Defensive Coordinator.
Sat at a table with Charlie at one of Jimmye's Football Reunion Spring Dinners and he told three wonderful stories about that season I've never forgotten:
*They had one player on the Iron Indians squad, an end named John Risjord, a student from Kansas who had never played tackle football before. Jackie Freeman had recruited him from the fraternity touch football league the week before the opening game because they needed another player who had some size and they only had two ends. He lasted the whole season.
*For the final game of the season, against Boston University, they were down to fourteen players, including one who played with a broken arm and started a fellow named Bill Nagy at guard who weighed 145 pounds. BU won, 41-14.
*In a much publicized (Life magazine spread the following week) 6-6 tie at Navy, W&M had a player, Bill Marfizo, who played seven different positions that day! I've seen Marfizo at numerous W&M Reunions
and found out that he went on to dental school and became a dentist.
Pappy Gooch, by the way, was not a coach but the Business Manager for the Athletic Department and was at W&M for decades.
Iron Indians Video - Tribe32 - 09-12-2018 02:02 PM
The academic scandal was one of the worst in NCAA history. It involved falsified transcripts, students enrolled in classes they never took, etc. All of it was to sustain winning at any cost. Very similar to the UNC hoops mess. Of course people want to forget it and pretend it never happened.
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RE: Iron Indians Video - bubbadog57 - 09-12-2018 02:36 PM
Unlke UNC, however, William and Mary reacted strongly to the scandal. President Pomfret resigned, Rube McCray was fired and the players were suspended from school for at least a year or immediately transferred.
There is little comparison in breadth to the UNC affair either. This went on at W&M for a couple of years, not the eleven at UNC. And perhaps a dozen or so W&M players were involved while many hundreds were involved at UNC. Finally, at W&M it was transcripts, not players credited with taking non-existent classes for a decade and was limited to football, not basketball and football as is at UNC.
Finally, the W&M affair was never swept under the table by the school after it broke and it was the College itself that applied the severe penalties. UNC has never admitted any wrongdoing and escaped, amazingly, scott free.
Iron Indians Video - Tribe32 - 09-12-2018 02:46 PM
I'll agree with you on most of your post including the part about the length, but it was BAD. Players were home working during summer school and getting credit for classes that they never signed up for. I knew one very well known player involved in it (now deceased) and he laughed about it. He said it was just part of how things worked with players who couldn't pass their classes. It would have continued if not uncovered.
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RE: Iron Indians Video - WMSportsBlog - 09-12-2018 03:40 PM
Seems relevant to re-post our "Scandal of 1951" article now, for any of you that missed it!
Article: https://wmsportsblog.com/2018/07/12/the-scandal-of-1951/
RE: Iron Indians Video - nogretheogre - 09-28-2018 05:52 PM
This tribute is a little disjointed. Here is an article 2 weeks later.
https://tribeathletics.com/news/2018/9/28/football-remembering-and-saluting-w-ms-1953-iron-indians.aspx