Last Monday night I watched the documentary “Unrivaled” on Miss Public Television. It is one of the best and most interesting sports documentaries I have seen.
It is the story of the greatest college football team ever. Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan and Alabama can argue about who is the best team in the country, but none of them will ever match the feat of a little Episcopal college on a Tennessee mountain top. It produced the greatest college team that ever graced a football field, and their accomplishment against the cream of southern football will never be matched.
In 1899 the University of the South, affectionately known as Sewanee, went undefeated, including a six-day road trip in which they defeated Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, LSU and Ole Miss while holding all five opponents scoreless. In 1899 Auburn, coached by John Heisman who has a trophy named after him, was the only team that even managed to score on Sewanee, though Sewanee prevailed 11-10.
Five years ago, the New York Times ran a story: “Long Before Alabama, The South Had Sewanee.” According to the Times article, “The Sewanee Tigers provided a blueprint for Southern college football domination.” Their 1899 football team left a legacy that will never be equaled. That year little Sewanee went 12-0, scored 322 points and only allowed 10 points. The late Joe Paterno once said that the Sewanee team’s accomplishment “has to be one of the most staggering achievements in the history of the sport.” And what small schools did Sewanee beat in their undefeated season? Only little schools like Georgia, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, LSU, Ole Miss, Auburn and North Carolina. There is a reason why the 1899 team is known as the “Iron Men of Sewanee.”
Sewanee, now noted for its top-notch academic reputation, really was once a football powerhouse. It has three former players in the College Football Hall of Fame and four Southern Conference championships. It was from the Southern Conference that the Southeastern Conference evolved, and Sewanee was a charter member of the SEC in 1933.
It was not just that string of victories, however, that resulted in the team being known as the legendary “Iron Men of Sewanee.” On Nov. 20, 1899, the Birmingham Age-Herald reported, “Sewanee’s victorious football team returned Wednesday from their Texas trip having traveled 2,258 miles and scored a total of 91 points to their opponents 0. The trip with its results is unequaled in the annals of American football (and still is). … Five games in six days and Sewanee’s 25-yard line only crossed once.”
The Iron Men were almost superhuman on that road trip in November 1899. It was that trip that created a legend. The 21 Sewanee players, Coach Billy Suter, manager Luke Lea and trainer Cal Burrows traveled by rail in a chartered Pullman car on a long and unparalleled football adventure.
The team’s first destination was Austin, Texas, where they arrived on the evening of Nov. 8. The next day, 2,000 people paid a dollar each to see Sewanee defeat Texas 12-0. The Texas press attributed the Texas loss to the fact that Sewanee’s players outweighed the Texas players by an average of four pounds.
The players again boarded the train and traveled to Houston where, the next day, they defeated Texas A&M, 10-0. It was reported that “attendance was very good, a number of ladies being out.” Some “experienced football men” in Houston said A&M compared favorably with Sewanee’s “eleven.”
Another train ride after that game carried them to New Orleans where, on Nov. 11, they defeated Tulane, 23-0. The following day was Sunday and so Sewanee, an Episcopal Church school, took the day off and rested. Monday, Nov. 13, saw the team in Baton Rouge where they defeated LSU, 34-0.
Then the next day in Memphis they played Ole Miss, whose players were known as “the long haired knights of the oval from Oxford.” Unlike Sewanee, whose players wore leather helmets, the Ole Miss players did not wear helmets but grew their hair long and bushy for protection, thus their nickname. Once again Sewanee won, defeating Ole Miss 12-0.
In six days, Sewanee had played and won five games, all on the road against the cream of Southern football. When they arrived back at home, the Sewanee team was treated with a grand celebration including “a monster parade and jollification.”
Bonfires lit the route of the parade and until late night the school’s cannon, which had been presented to Sewanee after its capture in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, was repeatedly fired. Shortly after the team’s return, B. Lawton Wiggins, vice-chancellor of Sewanee, was offered the position of president of the University of Texas but declined, preferring to stay at Sewanee.
After returning home, Sewanee rested for six days and then beat Cumberland, 71-0. The following week was their only close game and the only points scored against them. They defeated John Heisman’s Auburn team, 11-10, in Montgomery. Heisman, in an angry letter published in Alabama newspapers, blamed the officials for Auburn’s loss.
The season ended with a 5-0 victory over North Carolina in what was called the Southern football championship. It was a season like no other team would ever have. Though Sewanee went on to become a charter member of the SEC the small strongly academic mountain-top school could no longer keep pace with the rising much larger football power houses and soon withdrew.
Who were these men of iron? They were five law students, four medical students, four theology students and eight undergraduates. In 1931 former team captain Diddy Seibels was asked how they accomplished what they did. He replied, “To what was Sewanee’s brilliant success due? I attribute it to one thing alone and it is the greatest thing any team can have: Teamwork. There were no jealousies, only the indomitable will to win, that unconquerable never-say-die Sewanee spirit.”
Today Sewanee’s football cheer of long ago still sounds across the mountain top on game days: “Rip em up, tear em up, leave em in a lurch, down with the heathen, up with the church. Yea Sewanee’s Right!”
I first heard the story of the Iron Men from my brother who had a poster in his office that read, “In 6 days Sewanee beat Texas, Texas A&M, Tulane, LSU, and Ole Miss. On the 7th day they rested.” He along with a number of family and friends all found and showed me that Sewanee really is a special place.
More on Sewanee’s legendary 1899 season and information on the documentary “Unrivaled” can be found at https://sewanee1899.org. Wendall Givens’ book about the team, “Ninety-Nine Iron” is an excellent account and a good read.
Rufus Ward is a local historian.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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