Gentry Dugat and Cumberland lost to Georgia Tech, 222-0, on October 7, 1916.
21-year old Gentry Dugat of Beeville, Texas was one of the 16 student recruits from tiny Cumberland College in Lebanon, Tennessee that got on the train for the ride to Atlanta and an October 7, 1916 game the school had just scheduled with mighty Georgia Tech. In a day of far more informal scheduling, cash-strapped Cumberland could not have declined the offer. – Georgia Tech was going to pay the little one-year law school $500.00 to show up and play against the John Heisman coached Yellow Jackets.
Heisman? Yes, that Heisman – the one that college football eventually named their big best player door prize and door stop award, the Heisman Trophy, in honor of his surname. Heisman and Georgia Tech were a powerful force in 1916 and they were looking for the era-equivalent scheduling of something like yesterday’s Idaho@Florida State contest for an easy win as their reward for putting out all that big cash to a school like Cumberland. The visitors had no misunderstanding about their chances, but they probably made the mistake of assuming that reality on the field would also be served with a side-dish of mercy. On that last count, Cumberland misunderstood the darker side of GT Coach Heisman’s more sinister side. Heisman was out to prove that running up the score on a hapless opponent was no big deal.
The coach for Cumberland, law student Butch McQueen, had a much more basic goal – and that was to find 16 players with arms, legs, and vision who could take the field and survive the period of competition. McQueen also hoped to pick up some extra players from Vanderbilt when the team’s train passed through Nashville. That didn’t happen. Vandy was saving its best for a game on their own schedule.
Gentry Dugat was apparently typical of the Cumberland recruits when it came to any close look at his football playing resume.
“I played once in high school and once in prep school,” Dugat said. “But they promised me the first Pullman ride of my life and a chance to visit the home of my idol, Henry Grady [the editor of the Atlanta Constitution].” (SI Vault – See link to full article for all specific historical data extracted for this column.)
The game itself is one of legend. The link below describes the general background of how it exploded into a record-setting 222-0 victory for Georgia Tech as well as any I’ve ever read. On the oral side, I’ve heard several variations of the same story and all from the same person. Gentry Dugat was an older friend of my dad in Beeville and, when we went to my birthplace on family visits during my childhood, I would sometimes tag along with my father on Saturday morning trips downtown for coffee at the American Cafe on Washington, Beeville’s main street. When we would run into Gentry Dugat, he would sometimes join us for coffee so that he could talk with Dad. The subject of the Georgia Tech-Cumberland game came up more than once. I guess that’s where Gentry spent a lot of his energy. Dugat was widely regarded as a journalist, speaker, and historian during his lifetime, but some people, perhaps, my dad was among them, kept rewinding Gentry to the events of October 7, 1916.
One thing’s for sure – I read it again here – Gentry Dugat took great exception with anyone who dared call the Cumberland bunch a band of cowards for their behavior during the massacre. “We may have been unskilled and badly beaten,” says Gentry Dugat, “but we were not yellow.”
Gentry Dugat passed away in 1966 at the age of 70. He was buried in Mineral, north of Beeville, as one of the brightest, funniest characters to have ever achieved his own slice of American sports ignominy.
Hope you enjoy the SI Vault article also for it’s slightly lesser known look at some of the darker personality traits of the now revered John Heisman, who also coached briefly at Rice.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1073271/3/index.htm
Tags: Butch McQueen, Gentry Dugat, Georgia Tech 222 -Cumberland 0., John Heisman
The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 24, 2013 at 4:38 pm |
One of the back stories was that the 222-0 trouncing was revenge for Cumberland College’s 22-0 win over Georgia Tech in baseball earlier that year. John Heisman later coached at Rice Institute from 1924-1927.