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Men’s basketball team achieves season for the ages

Legendary coach and athletic director J. Fred “Doc” Bohler leads the Crimson and Gray to a 25-1 record during the 1916-17 season, the best record in school history. The team features the core of Bohler’s outstanding 1915-16 squad: Roy Bohler (captain and brother of the coach), Ed Copeland, Bob Moss, Ivan Price, and Al Sorenson. The team’s accomplishment is even more remarkable considering it plays 18 of 26 games on the road.

In 1917, college basketball doesn’t yet have a formal way to determine a national champion at the end of the season. A panel of experts chosen by the Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936 in part to retroactively select national champions in football and basketball for seasons in which a formal champion wasn’t determined, didn’t forget WSC. In 1943, the foundation declares Bohler’s team 1917 national champions.

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Cougars reach Rose Bowl a second time

The previously undefeated Cougars fall to Alabama, 24-0, a game attended by an estimated 60,000 fans on a drizzly New Year’s Day in Pasadena.

Pacific Coast Conference champions thanks to a dominating defense, the WSC defensive line is anchored by All-American Mel Hein and Glenn “Turk” Edwards, considered two of the greatest Cougars ever.

As a psychological ploy, Washington State dresses for the game in red helmets, jerseys, pants, socks, and shoes.

Legendary coach Babe Hollingbery kicks off his Cougar career

Orin Ercel “Babe” Hollingbery begins a 17-year stint as head coach of the Cougar football team and earns legendary status in the process. He compiles a career win-loss record of 93–53–14, the most wins by any coach in Cougar football history. Under Hollingbery, Washington State goes undefeated at home from 1926 to 1935. He guides the team to the 1931 Rose Bowl against Alabama.

Hollingbery coaches some of the greatest names in Washington State history, including Turk Edwards, Mel Hein, Mel Dressel, Dale Gentry, Ed Goddard, Harold Ahlskog, Elmer Schwartz, Bob Kennedy, Nick Suseoff, Bill Sewell, John Bley, and Herbert “Butch” Meeker.

Hollingbery remains at WSC until World War II, when WSC temporarily ceases playing football.

Hollingbery Fieldhouse, built in 1929, and is renamed for the coach in 1963. In 1979, the College Football Hall of Fame selects him for membership.

 

Hollingberry shows a high kick during practice.
Hollingberry shows a high kick during practice.

1926-Babe-Hollingbery-AlumnusMagazine2

Herbert “Butch” Meeker stars on the gridiron

Five-foot-five, 150-pound quarterback Herbert “Butch” Meeker becomes an instant Cougar legend after leading his 1-3-1 team to a stunning 17-12 win over a good USC team in Los Angeles—Washington State’s first-ever win over the Trojans. The team returns to Pullman and is treated to a hero’s welcome, with students let out of class to go to the Union Pacific depot to greet the players’ train.

Meeker repeats his football magic multiple times from 1925 to 1927, earning him the title of “the fightingest little football player ever to don a Cougar uniform.”

After Washington Governor Roland Hartley presents the college with its first live cougar mascot at halftime of a game in 1927, it is quickly named Butch in Meeker’s honor.

Meeker (left) beside 77-inch center Gene Dils.
Meeker (right) beside 77-inch center Gene Dils.

 

Butch I in 1932.
Butch I in 1932.

 

The cougar becomes the official mascot of WSC

On October 25, an underdog WSC football team travels to Berkeley and defeats the heavily favored California Bears, 14-0. After the game, a Bay Area sportswriter says the visitors “played like cougars!” Back in Pullman, a jubilant student body picks up on the idea, and three days later votes to select the name “Cougars” for its athletic teams.

WSC receives its first live cougar mascot in 1927, which is named “Butch” to honor star football player Herbert “Butch” Meeker.

Butch 1 ca. 1932
Butch 1 ca. 1932

WSC beats Brown, 14-0, in Rose Bowl

A crowd of 10,000 in Pasadena watches as undefeated Washington State shuts out Brown in the second Rose Bowl game ever played. Coach William “Lone Star” Dietz and his Cougar squad serve as extras in the football film “Tom Brown of Harvard” each morning and then hit the practice field in the afternoon during the two weeks leading up to the bowl game. Each player receives $100 for the 14 mornings of movie work.

Winners in first varsity football game

The college inaugurates the sport by defeating the University of Idaho, 10-0. The team doesn’t employ a paid coach until 1900, but advisers in the first couple years include newspaperman William Goodyear, agriculturalist William J. Spillman, and young athlete Fred Waite.

1894 team, reproduced in a 1934 40th Reunion Banquet brochure. Item held at WSU MASC, Collection WSU 31
1894 team, reproduced in a 1934 40th Reunion Banquet brochure. Item held at WSU’s MASC, Collection WSU 31
Pullman Herald, November 1894.
Pullman Herald, November 1894.