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American football at the 1932 Summer Olympics

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Summary

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Field	Value
event	American football (demonstration)
games	1932 Summer
image	American football pictogram.svg
image_size	100px
venue	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
dates	August 8, 1932

American football was a demonstration sport at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. On the evening of August 8, 1932, seniors from three Western universities (Cal, Stanford, and USC) were matched against those from the East Coast's "Big Three" (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton). In front of 60,000 spectators at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the West team won by a score of 7–6. All-American Gaius "Gus" Shaver from USC was the captain of the West team and the game's leading rusher with 145 yards on 16 attempts. The football game at the 1932 Summer Olympics, combined with a similar demonstration game at 1933 World's Fair, led to the College All-Star Game which was an important factor in the growth of professional football in the United States.

Origins

The game was originally proposed by organizers as an "intersectional" match-up between the defending national champions, University of Southern California, on the West Coast and East Coast stalwarts, Yale University. USC coach/former Yale coach Howard Jones delivered a confidential proposal from the President of the Organizing Committee for the 1932 Summer Olympics, William May Garland, to the President of Yale University, James Rowland Angell, inviting Yale to play in the game. On the heels of the 1929 Carnegie Report which decried various aspects of professionalism within college football, Angell reluctantly turned down the invitation. Although unable to secure a USC/Yale match-up and determined that football be a demonstration sport, the organizers "settled" on a game consisting of all-stars who would have graduated by the Olympic games.

Game summary

;Scoring

East – Burton Strange fumble return (kick blocked)
West – Gus Shaver 1 yard run (Ed Kirwan kick) ;Leading rushers
West – Gus Shaver – 16 rushes, 145 yards
East – Eddie Mays – 10 rushes, 100 yards

;Officials

Referee: Herb Dana
Umpire: Ed Cochran
Head Linesman: Bruce Kirkpatrick
Field Judge: Horace Gillette

The game was scoreless until early in the fourth quarter. When a field goal attempt by the East fell short, Shaver and another player from the West muffed the ball in an attempt to pick it up. According to various reports, Burton Strange from the East either carried the loose ball across the goal line or simply fell on it in the end zone to give his team a 6–0 lead. Eddie Mays' extra point kick was blocked. With three minutes left in the game, Shaver scored over the right tackle to tie the game at 6–6, and Ed Kirwan's conversion put the West in the lead for good.

Participants

As that year's [[Olympic Stadium]], the [[Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum]] hosted an [[all-star]] match-up of [[college football]] players at the [[1932 Summer Olympics]].

Like the other Olympic athletes, players for both teams lived in the Olympic Village. The starters for the West team consisted of six USC players, star halfback Rudy Rintala and two others from Stanford, and two from California.

Rosters

West

West players and staff

East

East players and staff

Notes

References

(1933). "The Games of the Xth Olympiad Los Angeles 1932". Xth Olympiade Committee of the Games of Los Angeles, U.S.A. 1932.
Mark L. Ford. (2004). "OLYMPIC GOLD, NFL LEAD". THE COFFIN CORNER: Vol. 26, No. 2.
Ray Schmidt. (May 2004). "THE OLYMPICS GAME". College Football Historical Society Newsletter.
Chandler, Joan Mary. (1988). "Television and national sport: the United States and Britain". University of Illinois Press.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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