Photo via Marquette University
1950 Marquette University Football Squad
Marquette University football team, 1950
Marquette has long been a major college without major college football. Well known for its basketball prowess, Marquette once enjoyed similar success on the gridiron. From 1892 until 1960, Marquette played varsity football and played it well. The blue-and-gold, who were known as the Golden Avalanche, posted an all-time record of 349-280-39, good for a .552 winning percentage.
The most successful period of Marquette football came during the tenure of Frank Murray, who led the Golden Avalanche from 1922 until 1936 and again from 1946 until 1949. Murray posted a 104-55-6 record at Marquette and led the Avalanche to their only bowl appearance.
Marquette football enjoyed their most high-profile season in 1936. The Golden Avalanche went 7-1 in the regular season, ascending as high as number 4 in the national polls. After the season, Marquette received an invitation to their first and only bowl game, the inaugural Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. The Avalanche played Southwestern Conference champion Texas Christian University (TCU), led by quarterback Sammy Baugh, who would go on to a Pro Football Hall of Fame career with the Washington Redskins. Baugh led the way with two touchdown passes. TCU won the game 16-6 and the Cotton Bowl has remained one of college football’s top post-season contests ever since.
Marquette Stadium
In the midst of the Golden Avalanche’s golden age, students and alumni led a grassroots effort to finance a stadium in the Merrill Park neighborhood. Marquette Stadium opened in 1924 and seated as many as 24,000 spectators. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Merrill Park stadium drew large crowds on many fall Saturdays.
In 1952, Marquette Stadium hosted three Green Bay Packers regular season games and one exhibition game. Since 1933, the Packers had been playing a couple of games each season in Milwaukee. From 1933 until 1951, the Packers played their Milwaukee area games at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. They planned to play 1952 at the newly constructed Milwaukee County Stadium but the venue would not be ready in time. As a result, the Packers made a temporary home at Marquette.
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Impressive Careers
A number of Marquette football standouts from the 1920s and 1930s went on to impressive careers in the National Football League (NFL).
Ward Cuff was one of the NFL’s top running backs of the late 1930s and early 1940s, earning five All-Pro selections with the New York Giants, who retired his number 14.
Swede Johnson was a well-traveled running back who played for seven NFL teams between 1931 and 1940. Gene Rozani spent a decade with the Chicago Bears as an offensive and defensive back in the 1930s and 1940s. He later became head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Ray Apolskis was a steadfast lineman for the Chicago Cardinals in the 1940s.
During the 1920s, several Marquette standouts (LaVern Dilweg, Red Dunn, and Fritz Roesler) played for the short-lived Milwaukee Badgers, the city’s lone entry into the NFL.
Perhaps the best professional football player to come out of Marquette played on their last team. George Andrie spent just two years on the Marquette varsity (1959-1960). He was the top player on the Marquette squad in both seasons, playing the unusual combination of slot receiver and defensive lineman. He led the Golden Avalanche in receiving as both a sophomore and a junior. During his junior year, Andrie led the team in tackles as well. After Marquette dropped football, Andrie stayed at the university to complete his degree and spent his senior year doing his best to stay in shape. In 1962, the Dallas Cowboys selected Andrie in the sixth round. Andrie spent his entire 11-year NFL career with Dallas, where he was selected to five Pro Bowls. Andrie capped off his NFL career as a Super Bowl champion, helping lead the Dallas Cowboys to a dominant 24-3 victory over the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI.
In Decline
For whatever reason, Marquette football went into decline after World War II. Murray’s second tenure as Marquette coach wasn’t nearly as successful as his first.
Head coach Lisle Blackbourn started to right the ship in the early 1950s. He led Marquette to a 6-3-1 campaign in 1953 but left to take the head coaching job with the Green Bay Packers. Things headed south quickly.
Between 1954 and 1958, Marquette won just seven games. Marquette played for a time at Milwaukee County Stadium in the late 1950s but never drew particularly well. The small crowds looked particularly bad in Milwaukee County Stadium, whose seating capacity was nearly twice that of Marquette Stadum.
Blackbourn returned to Marquette in 1959 with his sights set on rebuilding the program, as he had earlier in the decade. The rebuild didn’t get a chance to take hold. The Golden Avalanche went 3-7 and 3-6 in Blackbourn’s two seasons after returning to Marquette. The 1960 campaign, which proved to be Marquette’s last, started extremely well. The Avalanche went 3-1, including an upset victory over Boston College. Unfortunately, Marquette dropped the last five games on their schedule.
Marquette hosted Cincinnati in what proved to be the final game in the program’s history. Cincinnati dominated the contest, jumping out to a 19-0 lead at the half. The Bearcats cruised to a 33-13 victory. Andrie would score what proved to be the last touchdown in Marquette football history.
On December 9, 1960, Marquette University president Father Edward J. O’Donnell announced that Marquette would no longer play football. The school’s nine-member athletic board had voted to cancel the football and track programs. “Up until five years ago, football at Marquette managed to break even financially, but beginning in 1956 we had an increasing annual deficit. Two years ago, we made an extensive study of intercollegiate football and were inclined to drop the sport because of its drain on our finances,” O’Donnell said.
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The announcement of football’s demise came on the heels of a recently announced $30 million fundraising drive aimed at expanding the university’s infrastructure and offerings. O’Donnell said that there was a clear consensus on the issue among the athletic board that came down to finances. Apparently, the football program had lost $50,000 the previous year.
The demise of the program blindsided the Marquette players and coaching staff, who expected to field a stronger, veteran team in 1961. The 1960 club had included just eight seniors.
“Once a major sport is dropped, it doesn't come back. The decision will affect more than the students, the alumni, and the coaching staff. One group it seriously affects is a number of players who went to Marquette to play football, many on scholarships which make it financially possible for them to attend,” wrote John Fridell of the Racine Journal News.
Rallying for the Game
The day after the announcement, more than 2,500 students attended a rally in support of Marquette football. Students marched down Wisconsin Avenue, chanting “we want a team.” Football players and coaches attended the rally.
Former football players, alumni, and students started a fundraising drive to try to cover the football program’s losses, but it failed to bring back the Golden Avalanche.
“There has been a definite apathy toward Marquette teams in the last decade or two and only an outstanding season would remedy it,” wrote Jerry Pfarr of the Kenosha News. “People in this area who take in football games on weekends go to see Wisconsin, Northwestern, or the Packers.”
Boston College, Holy Cross, and Wisconsin, all regulars on the Marquette schedule, expressed surprise and regret at the demise of Marquette’s program. All three institutions had to scramble to find several years’ worth of replacement games. Typically, college football schedules are set years in advance of the actual contests.
Marquette Stadium quickly went moribund. Marquette University High School continued to play there until 1974. The by-then dilapidated grandstand was demolished beginning in 1976. Eventually, Marquette University High School purchased the property and redeveloped it into an athletic complex known as Quad Park.
Today, the legacy of Marquette football in the city is decidedly muted but, for much of the 20th century, Golden Avalanche football was a major player in the city’s sports scene.
