The Oklahoma Sooners Hit the Road for the First Time

During the 1897 season in his university publication, The Umpire, Vernon Parrington mused about the possibility of his team leaving the state to play a game. "If we cannot win our way to first place in the territory we have no right to expect to receive recognition outside the territory." By the time the 1898 season Parrington seemed to believe that his boys had achieved the recognition they needed to make such a trip.

The first game of the 1898 season was set to be in Arkansas City against the Arkansas City Town Team. It is unclear if this setup had anything to do with President Boyd's relationship with the people of Arkansas City where he was superintendent of schools before accepting his new position in Norman. Arkansas City had become a nice, comforting hub of the Santa Fe rail company that loved its sports. A loyal and rabid fan base loved to watch their boys play, so it is simple to believe they were a formidable opponent.

Parrington believed his team was a formidable one as well, even though they had to replace several key players from the 1897 squad. D.R. Boyd liked to tell a story of one newcomer, Tom Tribbey of Burnett, that Harold Keith relayed in Oklahoma Kickoff:

Tribbey, a 230-pound young giant who was strong as a percheron colt and so fast for his pounds that Parrington was probably tempted to put interference behind him instead of in front to prevent its getting crushed, became the Pudge Heffelfinger of Oklahoma football. Green as the corn on his father's Pottawatomie County farm and only eighteen years old, Tribbey came to the university to study pharmacy. He had never ridden on a train until the team loaded him on the north-bound Santa Fe for the Arkansas City game. When the cars began to leave the station, Tribbey gasped with wonder, clutched the guards of the green plush seat in which he was sitting and blurted out delightedly, "Gosh, fellers! She's a movin'!"

Tribbey's feeling at that moment was likely similar to the feeling of many young military men around the United States just months before. Ending a long period of isolationist philosophy in order to grow the industrial strength of home, the United States waged war with Spain on April 25, 1898. After Cuban nationals revolted against their Spanish rulers in 1895 the Spaniards sent the "Butcher", otherwise known as General Weyler, to re-establish order to the island. Weyler absolutely lived up to his reputation and butchered many Cuban citizens, multitudes dying in concentration camps from disease and physical abuse.

Americans were appalled by the events and called for action, but President Cleveland was dead set against war. Aside from Cleveland's personal problems with war, he was very aware of the "yellow journalism" perpetrated by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. In fact, after Hearst had sent an artist to Cuba to draw pictures of the atrocities the writer relayed to Hearst that things weren't as bad as they thought. Hearst's response? "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." Spain did get a great deal of heat from the press and finally pulled General Weyler from Cuba.

On February 15, 1898 the USS Maine, a U.S. warship sent to observe the situation in Cuba mysteriously exploded killing 260 of the 350 men onboard. The American public was incensed by the tragedy and demanded to know who was to blame. Then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt contacted the President with a plan of attack for war through Navy Commodore George Dewey. Cleveland approved and the Navy followed through a week after the U.S. declaration of war.

On May 1, 1898, the Navy attacked Spain by surprise at Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The American fleet, six brand-new warships strong, attacked the Spaniard fleet of 10 old, worn ships swiftly ending the battle without a single American casualty. After waiting months for ground troops to arrive, the military quickly finished their work in Manila in August 1898. Again in Cuba the United States proved to work nearly flawlessly to a rapid victory over the Spanish fleet. The U.S. granted Cuba the freedom that they had promised, instead of annexing them. Finally, just weeks after the University of Oklahoma made their first road trip in football; the Treaty of Paris was signed, effectively ending the Spanish-American War.

Harold Keith speaks of several aspects of this game that are worthy of being mentioned: the superior condition of the OU athletes that once again wore down the opposition through another grueling contest; the crazy fumble at the one yard line recovered by the university en route to a shutout; the fact that neither team substituted a player the entire game, playing the insane 90 total minutes without subbing (a substitute at this time meant the player substituted for could not return); the post-game bath at the hotel featuring the first ever custom-built bath tub for many of the players who washed up hurriedly in order to make it to the dining room for dinner. The most amusing story, however, was that of the father of two big, brutal linemen, Fred and Joe Merkle:

The game's most amusing incongruity occurred when the university team arrived triumphantly home. At the Norman depot, John Merkle, father of the rough brothers who so smashingly had played the tackles for the varsity that day, met the train with a wagon half-filled with straw over which he had spread several quilts. The old gentleman always had a horror of football. He was afraid Joe or Fred would be terribly injured playing the rough, new sport and in the event that did occur, he aimed to be ready to take them home in some degree of comfort. He always met the train, never realizing that his crude, horse-drawn ambulance would have been far more appropriately enjoyed by the weary and battered opponent his stalwart sons punished every time they stepped out upon the gridiron.

Oklahoma University shutout the Arkansas City Town Team in this first ever football road game, the final score, 5-0.

Sources

1. Oklahoma Kickoff by Harold Keith
2. The Daily Oklahoman Archives
3. Rites of Autumn: The Story of College Football by Richard Whittingham