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The Unlikely Champions: Tulsa's 1943 Football Team · Sports History Network

• 0:47
  What happens when a team composed of one armed guards, one lung tackles and medically discharged soldiers takes the field against one of the best college football has to offer in 1943?
• 0:57
  The answer was simple.
• 0:59
  They win the World War II era.
• 1:01
  Tulsa Golden Hurricane might just be the greatest collection of gridiron misfits ever assembled, riding an undefeated regular season straight to the Sugar Bowl.
• 1:10
  Here to tell the story behind his fantastic football archaeology article, Tulsa's 1943 Team and Wartime condition is our guest, Timothy P.
• 1:20
  Brown.
• 1:20
  Hey there.
• 1:21
  Thanks.
• 1:22
  Looking forward to chatting again tonight.
• 1:23
  And I can tell you that this story is going to be gold, Jerry Gold, I tell you.
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  The 1943 Tulsa Golden Hurricanes.
• 1:35
  All right.
• 1:35
  Yeah.
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  Like the outfit.
• 1:37
  Yeah.
• 1:38
  That is perfect for our 1943 week that we're celebrating here in pigskindispatch.com another great story from that season and you had a tidbit that we spawned this conversation.
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  1943 Tulsa and wartime conditions.
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  There's a link in the show notes on the podcast and the YouTube that you could read Tim's original.
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  But here we're going to hear the man speak about it right now.
• 2:02
  Very good.
• 2:04
  Yeah, I mean, you know, the whole thing, you know, you know, 43 was, and 44 were really kind of weird years for college football because, you know, pretty much the bulk of draft age, able bodied, you know, men
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  were overseas in some kind of training, you know, military training camp or they were in a military training program at a college or university.
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  You know, I mean they're, or, you know, they obviously there were farmers and you know, people with various jobs, you know, needed in the civilian sector.
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  But, but a lot of guys were, were in the military.
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  And so it just changed the dynamic and, you know, maybe gave some opportunities, the warriors in some ways gave opportunities to certain schools that normally didn't have them.
• 3:00
  And so Tulsa's coach was a guy named Henry Franca Frnka, heavy, heavy consonant surname.
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  And the guy was like 49 and one.
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  So 49, one in from 1941 to 1945.
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  So, you know, I mean, really obviously very strong program, five straight bowl appearances.
• 3:32
  But the 1943 roster was interesting just because Tulsa didn't have a military training program, you know.
• 3:40
  So I mean, if you're in all this like wartime football history, you know, you're aware of teams like, you know, Iowa pre flight and you know, North Carolina had had a team, USC had some military people, you know,
• 3:57
  Texas A.
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  And M and yeah, yeah, you name it.
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  There were, there were these, the Navy had these pre flight programs or guys that go learn engineering stuff related to flying.
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  But there were all kinds of other, you know, programs.
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  So, so, but basically Tulsa, you know, relatively small school, and so they basically, they didn't have military guys.
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  They had lost a bunch of their guys to these other programs.
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  But, but, you know, maybe this guy was a good recruiter, but one way or another he ended up getting guys transferring in who maybe were at a school that dropped football during the war.
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  Like, they dropped a lot of teams, A lot of schools dropped for 33, they're 43 and 44, stuff like that, because they just didn't have enough guys.
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  And so some guys would transfer out of that school and go to someplace else like Tulsa.
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  And then he also had a bunch of 4F players.
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  So the 4F were the guys that were rejected by the military by, you know, selective Service, even though, like you might see him on the street and go, okay, seems fine.
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  And so just, you know, here's a list of some of the guys on the team.
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  So there were, there were four F guys with vision problems.
• 5:19
  Okay, makes total sense.
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  Ruptured eardrums, a guy with one kidney, another guy with one lung, and a guy, a one armed right guard named Ellis Jones, who actually played eight games, eight NFL games in 1945.
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  So, you know, is a pretty good football player, right?
• 5:43
  But so, you know, and then they were in the Missouri Valley.
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  So.
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  The conference granted eligibility immediately to civilian transfers, right?
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  Which ordinarily they would have had wait a year.
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  And then they also allowed freshmen to play and like 22 of the 40 roster spots were freshmen.
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  So I mean, despite that, so basically 18 veterans, right, of sophomore through senior class.
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  And they ended up, you know, they go to a bowl game and they went to the Sugar bowl that year.
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  Actually they only lost one regular season game and that was against Southwestern University, not a well known football school.
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  You know, they've had their day, but that Southwestern had one of those V12 Navy programs.
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  So they had seven guys from the 42 Southwest Conference team at Texas, Southwest Conference champion team at Texas who were playing at Southwestern the next year.
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  So, so they lost to those guys and then they ended up playing Georgia Tech in the Sugar bowl and lost 22 to 18.
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  So I mean, you know, so they were, they were a darn good team, you know, playing the Sugar bowl, you know, you're doing okay.
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  And I'm sure the selection, they probably were some kinds of restrictions on war, wartime travel.
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  So there being reasonably close, you know, to New Orleans probably helped.
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  But nevertheless, you know, it's just a, just one of those things that it's almost.
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  We can't even fathom those kinds of conditions today, you know, because the, you know, you just.
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  When we've been in conflicts, you have Since World War II, when we've been in conflicts, you know, while you might draft guys, it's not like everybody is getting drafted and entering the military.
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  It's, you know, much more in spots.
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  Right.
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  So anyways, yeah, it's, it's an interesting time because it's one of those, those lines in the sand for the game of football where drastic change happened.
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  You know, World War II changed so many things.
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  Technology and, you know, people, the way people socialized and everything else.
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  But football was one of those things that were really affected because it was really a training ground for, for football players and, you know, just, it's a great, great story and great springboard for, for the game to get
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  more American homes, you know.
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  Yeah.
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  And they, you know, there was also, I mean, there were a lot of like World War I.
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  They, they also just, you know, Great Lakes had some really good teams and you know, there were, there were other.
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  Iowa Pre Flight had some absolutely excellent teams and great coaches too, you know, you know, so, I mean, they, they had, you know, Don Ferro was the head coach and, and what's his name?
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  Oklahoma.
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  Oklahoma coach.
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  He went, played at Minnesota, became the Cardinals head coach later on.
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  Bud Wilkinson.
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  Oh, Wilkinson.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  And, you know, so he was an assistant, you know, so anyway, I mean, there was just so much football talent floating around.
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  You know, Bear Bryant was an assistant coach at Carolina, you know, Pre Flight.
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  So, you know, I mean, they were just, there's all kinds of stuff like that.
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  But, you know, I think in 44, I think there was like four of the top 10 teams at the end of the season in the college polls were military teams.
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  So amazing, you know, really talented, you know, folks.
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  Yeah, well, great.
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  That's another great story.
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  I'm glad you shared it with us.
• 9:34
  You did the research on it and, you know, because most of us would never know about this unless you brought it with one of your tidbits and maybe you could tell us a little bit more about your tidbits
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  and where people can find them.
• 9:44
  Yeah, so you just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site.
• 9:49
  You can subscribe, you can follow.
• 9:53
  You can also, you know, just bookmark it and come back whenever you want.
• 9:57
  But if you subscribe, you know, you'll get an email every time that I publish a new.
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  A new story.
• 10:03
  Yeah.
• 10:04
  So that.
• 10:05
  That's the way to find it.
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  All right.
• 10:07
  Well, Tim, we really appreciate you coming on today and sharing this, and we'd love to talk to you again next Tuesday.
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  I think we'll get the chance.
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  Thanks.
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• 10:34
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