Streaking into the history books: What happened Oct. 6, 1956, on Maxwell Field echoes through Linfield history and the college football record books
By Matthew Hodges (Class of 2006) and
illustrations by Ward Hooper in Linfield magazine/Summer 2021
> Tip of the Wildcat hat
to Matt Hodges. It was 100% his idea on the oral history project and writing
the story. What a great accomplishment! Congrats to him!!<
See this story as presented in Linfield magazine via this link: https://www.linfield.edu/magazine/article/streaking-into-the-history-books
It
wasn’t the stuff of Hollywood movie legend. There was no last-second shot to
win a championship, Hail Mary pass to win the big game or inspirational
halftime speech to rally a team of lovable but scrappy underdogs.
Regardless,
what happened Oct. 6, 1956, on Maxwell Field echoes to this day through
Linfield history and the college football record books.
Linfield
was coming off back-to-back losing seasons that had ended with identical 3-6
records, and things weren’t looking better early in the 1956 campaign. The
season had started with a lackluster tie against Portland State and a loss to
Lewis & Clark.
Across
the field was a semi-professional team in the midst of a dynastic run. The
Seattle Ramblers won 10 conference titles in the 14 years between 1948 and
1964, and the team’s roster was made up of former college and professional
players who knew their business. They had beaten Linfield the year before on
the way to a 5-1 record of their own.
Members
of the Linfield team recall many players on the Ramblers being significantly
taller and heavier than the Wildcats and remember seeing a defensive end
standing 6-foot-8 who was able to pick opponents up with one hand.
The
crowd packed into the grandstand for the evening spectacle cheered as Linfield
quarterback Ron Parrish ’59 fired a 30-yard pass to Jerry Beier ’58 in the
opening quarter for the first touchdown of the game. In the second quarter, the
Wildcats put together a 60-yard drive that culminated when fullback Sel Spray
’63 plunged into the end zone to give the ’Cats an unexpected 13-0 advantage at
halftime.
As
they came off the field, Coach Paul Durham told his young team not to pay
attention to the Ramblers in the neighboring locker room.
“And
of course, because he told us not to look, we looked,” Paul Ward ’59, who
played guard, remembered. “And they are in there, drinking beer and smoking
cigarettes at halftime. So, we knew we kinda had them the second half because
they did run out of gas.”
Linfield
held on to win the game 13-7 and would never lose again that season.
They had no way to know
it, but theirs was the first winning season in what would become “The Streak,”
a run of the most consecutive winning seasons in college football history.
=“Once we had
a winning season, we knew we could win,” Ward said. “We had to experience it
and build up over the years.”=
And so they did. But
coming to Linfield the year before, Ward would never have imagined this team of
small-town kids and war veterans would start a legacy that would outlive them
all – let alone that they’d be talked about in 2021.
At 5-foot-8 and 155
pounds, Ward was not the biggest member of the Wildcat football team. As Ward
describes it, during his freshman year at Linfield, he “had a lot of
eye-opening experiences right off the bat.”
He had come to
college after attending three high schools in three states. After earning
all-league honors as a senior at Newport High School, his football coaches,
Leroy Merchant ’51 and Jesse Edwards ’48, called Durham about their transient
young star.
“Durham accepted me.
I could come and turn up for football,” Ward said. That meant a lot to Ward at
the time, although he now jokes, with the advantage of time and distance, “I
think if anyone could walk and chew gum at the same time, you were probably
accepted.”
On his first day in
McMinnville, Ward drove his old car onto campus and realized they were handing
out gear. He hustled over to Memorial Stadium to get in line.
“The guy in front of
me was 6-foot-2, a 27-year-old Korean War veteran with two kids and was
married,” Ward remembered. “I asked him what position he played, and he said
guard. And that was me (my position).”
He also was surprised
that all the gear – jocks, t-shirts and socks – was pink.
“I thought, ‘why in
the hell would a football team have pink socks and jerseys?’” Ward said. “I found
out later on that it was to keep people from running away with them.”
The opening day of
practice did little to build the diminutive freshman’s confidence.
“The very first time
I lined up – they lined you all up to do blocking against each other – I was on
defense and the other guy was on offense,” Ward remembered. “I got pancaked.”
But Ward worked hard
in practice, making the 32-player traveling squad in his first year.
“I was just hanging
on in those days,” Ward recalled. “I was happy to be part of the traveling
squad. I didn’t [make the starting lineup] until I was a senior. But I still
enjoyed every bit of it. I even enjoyed running wind sprints.”
Ward wasn’t the only
seemingly unconventional member of the team. With the Korean War ending in
1953, many players were returning from active duty and using their G.I. Bill
benefits to attend college. The 1956 roster listed 53 players, of which 12 were
21 years of age or older and nine were married.
“We had some really
dedicated players – Fox and Morris,” Ward remembered, referring to Vic Fox ’58
and Howard Morris ’58, who along with Ad Rutschman ’54 are the only Linfield
football players to have their jersey numbers retired.
=During
Ward’s time at Linfield, the Wildcats would follow his 3-6 freshman season by
winning 21 games over the next three years while losing only three games total.=
They claimed a
conference championship in 1956, only the second in school history, and laid
the groundwork for Linfield’s first playoff appearance and first run to the national
championship game, which would come in 1961.
It was a run of
domination the team would never have the audacity to even dream about on that
chilly October night against the Seattle Ramblers.
“I can guarantee you
that in 1956, nobody had any idea there would be any kind of streak,” Ward
said. “We were just happy that we could get through the season with a win.”
::::::::::::
1956
Linfield Football Scores
Portland State College 0-0 tie
*Lewis & Clark 19-17 loss
Seattle Ramblers 13-7 win
At OCE (Western Oregon) 27-13 win
*At Whitman 14-13 win
*At Willamette 12-12 tie
*College of Idaho 20-7 win
*Pacific 21-7 win
SOC (Southern Oregon) 27-13 win
Overall: 6-1-2. *Conference: 3-1-1
Caption
for Linfield 1956 football team photo - Front row from left: M. Bergan,
H. Edgar, V. Marshall, B. McLaren, R. Traux, R. Grady, P. Ward, J. Langenbach,
G. Wells, H. Crawford, B. Hughey, R. Hintz, T. Warren, A. Willis. Second row:
D. Holliday, B. LeMaster, V. Fox, B. Flood, S. Spray, H. Morris, R. Parrish, J.
Beier, R. Kofford, B. Cotman, D. Umbarger, H. Glenn, C. Allen, D. Dye. Back
row: D. Spray, D. Youngs, B. Stewart, G. Davidson, J. Whipple, M. Harsh, R.
Putman, N. Fridley, B. Holmes, L. Adams, J. Lytle, J. Crawford, C. Zimmerman,
G. Manley, D. Tank, L. Stanphill, Coach P. Durham.
Caption for photo of Paul Ward being interviewed -- The interview with
Paul Ward ’59 is part of an oral history project organized by Linfield
University Archives. Videos, photos and transcripts from interviews with
members of the 1956 football team will be available on the Linfield website in
fall 2021. If you are interested in adding to the 1956 football oral history
project, contact Rich Schmidt, director of archives, at 503-883-2734 or rschmidt@linfield.edu.
…..
The
author, Matt Hodges, is a development officer at Linfield University and project director for “The Streak: The
National Record that Continues.”
https://www.linfield.edu/magazine/article/streaking-into-the-history-books
