Watkins book tracks down lore of Cougars 1916 Rose Bowl win

Darin Watkins, author of “Chance for Glory”

A book which follows the Washington State College Cougars to their win in the first Rose Bowl 100 years ago has been written by Darin Watkins, a well-known area broadcaster and 1984 WSU grad. Watkins last week told the Gazette he wrote eight different versions of the book, “Chance for Glory,” which was finally published in October.

“I think that 100-year date was my deadline to finally get it done,” Watkins said.

The Cougars trip to Pasadena in the last week of 1915 is filled with all types of lore about an event which established WSC football as part of college football on the west coast. Watkins last week said researching and writing the book involved a process of documenting some of the tales about the early days of Cougar football.

“A lot of this was really just folklore. It was just a matter of researching and finding out how much of it was true,” he explained.

The 1916 Rose Bowl was the result of the Tournament of Roses Committee decision to expand their annual event, Watkins said. Twelve years earlier, the committee hosted a college football game between Michigan and Stanford as part to Roses event, and it turned out to be a bust, but they decided to stage it as a championship event which would feature a team from the east side of the country against a team from the west side.

The WSC Cougars, with a season record of 6-0, received the invitation to represent the west.

Watkins said his interest in the game began with a long talk with the late Girard Clark of Pullman, the son of Asa Clark who was one of the 22 players in the 1916 team which was coached by William “Lone Star” Dietz. That first talk extended over about two hours and spiked Watkins interest.

Over the years he collected photos, programs and other memorabilia of the event. Some of the photos were framed and decorated on his office wall in Pullman.

He credits WSU Police Chief Bill Gardner with getting him to write the book.

Watkins is the son of Bob and Ruth Watkins of Palouse. The family moved to Palouse in 1979, one year after Darin had graduated from Central Valley High School. His three brothers – Rob, Brad and Brian – all graduated from Palouse High School.

Darin Watkins graduated from WSU in 1984 and started his broadcasting career in Yakima. He has since worked at stations in Spokane, Seattle and New York before returning to Pullman where he is director of communications for the Edward R. Murrow School of Communications. He can still be seen on Saturdays when he anchors Q-6 news broadcasts.

Watkins said his research shows west coast football in 1915 was much more informal, and this year’s PAC-12 observance marks the start of the conference 100 years ago. The Rose Bowl was part of that start. WSC actually became a part of the Pacific Coast Conference a year after the start, in 1917.

The 1916 game preceded broadcasting and fans relied on newspaper reports for accounts of the game. Watkins noted one feature of the Rose Bowl game was a makeshift arrangement on the progress of the ball which was depicted in downtown Pullman next to the telegraph service. The display was arranged by the editor of The Daily Evergreen whose mother worked as a telegrapher.

The 1915 Cougars under Coach Dietz had compiled a 6-0 record with wins over Oregon, Oregon State, Idaho, Montana, Whitman and Gonzaga. Newspaper sports writers at that time followed a practice of “stacking” scores so an early WSC win over Oregon, for example, added to the team’s fame when Oregon subsequently booked a win over a subsequent foe.

At the end of the season, when WSC defeated Gonzaga in Spokane, they were recognized as the top team on the west coast and received the automatic invitation from the Rose Bowl committee.

Lone Star Dietz, who was half Lakota Sioux and half German, had been hired that year by WSC President Enoch A. Bryan, who had a fascination for the legendary game between West Point and Carlyle Indian School – a national school for Native Americans from all tribes. Students at the school were required to adopt a white man’s name, and Dietz chose William.

Dietz played on the Carlyle team that defeated West Point and was an assistant at Carlyle for coach Pop Warner, who was recommended for the WSC job to President Bryan.

“He spent the equivalent of a professor’s salary for a full year on a three-month contract for the coach,” Watkins said.

Coach Dietz brought with him innovations such as a no-huddle offense with speed and passing as opposed to the power football offense mode of the day, using game films for preparation, and having separate squads for offense and defense.

The team departed for the Rose Bowl via rail to Spokane, then to Portland and San Francisco. At each stop they were greeted by fans and hosted for dinners. In fact, the partying eventually led to a cease and desist order as the team approached the business at hand.

Among other sidelights of the event was their appearance in a football movie production which had been arranged ahead of time by Dietz. He actually used the extended filming sessions of up to 12 hours as practices prior to the game against Brown.

Watkins said the Cougars were booked for the film because the director could take advantage of their Rose Bowl visit without having to hire extras and create a prop football team. Each of the players received $100 for the film work.

“That was lot money in those days when the average pay was maybe a $1 a day,” Watkins said.

Watkins added a quick glimpse of the 1916 game can be seen in this year’s PAC-12 promotional ads. That is because the producer of the football movie followed up with an obligation to attend the actual game and shoot more film.

Also, football teams in those days were allowed to bet on themselves, and many of the Cougars also collected on wagers which offered odds which had Brown a heavy favorite before the game.

The Cougars defeated Brown 14-0 in the game which was played after a California rain storm that negated much of the running power of Brown’s Fritz Pollard who had been expected to be the deciding factor for the east side team.

Dietz, who was then sought by other schools all over the country, remained at WSC until college football was shut down during World War I. He made a war-time coaching stop with the Marines at Mare Island.

The 1916 Rose Bowl, which preceded actual construction of the bowl, was the first of four trips to the championship event by the Cougars. They returned in 1931, 1998 and 2000.