Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football

Excerpts from the book by John M. Carroll (publ. 1999, University of Illinois Press)

Grange was not the only superior athlete at the time to dominate high school football on Chicago's western rim and to the northwest of the city, where many high school football programs were less than a dozen years old. In October 1920 the Wheaton Illinoian reported that Ralph "Moon" Baker of Rockford High School led his team over Joliet, 100-0, by scoring seven touchdowns, converting eight extra points, and booting a thirty-five-yard field goal for a total of fifty-three points. Baker would be Grange's freshman football teammate at the University of Illinois.

The University of Illinois freshman team of 1922 was undoubtedly one of the most talented first-year teams in college football history. Out of the some 120 candidates who reported for tryouts, freshman coach Bert Ingwersen selected a squad that eventually would produce three all-American players and two others who would become prominent Big Ten performers. The starting lineup for the freshman team included Grange at left halfback, Ralph "Moon" Baker of Rockford at quarterback, Earl Britton of Elgin at fullback, Paul Cook at righ halfback, and Frank Wickhorst of Aurora at tackle. Looking back at that group, Grange recalled, "Three of us went on to make All-America...except Moon Baker made it at Northwestern and Frank Wickhorts at Navy after they transferred."

[Head Coach Bob] Zuppke had the varsity scrimmage the freshmem twice a week. Grange recalled the Ingwersen prepared for those games as if they meant the conference championship. With the freshman team ouweighing the varsity by about ten pounds per man and lining up with Grange, Britton, Baker, and Cook in the backfield and Wickhorst at tackle, it is little wonder that the underclassmen handily won most of the scrimmages. As the season progressed, Grange recalled, "Coach Zuppke became so enthused with our potentialities that he spent more time with us than he did with the varsity. It is an accepted fact," Red added in something of an understatement, that "the 1922 freshman team was one of the strongest Illinois ever had."