TicketsSept. 27, 2006
by Dave Malaska (Courtesy of 1996 Battle for the Victory Bell Game Program)
If an athlete is lucky, they can say they had a hand in one of those years. They can say they batted with the 1969 Mets. They can say they skated on the ice in Lake Placed with the gold medal winning Olympic Hockey team in 1980 or if they are lucky, they can stay they returned from a World War, put on a football helmet, strapped on the pads and played in Nippert Stadium with the 1946 Bearcats.
Sixty years ago, the University of Cincinnati football team put together an outstanding season which culminated in the program's first-ever bowl appearance. With the victories on the field and the exuberance of a war just won abroad, the 1946 season remains as one of the most magical in Cincinnati history.
It was a season that contained the thrill of major upsets, the disappointment of disheartening set-backs and a roster filled with enough courage and heart to earn a bowl birth in an age when there were few.
Cincinnati finished with a 9-2 record, including an overwhelming 18-6 win over Virginia Tech in the 1947 Sun Bowl played on New Year's Day in El Paso, Texas.
"We had a strange team that year," remembered guard/linebacker Tom Blake. "We were a very close team. Most of the team were GI's coming back from the war and had transferred to UC because they were from Cincinnati or had married a Cincinnati girl. I think I was the only teenager on the squad. There were maybe three guys on the '46 team that were there the year before. We were a team of strangers."
The Bearcat's roster that season read as a "who's who" of transfers and returning soldiers. While the atmosphere in college football was much the same across the country, Cincinnati was one of the programs, which benefited the most.
Blake, who transferred in after spending his freshman year playing for the Tennessee Volunteers, was joined by linebacker Al Sabato, another Tennessee product. Max Wharton, the starting right end at the beginning of the season, played two years at Temple before becoming a Bearcat.
Once a Cincinnati football player, Alkie Richards was a halfback at Penn State while in Marine training. Another original Bearcat, Elbie Nickel, played on season at Cincinnati before entering the service. He returned to find himself a captain of the team and a main reason for the Bearcat revival.
"Racing" Roger Stephens, an all-America candidate who led the nation in rushing average with 7.6 yards per carry in 1946, played at Iowa in 1943 before serving from 1944-1945. His transfer to Cincinnati was a major puzzle piece in Bearcat's successes to come. Bill Smith came from the storied Notre Dame football program.
According to lineman Bob Fenlon, it's amazing Cincinnati sported a team that year at all, let alone such a good one.
"On August 15 of that year, we had maybe four or five guys we knew would be on the team. It's amazing to me that a month later, on Sept. 15, we could beat Indiana," said Fenlon. "That was a special group of guys."
The team's captain is less amazed than proud.
"Somehow we put it all together and gave everybody something to remember," Nickel said.
The Bearcats opened the season more than a little unsure of themselves and facing what looked to be their biggest test of the season against Big Nine champion Indiana. The Hoosiers had gone undefeated in 1945 and many counted on them to shine as champions of the conference again.
In Bloomington, Cincinnati staked out a large part of what the season would become, shocking Indiana 15-6.
After a first quarter stalemate, Cincinnati's Don McMillan tossed a touchdown pass on the third play of the second quarter. The Hoosiers blocked PAT and marched down the field to score their own touchdown, only to have their extra point attempt blocked. The half ended in a 6-6 deadlock.
"They had a strong team, and it was really hot on the field, but we kept telling ourselves `they may be champions, but they have feet of clay," Blake remembered.
In the fourth quarter, McMillan threw a 20-yard pass to Wille Stargel. As the tight end was about to be tackled, he lateraled to Nickel, who carried it in for another UC touchdown, which combined with a late field goal, provided the final score and served notice on college football that Bearcats are a team to be dealt with. Along with respect, the win also earned Cincinnati head coach Ray Nolting the United Press International Coach of the Week award.
After his team's loss to the Bearcats, Indiana coach Bo McMillin was livid.
With a room full of reporters, he proclaimed, "Never again are we going to lose to a Cincinnati at the start of a season. If we were going to lose, I'd rather go out losing to Notre Dame or a club of that nature. Today was just embarrassing."
The Bearcats, for their part, were indignant.
"We got peeved when those Indiana guys treated us like country cousins," Fullback Fred Redeker said.
"We were big underdogs," Nickel recalled half a century later. "But we weren't afraid of them. We gave them all we had."
At the time, Nolting said the biggest opponent facing his team in leading up to the Kentucky game was the job of "keeping down the over-confidence."
Full of themselves and expecting a good game in their home opener against Kentucky, UC was jolted into reality the following week.
The Bearcats opened strong, taking the ball to UK's 35-yard line before becoming bogged down. Three quarters later, Cincinnati finally scored.
In the meantime, Kentucky rolled.
"No doubt about it, we underestimated them and looked past them," Nickel said. "Coming off the Indiana game, it was a big let-down. It was easily the poorest game we'd played that year."
"They really had us scouted, though," Blake injected. "It seemed every time I pulled out to lead a block, there was two or three of them waiting for me. They were ready for us."
In UC's defense, the Indiana game did have its cost. Injuries, the kind that turn a streaking team into a cautious team, racked the Bearcats.
But, according to Blake, no one in the UC locker room was about to make an excuse of it.
"We had a fair amount of injuries, but we weren't prepared," he said five decades later. "We just knew they handed it to us and we didn't want that feeling again."