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Page 55 text:
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Depression and World War II took their toll on student enrollment at St. Edward’s, and for a time toward the end of the war men in uniform, trainees at a flying academy at St. Ed’s, outnumbered students. The 35-7 rout of Tulsa was regarded as something of a monumental upset. The local press reported on Oct. 28: “Into the celebrated oil capital of the world, came the football machine representing St. Edward’s College of the capital of Texas, and when the very grey and dark afternoon had faded the boys from Texas walked out the victors.” During the 23 season, a Statesman sports writer was moved to castigate University of Texas athletic officials for refusing Meagher’s requests that the two Austin college teams meet on the gridiron. UT refused on the grounds that the Saints were not members of a conference. Independent status in those days often suggested outlaw tactics. But the writer, unperturbed, took up the Saints’ cause and advised “There is no question that St. Edward’s would have given the Longhorns a much better game than did the South- western Pirates (in a 44-0 loss)...” The Meagherites, as they were sometimes called on campus, still couldn’t schedule Texas the next year, but they did find Southwest Conference competition. They rolled through their first six games undefeated with Melvin Steussy the captain, left halfback and standout triple- threater. Then they came afoul of Baylor, destined to win the SWC championship. The Bears won, 30-7, and left the Saints so rattled they were spilled the next week, 3-2, by Sam Houston Normal of Huntsville. Whether or not the Saints would have played a representative game against Texas in 1923, they couldn’t in their 1928 opener, the Longhorns prevailing 32-0. In 1929 the Rice Owls hired Meagher away and Al Serafiny, a former St. Ed’s center, took over as coach, until the depression ended football at St. Edward’s. After an enrollment low of 16 students following two world wars and depression, the Holy Cross set out to night the failing school. St. Edward’s purchased war surplus classrooms to supplement its permanent structures, secured additional lay personnel, initiated a building program, and began the 1946 school year offering courses in business administration, arts and letters, engineering, and science. A progression of energenic presidents, Br. Edmond Hunt, Br. Elmo Bransby, and Br. Raymond Fleck trans- formed the hilltop over the next 20 years, tripling enrollment, faculty, and material assets, and bringing women to the hilltop at long last in 1966. That isn’t Knute Rockne standing with one of St. Edwards’ earliest football teams (this is the team of 1907), but 14 years later Rockne’s hand-picked protege, Jack Meagher, would come to stand with eight St. Edward’s teams, including the unbeaten °23 club and the ’28 club that actually played the University 0 of Texas (and lost, 32-0!). il
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Page 54 text:
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50 Before the administration building’s embers were cool a crew began to rebuild the structure, and by the fall of 1903 it was restored. Nineteen years later, in 1922, it was damaged by flying debris hurled by a tornado that splintered a nearby dormitory, obliter- ated a gymnasium, leveled the school’s power plant, and made a ruin of its “natatorium,” one of the few indoor swimming pools in the state. Students resumed classes in Old Main the next day. It was at this time that St. Edward’s enjoyed its brief fling with the glories of college football with At the right the walls of the Main Building are being reconstructed around the main entrance, the back stairwell, and the northwest stone col- umn, the only parts of the original admin- istration building salvageable after the fire. All the walls that the picture on page 47 shows still stand- ing immediately after the fire had to be torn down before reconstruction could begin. Notice that a second front entrance east of the present one was lost in rebuilding Old Main. Above is Holy Cross Hall after the 1922 tornado. which her flashier northern sister would become so closely identified. In the 20s St. Ed’s licked Baylor, Rice, Tulsa, Louisiana, and Tennessee in football. The coach was Jack Meagher, hand-picked by Knute Rockne to coach the St. Edward’s Saints. Rockne had been to the St. Edward’s campus in 1920 to head a coaches clinic and he recommended Meagher, one of his former Fighting Irishmen, to train the team. St. Edward’s College, which was to advertise itself proudly later in the decade as “The Notre Dame of the Southwest,” had launched the 1920s with a patchwork schedule and a former Carlisle all- American as coach. Capt. W. J. Gardner was hired off the foothbal staff of the University of North Dakota in th summer of 1920 to direct the gridiron fortunes of St Edward’s. With Gary Lacy the quarterback and star of the team, Gardner guided his first and as it turned ow only club to a 7-2 season. The Saints launched the campaign with a 4-0 win over Austin High. St Edward’s drubbed West Texas Military Academy 88-0, but fell to San Marcos Baptist Academy and the San Antonio Knights of Columbus. High point of the season was a 24-14 victory over Dallas University. The Statesman reported in its, edition of Sunday, Noy. 21, 1920: “Playing a brand of football that is seldom |. equalled by teams of academy standing, the St. Edward’s College aggregation dressed the Dallas University squad down to the tune of 24 to 14 ina. lively contest at Clark Field Saturday afternoon.” For reasons not widely publicized, possibly because a Notre Dame alumnus became available, Gardner did not return for the following season and Meagher took over as “Physical director and coach in all branches.” Meagher directed his first of eight St. Edward’s teams to a 3-4-1 season, then came back with an 8-2 club in 1922. In 1923, the school hit its football peak for the decade. The Saints skipped through an 8-0 season that included surprise wins over Phillips University of Enid, Oklahoma, and Tulsa University.
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