06.09.23
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The game Temple should have never turned down

Twenty-two days after the Giants won this NFL title Temple lost to Tulane in the Sugar Bowl.

Not quite a century ago Temple was approached by the New York Giants and the Mara family (who still own the team) and asked to play a game to “legitimize” in the mind of the public that the NFL game was at least the equal of good college teams.

Temple rejected the idea out of hand.

Haven’t seen the Temple football team called “Husky” in my lifetime.

Yeah, it happened long before you and I were born and probably before anyone else who has ever read this space, but wouldn’t it have been neat if the Owls accepted the November 9, 1935 game? Hell, since it was the Giants’ idea in the first place it would probably have been played at Temple Stadium.

The Temple coach, Pop Warner, wanted to keep the date as a “breather” for his team (called a bye nowadays) but the accepted truism then was that a good college team like Temple would have beaten an NFL team.

Pop, what the heck were you doing?

My, how times have changed.

Now even crazy Georgia fans are called nuts when they think they can play with the worst NFL team, let alone the best one.

Let it be known, though, for the rest of all time that the only NFL CHAMPION to ever challenge a college team was the New York Giants and the only COLLEGE team to ever be challenged to a game was the Temple Owls.

Kinda surprising because the Owls were not even the Georgia or Alabama of their day that year. They finished 7-3 and beat national powers Vanderbilt and Texas A&M but maybe the Maras were banking on the good publicity they would get beating a respected college team not that far from where the Giants played. Probably the fact that Warner was the most high-profile coach of the 1930s also factored into the offer.

Just think, though, if Temple had accepted the challenge. The Owls could have struck a blow for the college game or, on the other hand, helped legitimize the NFL years before it beat out baseball and became the national pastime. It was a win/win situation for Temple because no one would have blamed a team of amateurs for losing to a team where everyone got paid.

We will never know.

But we do know this: The New York Giants could have challenged Miami,, Rutgers, Penn State or Georgia.

They chose Temple.

No other NFL team chose anyone else.

Somewhere in Heaven, if Pop was honest, he’d probably be as curious as the rest of us how it might have turned out.

Monday: Rating The Hires

One thought on “The game Temple should have never turned down”

  1. Penn, Penn State, Villanova, and Rutgers didn’t do well that season apparently, Owls beating ‘Nova 22-0 plus VPI and Texas A&M. LaSalle though was 7-0-1, also beating ‘nova and St. Joe’s.

    Went looking just for fun and found this about St. Joe’s football:

    In 1925–26, Saint Joseph’s started to draw up plans for a 70,000 – 80,000 seat neo-classical (colosseum) style stadium. The plans were put on permanent hold however due to both a lack of funds as well as a growing feeling among the student body that Saint Joseph’s would never be able to compete with other schools in terms of football. – I wonder what the neighbors on Hawk Hill would have thought then and if the City Father’s would have caved like they have this century?

    Reply

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