Author Archives: Joshua Kagavi

The Iowa State University athletic fraternity was rocked again recently with the tragic news of assistant football coach Curtis Bray’s death at the young age of 43. In the immediate aftermath, players and coaches mentioned Bray’s ability to mentor and teach life lessons to others. Many obituaries focused on his long coaching career, but Bray was also such a decorated prep athlete that he was Gatorade’s National High School Football Player of the Year in 1987-88. Digging further, I found more information about his high school and college experiences that helped define Bray’s “life coach” persona later in his career.

Curtis Bray was born in 1970 into an accomplished, athletic family. Bray’s father Charlie was an imposing man who enjoyed a professional football career as an offensive guard in various leagues, including six seasons with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, two seasons with the Memphis Southmen (better known as Grizzlies) of the World Football League, and a brief period with the New York Giants. During his stint with Toronto from 1968 to 1973, Charlie was named to the CFL All-Star team in ’69 and ’70. In 1971, after negotiations with the Miami Dolphins failed, quarterback Joe Theismann joined the Argonauts and stayed through the 1973 season. Together in 1971, Bray and Theismann led the Argonauts to their first Grey Cup championship game since 1952, although they would lose 14 – 11 on two critical fumbles late in the game–one which can be seen here. The game was also notable for being the first CFL game on artificial turf, which contributed to the traction issues seen in the video.

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With the sad news of former Iowa State University coach Johnny Orr’s passing, I became curious about the brief references to his storied early days. It turns out Orr had a record-setting athletic career prior to entering coaching, where he became the winningest basketball coach at the University of Michigan and Iowa State University. The more I dug, the more interested I got. Perhaps the best place to start the story of John M. Orr is with his senior year at Taylorville High in Illinois, where he was part of an enthralling streak that captured the attention of the entire state.

As World War II dominated the nation’s hearts, Orr’s senior year of 1943-44 saw him become an all-state player in football and star on the baseball diamond. Standing a strong 6’3″ tall, Orr’s best sport was basketball and in his last season, the Taylorville Tornadoes basketball team coached by Dolph Stanley was expected to be a tough out. Despite being a small school of just 566 students, the Tornadoes boasted two elite players: Orr and fellow lanky teammate Ronald Bontemps. Week after week, excitement slowly started building as they culminated a magical run through the Illinois high school basketball state tournament by becoming the first undefeated team in Illinois history. On their way to an incredible 45 – 0 record, Taylorville triumphed over other Illinois schools triple and quadruple their size. To this day, a large picture commemorating the 1944 championship hangs in Taylorville’s gym. (The basketball floor was recently named after Coach Stanley.) Orr can be seen in the front row wearing 43 next to Bontemps, who is wearing 34. Coach Stanley is in the top right circle.

As one of the smallest schools in the entire field, Taylorville’s squad impressed so much that both Orr and Bontemps were named to the all-tournament team. Orr finished as the second leading scorer in the entire tournament–just two points out of first–with 64 points in just four games–an average of 16 ppg. Bontemps was no stiff either with 49 points, good for fourth overall and an 12.25 ppg average. (The tournament’s leading scorer, Paul Schnackenberg of Chicago South Shore, became Orr’s teammate the following year in college.) The accolades poured in for the towering duo.

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When I was in Ames this past summer, I became curious about the history of Collegiate Manufacturing Company after seeing the Cy costume created by them on display in the Iowa State Alumni Center. I didn’t realize that Collegiate’s role in Iowa State history went much deeper.

First, an aside: some people erroneously believe the original Iowa State teams were formerly known as the Cardinals, which has no basis in history. In a previous story, I shared the zany adventures of the 1895 Ames football team that earned the Cyclones nickname. Prior to 1895, references to the athletics teams of Iowa Agricultural College/Iowa State College were usually the “Ames eleven” or “Ames nine” (for football and baseball). I’ve also seen numerous reference to the “Iowa Aggies” since Aggie was a common nickname for many agricultural schools of the era formed by the Morrill Act in 1862. At the time the 1895 football team earned the nickname Cyclones, the school colors were silver, black, and gold. It wasn’t until 1899 that the school colors of cardinal and gold were established, well after the Cyclone moniker took root. As ISC grew through the 20th century, numerous organizations were established–such as the Cardinal Key in 1926–that took inspiration from the school colors. It wasn’t until the 1950s that a cardinal bird named Cy became the official mascot of Iowa State College.

In light of billion dollar TV contracts and apparel deals, many have cast a jaundiced gaze upon the rise of corporate influence in amateur sports–most famously with Nike and the University of Oregon. Nike has drastically changed the uniforms, facilities, and logo of Oregon in a quest for increased success and profitability. In recent years, Under Armour has attempted to mimic Oregon’s relatively new success by making the University of Maryland their flagship school. However, this isn’t a new trend. The close–but benign–relationship between Collegiate and Iowa State College gave birth to Cy.

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The Internet has made research vastly easier and the ever-expanding Iowa State University Digital Collections has helped me make some crucial connections while studying Cyclone athletic history. Athough some photos are mislabeled or have incorrect dates and there are still large gaps, I hope ISU keeps bolstering this archive because its an important look at Ames in the early days. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite photos.

There are quite a few photos of State Gym in the collection. Look at two different proposed designs, which clearly didn’t get built.

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In 1858, Iowa State University was established as Iowa Agricultural College and the Cyclone nickname took root after a shellacking of Northwestern by the underdog Ames football team in 1895. Throughout the formative era of collegiate football, the Ames team experienced bed bugs, dubious referees, a train trip to Montana halted by snow and no food, and the agony of using hair as helmets. During this time, an unassuming black student named George Washington Carver helped the football teams as a trainer before eventually achieving worldwide fame with his scientific breakthroughs, inventions, and prodigious talents in the arts, which led Time magazine to dub him the “black Leonardo” in 1941.

The first Ames football teams played on the grassy space in front of the imposing turrets of Old Main that dominated the IAC landscape. A newly forged bell behind Old Main was used to ring class into session and enforce curfew. Later the bell would be appropriated by the football team at Clyde Williams Stadium and it currently stands near Jack Trice Stadium as the Victory Bell. Two fires in 1900 and 1902 destroyed most of Old Main, leading to its replacement Beardshear Hall. (Interestingly enough, the University of Arkansas has a very similar building, also dubbed Old Main, still standing.) The Ames Historical Society put together an extensive history of Old Main with many large pictures of the campus at that time. In the second picture below, find the bell behind Old Main and the Dinkey tracks.

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Yesterday the two Mark Penxa paintings of Jack Trice arrived at Kagavi headquarters. We previously interviewed Mark here and were glad to work with him on this project. Although the paintings are not strictly historically accurate, they capture the spirit of Trice in Mark’s signature style. They are even more awesome in person and we plan on giving one of them away in the near future as part of a contest related to our Kagavi x Pendleton vintage ISU stadium blanket. More details will come soon, but in the meantime, check them out again and visit Mark’s site here.

In popular mythology, Jack Trice played football for Iowa State College in a cardinal jersey with gold friction strips. Earlier this season, when Iowa State University unveiled their throwback uniforms inspired by the 1923 team, the jerseys were cardinal with gold mock friction strips. However, does this common sentiment have any basis in reality? The colors of cardinal and gold can look remarkably similar in black and white photos and my research uncovered many questions and few answers. Ultimately, I believe Jack Trice and his teammates wore a gold jersey for the 1923 season including the infamous Minnesota game as well as for the spring game earlier that year. The sole exception was the Simpson game. Along the way, I caught wind of another exciting development in Trice’s story.

Before tackling the enigma of the gold jerseys, we need to consider the previous year, which was Coach Sam Willaman’s first at Iowa State after leading East Technical High School to multiple championships behind the talents of Trice and the Behm brothers. As Willaman soon discovered during the 1922 season, many of ISC’s opponents shared similar colors, which often led to confusing games. During the season opener against Coe, the Cyclone team was forced to wear two thick wool jerseys on top of one another to create the necessary contrast in the game. Making matters worse, it was a sunny summer day of 90 degrees.

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When I was in Ames this summer, I made some time to wander around the Alumni Center located on a hill halfway between Hilton Coliseum and Jack Trice Stadium. Unlike many other schools, Iowa State University doesn’t have a comprehensive sports hall of fame or museum, so many historical items are scattered throughout campus. The Alumni Center has a small but solid collection and I enjoyed seeing some of the vintage Cyclone items around the building. Here are some of my favorites.

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Many of you know I love the whiff of historical riddles and I thought there was another mystery on my hands when I learned about an obscure silver bat trophy that Iowa State played for in the 1890s. I was happy to see that the trophy was safely stored at the ISU archives and when I visited Ames, I made sure to see the trophy in person. The trophy was originally conceived as a traveling trophy between the colleges of Iowa and it was agreed the trophy would be permanently kept by the first team to win the state baseball “championship” in three different years. Below, we can see the Ames nine got off to a great start by winning the very first two years: 1893 and 1894. The bat features a game image along with the yearly winners of the series from 1893 to 1902.

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When I flew back to Iowa in late August, one of my planned trips was Simpson College where I wanted to see the Ames vs. Simpson game program from 1923 that helped crack the mystery of Jack Trice’s jersey number (which I originally wrote about here). The college is located in the small town of Indianola just south of Des Moines and after a pleasant drive through some rolling hills, I reached the campus.

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