1920 season recap

1920 season recap

Podcast transcript:
Hello everyone welcome to this week’s edition of the ReitzFootball.com Podcast presented by Reis Tires, where we go in chronological order to recap EVERY game in the history of Reitz High School Football. I’m your host, Dan Engler.

In the last episode, we looked back at the Panthers’ season finale against Boonville. You can listen to that episode and all our podcasts by going to ReitzFootball.com and clicking on PODCAST in the top menu.

This week we’ll wrap up 1920 and take a sneak peak at 1921.

Jewel Sutton was the Panthers’ scoring leader with 18 points. Bill Reid was second with 12, and the two finished the year as co-holders of the all-time scoring record with 24. Ralph Woods was close behind with 18.

Reid also held the record for most career rushing touchdowns with Woods at three each.

Woods set the record for most season and career passes thrown with five. Emerson Lynch and Sutton were the recipients of two each, which set a career & season school record.

Johnson, whose first name is unknown, set the record for longest touchdown run at 60 yards. We’ve got a complete breakdown of these stats in the PantherPlus members area.

George Murphy, the Panthers’ first coach would leave the Panthers at the end of the school year. He finished with a 6-6 all-time record. It was reported in the May 31 edition of the Evansville Press that “to conform with the standard of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, every teacher in the high school must have a college degree. Roscoe Leach and George Murphy are planning to go to college.”

This means obviously that Coach Murphy didn’t have a degree, but this wasn’t completely uncommon at the time.

Replacing him would be Charles V. Maple, who had been the coach of the Central Bears in 1920. Ohio State university standout Herb Henderson was hired as the Bears coach. According to the May 3, 1921 edition of the Press, “Charles Maple, now serving as coach at Central, had been promoted to assistant physical director of the public schools under Julius Doerter. Maple will have charge of competitive athletics in the grade schools. He also will coach the athletic teams at Reitz high school.”

On an interesting sidenote, the Dec. 20, 1920 edition of the Press reported that Woods was accidentally shot while hunting near Boonville. Fortunately, his injuries weren’t serious and he would come back for basketball & track that year and as captain of the football team in the fall. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll look back at the start of the 1921 season next week, as the Panthers’ prepare for Princeton.

Remember, this podcast is brought to you free of charge by our friends at Reis Tires. As the series continues, we’ll eventually cover all 1,000+ games. With every edition, we’ll preview and recap the next game in chronological order.

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Just go to reitzfootball.com/pantherplus. Click on register and select the monthly membership for a free 30-day trial. Cancel at anytime!

Thanks for listening. Do you have questions or comments? Please email me at info@reitzfootball.com.

Until next time, this is Dan Engler with ReitzFootball.com. Go Panthers!