100 years ago in Spokane: A Gonzaga football game featured the grandfather of an eventual basketball star
It was Thanksgiving Day in 1923, and just like today, the emphasis was on football.
The Gonzaga University football team was in Michigan to play the University of Detroit, but unlike today, Spokane fans had to wait until the afternoon newspaper was delivered to find out the score.
They were probably disappointed.
The University of Detroit won 13-7, after the “far-famed aerial attack of the westerners (the Bulldogs) was effectively broken up by the local (Detroit) players.”
The Spokane Daily Chronicle ran a lengthy story that described nearly every play in the game.
One of Gonzaga’s star players had a familiar name. John Houston Stockton was the team’s “great backfield star,” who would later have an NFL career. He was the grandfather of basketball’s John Stockton.
Many local fans were probably just as interested in the big high school rivalry game between Lewis and Clark High School and North Central High School, which was also played that day.
It was a thrilling, suspenseful “classic,” yet a disappointment for both teams. It ended in a 0-0 tie. The Chronicle described every play on the front page of a late-day special edition.
Also on this day
(From onthisday.com)
1910: The first US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued to Ernest Sirrine.
1934: Chicago Bears beat Detroit (19-16) in 1st NFL game broadcast nationally.
1944: 1944 Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore performs 1st open heart surgery.