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UNC - LSU Football and the Agony of Defeat
by Charly Mann
The highly regarded UNC football team kicks off their 2010 season on September 4th in Atlanta against LSU. On November 11th, 1961 I was eleven years old and sat in Kenan Stadium to witness LSU totally humiliate the Tarheel football team 30 - 0 on a very sad UNC Homecoming day.
#26 of LSU, Wendell Harris, scores an easy long running touchdown in the first quarter against UNC in Kenan Stadium in 1961
In 1961 I was a veteran of Kenan stadium, having spent almost every home game for the previous three years walking up and down the stadium stairs selling cold bottled soft drinks out of buckets filled with ice during the games. On this day however I was in the stands as a spectator with my father who told me I was going to witness one of the best football teams of all time. My Dad even told me that the LSU second-string team was better than most college first-string teams in the country.
The day was cool and cloudy and the game started at 2:00 instead of the typical 1:00 PM kickoff because it was being televised regionally. There were 28,000 fans in attendance, which was larger than most games, but at least 30% of the stadium seats were empty. Considering the population of Chapel Hill was only about 10,000 then and UNC's enrollment was about the same, this meant almost everyone in town was at the game.
LSU-UNC Game Day Ad with team rosters from November 11th, 1961. If you look closely you can see that year Sutton's was then known as Sutton's Drug Store and Toy Cellar.
The game was incredible if you enjoyed seeing a clinic of great football. LSU was then ranked #4 in the nation, and I remember they were called the Bengal Tigers, but after that game I always thought of them as the Vicious Bengal Tigers. LSU scored easily on two early possessions with long touchdown runs by their halfback Wendell Harris. More amazing to me, Harris was also their primary kicker and scored three extra points and a field goal for his team. Soon after the first quarter LSU's young blond-haired head coach, Paul Dietzel, saw that his first team far outclassed UNC and put in his second string team led by halfback Bo Campbell. Campbell went on to average more than 10 yards per carry against the hapless UNC defense.
A member of the LSU "Chicago Bandits" defensive team tackles UNC fullback in the backfield for a seven yard loss
As if the LSU offense wasn't dominant enough, their defense was even better, allowing UNC only 37 rushing yards. I also remember the LSU defense had its own name, the Chicago Bandits, which sounded pretty intimidating to me then.
There are two other interesting things I recall about that game. Up until that time every football uniform I had seen had been fairly bland, white and red, white and navy blue, white and light blue, but the LSU uniform really was spectacular with dark yellow pants and bright purple jerseys and gold numbers. The other thing was that a man who sat next to us said that he had seen the 1956 Oklahoma football team play, and this LSU team was better than them. On my way home I asked my Dad what this meant, and he said many considered that Oklahoma team the best football team of all time. That team I later learned had beaten UNC 36 to 0 in the first game of UNC's 1956 football season.
Comments:
Ron Smith
11:58 AM Sat 5/14/2011
Great memories. My first trip to Kenan Stadium. November 11, 1961 to see the Heels and LSU. I was 5. This started my lifelong passion for UNC.
R Wood
6:34 PM Sat 3/26/2011
Growing up in Chapel Hill, Kenan stadium saturdays were the best. A little known fact about UNC football: my father played on the navy pre-flight football team around 1944, his coach was Paul Bryant. Don't think he was known as Bear back then.
George Coxhead Jr
7:51 AM Wed 2/9/2011
Charlie, I too was at that game, and I remember, because I was working at the Chapel Hill Swim team concession stand, and we got in free, but had to work 2 hours before the game, halftime and 2 quarters. Then we could watch 2 quarters, I remember sitting on a hand rail near the 50 yard line entrance, and wondering how we could be getting beat this badly. I remember Mike Earey sitting across from me, and I remember seeing 30-0 on the scoreboard. What a discouraging day for Tarheel fans. glc
Chester
1:26 AM Fri 9/3/2010
Adolph,
You're right about the Asian music, which is played on 4th downs and turnovers to this day. The Golden Band has a ditty for all downs but 4th down is most recognizable.
Do you know the story behind the, "Chinese Bandits"? If you do, please forgive me.
During WWII in the least known theater of war, China-Burma-India, a ruthless brigade of British-Indian and Ghurka soldiers (77th Brigade) were led by British Gen. Orde Wingate to support air drops to troops in Burma (The Hump). Wingate named his warriors after the stone spiritual guardians (griffon-like) of Burmese temples, the Chindits (I have no explicit confirmation but believe Chindits is a contraction of Chinese Bandits).
The exploits of the 77th Brigade and the Chindits were written about in a comic book called, Terry and the Pirates. Terry and the Pirates comic book was an retelling of actual events on the ground for the people back home.
Don't know if Dietzel's background at Army had anything to do with it but Terry and the Pirates was where he got the name.
Here's to hoping no one gets hurt badly.
Dave Kistler
8:44 AM Thu 9/2/2010
Charly,
Nice read, I didn't make that game.
However, I too was a soda salesman. I learned the areas in the stands where the big tippers sat. One time a drunk gave me $5.00 just to get him a cup of ice.
There was a lot of competition amongst the soda sales guys. Basically you had to stake a territory.
My mother - known as Chickie - worked at Student Stores and helped me get the job.
Also worked the bar-b-cue stand (with Andy Skakle, Coach Skale's son) located near Wilson Library before games. Thanks to Bland Simpson for that job.
Bob Ward
12:36 PM Tue 8/31/2010
I was at that game as well. I also remember their band - "The Golden Band from Tiger Land" - which was about the largest marching band that I had ever seen.
LSU's legendary defense was known as the "Chinese Bandits". This was in the day of one platoon football meaning most players played both offense and defense and if a player left the game he could not return until the start of the next quarter. However LSU had enough good player that they actually had 3 units. They had what they called the "White team" which played both offense and defense, the "Go team" which only played offense and the "Chinese Bandits" which only played defense.
Brian Jordan
9:54 AM Tue 8/31/2010
I am surprised an eleven year old boy remembers so much about a football game that took place almost 50 years. But then again when I grew up 9 and 10 year old young kids did not work at football games selling drinks. Do you remember how much you made selling drinks at these games?
Adolph Reed
11:05 PM Mon 8/30/2010
Oops! I just checked; it was Johnny Robinson, a DB, from LSU who played a number of years with the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs. Also in the pros from those teams were Max Fugler, Wendell Harris and Earl Gros.
Adolph Reed
10:56 PM Mon 8/30/2010
Hi Charly,
A small correction about that 1960 LSU team. The defense went by the name Chinese Bandits. They even played a signature riff that evoked Asian music. I remember them well, as they were a real powerhouse during that period, and a number of NFL/AFL stars came off that team -- e.g., Billy Cannon, Jerry Stovall, and I believe Warren Rabb, the QB, played safety in the pros, and Jerry Robinson I think.
In any event, I'm hoping the Heels avenge that loss this season, though I'm still really waiting for basketball season to start to get the bad taste of last year out of my mouth.
Adolph
Bill Noyes
7:31 PM Mon 8/30/2010
UNC should avenge this loss this time. The last I saw UNC was favored to prevail by 11 points over LSU.
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Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
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Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
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Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
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There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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LSU had won the national championship in 1958, defeating Clemson 7-0 in the Sugar Bowl. Dietzel had divided that squad into the "Go Team", The "White Team" and the "Chinese (not the Chicago) Bandits".