George Guttormsen Graduation, 1927 UW Tyee Yearbook |
Guttormsen
showed up in a Seattle Times article where he was addressing a crowd of 3,000 people, mostly students, who went to president
Suzzallo’s house to indicate their support late in the day he was fired by Hartley’s railroading board of regents,
October 3, 1926. Guttormsen spoke at
the rally and was identified by the Times as “student body president and captain
of the varsity football team.” I’m a
sucker for that combo, so I followed him through time and discovered a kind of
Forrest Gump figure – a really smart Forrest Gump figure – whose journey
brushes past some amazing events and people in Cascadia.
There is a big external cast in the Guttormsen story. Let’s start
with the real Tarzan, the one selected personally by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the
one who looked and talked like Lord Greystoke and, unlike Johnny Weissmuller,
didn’t grunt. Then there is arguably the
greatest football player ever to play at the University of Washington, George Wilson, whose
skills propelled the university’s football program into the big time and who
shared, in 1925, the All-American backfield with Red Grange and Ernie Nevers,
matching them stride for stride and maybe a foot or two ahead.
Guttormsen is closely
involved with two of Puget Sound’s best known and most accomplished women
writers, one of whom becomes a lover.
We meet the state's greatest high school football team, a team that lost one game in a decade and played a game for a national championship 82 years earlier than this year’s Bellevue
High School national championship team.
George with 1928 broadcast team Walter Reseberg at left and Arthur Lindsay center Associated Press |
When he ran for student
body president, he had as his campaign manager one of the great tactical politicians
the state has produced, a man who self-destructed as a widely publicized congressional
clown and then as a suicide from the fifth floor of Seattle’s Arctic Building.
Geberg in about 1917 on front row left, George with hand on Geberg's shoulder, Agnes seated right in front row Geberg Guttormsen Decendents Facebook page |
In addition to bumping into so many interesting Cascadia citizens, Guttormsen’s story is about the successful absorption of an immigrant family in Everett, Washington at the beginning of the new, 20th century, an even dozen Norwegians who found their way here and would entertain us, defend us, nurse us, log our forests, catch our fish and make our plywood, paper and airplanes.
So, let’s start this story with the vessel Carpathia entering New York Harbor from Liverpool in 1903 where George’s dad is the advance man of the Guttormsen journey from Steigen, Norway. The rest of the family stays in Steigen, until Geberg Guttormsen, just into his thirties, has scouted out the new place across the country from New York.
Awaiting word are Gunnar, five years, twins
Esther and Ethyl, two years, Andrew, one, wife Agnis (later Americanized to
Agnes) and George, our varsity football captain and student body president, in utero.
Geberg is a
blacksmith. Stepping into the mayhem of Ellis Island and the lower east side docks of New York on June 8, 1903, you can imagine him
saying, in Norwegian, something like “I’ve got to get the hell going!” Jeg må få helvete går. His family
follows about a year later, George arriving in Everett at six months old.
By 1910,
they are living in a house at 1801 McDougall Avenue in Everett, Norwegian immigrant families acoss the street, at 1802 and 1810 and down the street at 1813. Their playmates are Mathias, Sigret, Carl,
Magnus, Belle, Ole, Engveld and Inga, to name a few. Norway supplied nearly 600,000 immigrants to
our country between 1890 and 1910. Along with North Dakota and Minnesota, Norwegian immigrants had a knack for finding their way to Washington state.
1801 McDougall, Everett, WA Google Earth |
The Guttormsen men, about 1916. The little guy is Leonard, then George, Harold, "Tip" as Andrew is called, Gunnar and Geberg Guttormsen Descendents Facebook |
It’s astounding how good Everett High School football was during the early part of the last century. Coached by the former Broadway High School player and University of Washington star Enoch Bradshaw, the football teams after 1910 were nearly unbeatable. By nearly, I mean that they lost only one game in the decade and had a handful of ties. Everett's 1919 and 1920 teams each played a game against a standout Ohio team on the following New Year’s Day to determine the best high school team in the country. The 1919 team tied Toledo and the 1920 team beat Cleveland Tech soundly. They were good, for sure, but great because of George Wilson, as good as any football player the state ever produced. With Wilson on the field after 1917, the Seagulls were simply ridiculous. In addition to being undefeated, the 1920 Everett team beat the University of Washington Freshman team 20-0 and the St. Martins College Varsity 17-0. A 1915 team allowed just six points all season, while scoring nearly 400. The amazing David Eskanazi, the living memory of Seattle sports, reported on Sportspress Northwest, that the Everett Seagulls had a collective victory margin of 3,001-365 in the incredible Bagshaw decade .
Andrew at Swarthmore |
A 1928 Seattle Times sports page feature
headlined “Guttormsen Brothers Like Variety – Gridiron Kind.” The piece noted that the last football shoe to drop in the Guttormsen family would be that of Harold, a star on the Everett High School football team of 1925.
Harold Guttormsen, UCLA in 1930 UCLA |
A particularly
disappointing season for the Huskies in 1921 – punctuated by a 72-3 loss to Cal
-- led to the firing of coach Stub Allison after just one season. Everett’s Coach Bagshaw took over and he brought
a new coaching staff that included Tubby Graves as the key assistant. Husky football fans were delighted to see the
change.
Enoch Bagshaw, 1921 Everett High School Yearbook, Nesika |
Bagshaw
was the key to attracting George Wilson to the University of Washington. It was
likely the number one reason he was hired. Wilson’s brother, Abe, another
Everett High School standout, was playing there, but Bagshaw lit the way for
Wilson and many other Everett players, including Guttormsen, following Wilson a
year later. In all, seven players from
the national high school champions of 1920 went to the University of Washington
and they all started as first year varsity players. Players then only had three
years of eligibility, but when Wilson ended the freshman purgatory, in 1923, Bagshaw’s
team immediately produced. The 1923
season led to the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, where Wilson led the Huskies to
a 14-14 tie against Navy, the victory denied by a “tricky wind” pushing an
end-of-the-game field goal three feet to the right.
George Guttormsen, 1925 Tyee Actually, George Kicked Left-footed |
Walter Camp in 1924 He would die the following year Colliers |
George
was an excellent student and deeply involved in the social and political life
of the institution. He liked public
speaking and was good at it, of course.
He was planning on being a lawyer.
He liked being a leader. The fact
he was an outstanding football player on one of the great teams in the country
proved a useful bow on the package.
1920 drawing of Husky Stadium University of Washington Collections |
Marion Zioncheck UW Student Body President Tyee Yearbook |
Looking
for support, he turned to George Guttormsen, befriended him and served with him
on the Board of Control, the student executive council.
He urged Guttormsen to run for Student Body President, ran his campaign
and supported his election by successfully advocating for voting machines on
campus to make it easier for the sometimes apathetic student body to vote.
Two
years after Guttormsen, Zioncheck became Student Body President and despite his
friendship with Guttormsen had a rough time with the jocks and the greeks on
campus. He was once thrown into the
campus fountain by a bunch of angry football players and frat rats, a chunk of
hair cut off.
He
lost the fight over the basketball building which was completed in 1927, 22
years before the Husky Union Building opened in 1949.
Zioncheck
went on to lead the recall against Seattle Mayor Frank Edwards in 1928 (Edwards had fired J. D. Ross, the hero of public power in the Northwest) and won the
First District Democratic nomination in 1930 and was elected to Congress in 1932. Zioncheck killed himself in 1936.
George Wilson runs the ball against Alabama, 1926 Rose Bowl |
Huge
underdogs, the much ridiculed hicks from the south beat the Huskies 20-19,
scoring all their points in the third quarter when George Wilson lay on the
sideline, knocked senseless. The game
was a mixed bag for George Guttormsen.
He scored on a 20 yard pass from Wilson, but his usually reliable drop
kick failed him, he missed twice, the last hitting the crossbar.
28 second clip shows Guttormsen scoring on a pass from Wilson and then missing the drop kick extra point. Watch him turn away in disgust when the kick hits the bar.
28 second clip shows Guttormsen scoring on a pass from Wilson and then missing the drop kick extra point. Watch him turn away in disgust when the kick hits the bar.
It
was, however, a tremendous football game, the first Rose Bowl played by a team from the South and it put football in the South on par with programs across the country. The Seattle Times called it “The
Greatest Thriller” and Times Square was packed to watch the mechanical recreation of the game on the side of the Seattle Times building. It was the first Rose Bowl broadcast on the radio and cemented the idea that the Rose Bowl was the national championship game -- at least that was what they were saying in Tuscaloosa.
Our post next week will have the movie stars who played in the 1926 Rose Bowl and George's encounters with literature and the law. We'll also tell you whatever happened to all those Guttormsens.
Documentary on 1926 Rose Bowl
Sportspressnw often has terrific sports history to go with its intelligent sports reporting.
Historylink's essay on George Wilson
Marion Zioncheck's Suicide
Our post next week will have the movie stars who played in the 1926 Rose Bowl and George's encounters with literature and the law. We'll also tell you whatever happened to all those Guttormsens.
Documentary on 1926 Rose Bowl
Sportspressnw often has terrific sports history to go with its intelligent sports reporting.
Historylink's essay on George Wilson
Marion Zioncheck's Suicide