Talking Sports: The elusive title

While researching a story on the 1951 Panhandle B Conference Champion Sidney Maroons football team, I came across a Sidney Telegraph article of that year listing all the previous champions.

The first teams listed were “O.J. Weymouth’s teams in 1926 and 1927.” I have since come to discover that the Scottsbluff Bearcats were the Western Conference Champions of 1926. Not the Sidney Maroons. The 1927 team, however, was a champion of the Western Conference and shared the title with Gering.

I can’t say what happened in the intervening 25 years between 1926 and 1951 that caused the facts to change. Perhaps there was a decision made in ‘26 or later in which it was deemed that both teams would share the trophy. After all, both squads finished the season unbeaten. But Sidney had been twice tied and Scottsbluff once tied. If a decision since then had been made I haven’t come across it.

There was an opportunity during the ‘26 season when Sidney or Scottsbluff could have settled the matter decisively. On Nov. 19, 1926 the two undefeated teams met on the Sidney gridiron. Scottsbluff (6-0-0) had an unblemished record while Sidney’s record (4-0-1) was scarred by a 0-0 tie with Bridgeport.

“Hopes for a conference championship in Sidney were blasted Friday afternoon in the big football classic of Western Nebraska when Sidney and Scottsbluff fought desperately to a 7 to 7 tie on the gridiron, frozen solid with ice and snow,” reported the Telegraph on Nov. 23.

The Telegraph further reported that Sidney still had a slim chance at glory, should Morrill be able to tie Scottsbluff on Thanksgiving. To that point in the 1926 campaign Morrill was also unbeaten.

“A victory by either team will give Sidney second place while a tie will throw the race into a three cornered tie for honors,” explained the Telegraph.

Would the unlikely tie have occurred, Sidney, Scottsbluff and Morrill would have shared the Western title. But Scottsbluff won the game, marking the tie against Sidney as its only blemish. It was also reported that winning percentage was the determining factor in the conference’s order of finish.

There was further evidence in a 1927 edition of the Telegraph that Scottsbluff alone wore the ‘26 crown. A headline screamed on Nov. 27, “Sidney gridsters beat Scottsbluff to go into lead against last years champs. No match for Coach Weymouth’s warriors. Play Chappell on Thanksgiving Day.”

For now then, I shall consider the Bearcats the champions of the 1926 football season until I see evidence to the contrary. Since the Maroons claim to a share of the championship is not an unreasonable one such evidence may, in fact, exist somewhere.

So if the 1926 team did not win the championship that makes the 1927 team the first ever Sidney High School football team to earn a title. As the earlier quoted headline stated, the ‘27 Maroons took care of business against the Bearcats that year.

Perhaps the most enjoyable game in 1927 - at least for Sidney fans - was the Maroons game with Bayard. The Maroons won by the eye popping score of 94-0. The starters were pulled after going up 40-0 in the first half. The Telegraph sports writer had an amusing take on the outcome.

“Friday’s game was so unusually one sided for a conference exhibition that the regular sports writers were unable to keep up with the various highlights and news regulars from the crime and accident departments had to be called in to check on the maimed technicalities of the original game,” read the Telegraph.

If the carnage against Bayard was too much for your sensiblilities you could have soothed yourself by reading an adjacent story on the kindness of Babe Ruth towards orphaned children. Underneath a photo of Ruth with Lou Gerhig and Boys Town founder Father Flannagan was a story of the Babe’s visit to the Omaha orphanage.

Ruth, who grew up in an orphanage himself, told the Boys Town kids not to be ashamed of growing up in such a place. The story also remarked that Ruth made more in one year than it took to feed the 200 homeless in Boys Town.

Back to the 1927 “gridsters,” who only had to beat Chappell on Thanksgiving day to earn a solo Western Conference championship. But Sidney “slipped up on clinching the coveted championship of the conference in the concluding game last Thursday afternoon.”

Though it was reported that Sidney outplayed Chappell and led into the fourth quarter, a fluke play and an intercepted pass helped the Buffalos to a 13-7 win. The Thanksgiving Day loss meant that Sidney would have to share the title with Gering. Though their was talk of having Gering and Sidney settle the championship on the field of play, the state athletic association stated that no ties may be played off later than the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Hopefully that sets the historical record straight - unless something else come up to twist it all up again.