From the Archives: Jesse Harper
Beth Swift, archivist for the College's Ramsay Archives, has started writing articles from Wabash's past. I thought it appropriate to reprint it here. Enjoy.
Jesse Harper and the forward pass
by Beth Swift
Football today is a much different game than it was at the turn of the 20th century. Among the innovations to the game was the development and refinement of the forward pass. Two new books highlight the huge part that Wabash football played in this innovation. They are Notre Dame and the Game that Changed Football: How Jesse Harper Made the Forward Pass a Weapon and Knute Rockne a Legend by Frank Maggio and Forward Pass: the Play That Saved Football by Phillip L. Brooks. Both authors attribute the rise of forward pass to Jesse Harper, Wabash College football coach from 1909 until 1913 when he left to coach at Notre Dame.
Coach Harper brought the forward pass and Notre Dame football to national prominence in the Notre Dame vs. Army game of 1913. Harper perfected the pass at Wabash and took it with him to Notre Dame where his team, with Knute Rockne as captain, used the pass to defeat the much larger Army team. Reporters took note and the game received wide coverage as this New York Times article of November 1, 1913 shows:
WEST POINT, N.Y.–The Notre Dame eleven swept the Army off its feet on the Plains this afternoon and buried the soldiers under a 35-to-13 score. The Westerners flashed the most sensational football that has been seen in the East this year, baffling the Cadets with a style of open play and a perfectly developed forward pass which carried the victors down the field 30 yards at a clip. Football men marveled at this startling display of open football. Bill Roper, former head coach at Princeton, who was one of the officials of the game, said that he had always believed that such playing was possible under the new rules but that he had never seen the forward pass developed to such a state of perfection.
Coach Jesse Harper had played for Amos Alonzo Stagg at Chicago and coached at Alma College before coming to Wabash in 1909. On campus it was the era of the “Little Giants” and football ruled. During the 1910 season Harper’s team went undefeated and even shut out all of their opponents. The season was cancelled due to the tragic death of Wabash football player and Crawfordsville resident, Ralph Lee “Sap” Wilson from a head injury he had received in the St. Louis game. On his hospital bed Ralph asked his father, “Did Wabash win?” The remaining games were cancelled and the question was engraved on his tombstone in Crawfordsville’s Oak Hill Cemetery. The impact of such a tragedy on the team and on the coach cannot be underestimated. Today’s students still hear this story and it is clear that Sap Wilson has left an indelible mark on the psyche of the College. It is clear that the death of Wilson also left its mark on Harper as well. In this passage from Some Little Giants former Athletic Director Max Servies writes:
Coach Harper urged the Wabash administration to be content to schedule natural rivals as opposed to the professionalism of competing with major universities on a guarantee basis and at their disposal. He was also the forerunner of encouraging a sound intramural program for all Wabash students, a philosophy which has continued to this day.
Jesse Harper changed the world of football and brought Notre Dame football to the national level with the defeat of the formidable Army team. He left Notre Dame in 1918 to raise cattle in western Kansas and his former team captain, Knute Rockne, was named football coach.
