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Much of the information in this story was gleaned from the NCSU Libraries archives and the book “The Wolfpack…Intercollegiate Athletics at North Carolina State University,” by former NC State history professor Bill Beezley.
It was originally published in The Wolfpacker magazine.
© Coman Publishing, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
Maybe the newly installed floodlights weren’t working very well: Fans figured it had to be a trick of the lighting when they saw State College’s quarterback line up in the season opener against High Point College, butt-to-butt with the center.
Turns out, it wasn’t the lighting that was bad in the first home night game ever played at Riddick Stadium: that was exactly the way new head coach John Van Liew wanted things to run in his newly unveiled offensive system. Fans were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, this was a guy who was personally recommended by legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne to be the new head coach of the Wolfpack.
The quarterback faced his two split running backs, taking a blind snap from center, then pitching the ball either right or left to his backs.
State College had no idea what it had gotten itself into, in what may be may be the most curious season in the history of State College football.
So first a little background: In the pre-Depression days of the 1920s, supporters of the Wolfpack (yes, the football team used that nickname even back then; the basketball team was called the Red Terrors) thought the best way for the school’s team to be successful was to install the Notre Dame offense that had worked so well for Rockne. From 1924-36, State hired five different coaches who were intimately familiar with Rockne’s system, with the hope of matching the three national championships the world-famous coach had brought to South Bend, Ind.
None of his would-be protégés—even Heartly “Hunk” Anderson, who succeeded Rockne as Notre Dame head coach when Rockne was killed in an airplane crash and then came to NC State—ever reached that goal, thanks in part to player dissention, alumni meddling and an overall lack of funds in the financially strapped State College athletics department. And one of them—Van Liew—was an absolute utter failure.
His hiring, from East High School in Des Moines, Iowa, came after Gus Tebell was forced to resign under pressure, just two seasons after winning State College’s only Southern Conference Championship, when the incomparable Jack McDowall led the team to a 9-1 record and the school’s only conference title of any sort in football from 1892 until 1957. There was a lack of follow-up success, and the small matter of 16 missing hand-towels from a Pullman car that the football team used on its trip to play at Michigan State in 1928. Valued at 13 cents apiece, the towels had to be replaced, forcing the athletics department to come up with $2.21 it didn’t have to cover such unexpected costs.
So Tebell resigned in the spring of 1930 to take a job as an assistant football coach at Virginia. He later on became the Cavaliers’ basketball coach, athletics director and mayor of Charlottesville. Tebell won 246 basketball games in his 21 years as the hoops coach of the Cavaliers.
That left an opening that the State College athletics department really didn’t have the money to fill. In the spring of 1930, the department was in debt $10,500 on an annual of budget of just $25,500.
So the 33 candidates who sent in applications to replace Tebell had absolutely no shot of getting a rich contract. There was some question as to whether the coach who was ultimately selected would be allowed to hire an assistant coach.
Davidson head coach William “Monk” Younger wanted the job, with strong support from Charlotte textile journal publisher Dave Clark, a big-time booster who controlled much of what happened in the athletics department at the time.
Younger said he would consider taking it for $6,500 per year. But that was $1,300 more than the faculty athletics council said it was willing to pay Tebell’s successor. Clark suggested announcing a salary of only $5,200, so Tebell’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt, then coming up with a way to get Younger another $800. In the end, Younger opted to stay at Davidson, later becoming an athletics administrator at Virginia Tech. (He is a member of the Hokie Hall of Fame.)
Wabash coach Pete Vaughn, a former player and assistant coach at Notre Dame, also wanted the job – at $6,000 for the first year and $6,500 for the next two years. “His application was set aside,” according to the faculty athletics committee minutes of the day.
In the end, however, athletics director Dr. Ray Sermon did offer Wisconsin coach Guy Sundt $5,500 to take the job. He declined.
So with its top two choices overpriced for State College’s budget, the job went to Van Liew, a long-time high school coach in Des Moines, Iowa, who came highly recommended by Rockne, even though he never played or coached for the Fightin’ Irish. According to Beezley, Rockne’s sole knowledge of Van Liew came from the latter’s attendance at Rockne’s coaching clinics in South Bend.
Apparently, Van Liew did not take good notes.
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| John Van Liew |
He forgot his players’ names, and refused to change his offensive style, even though, by then, every opponent had figured out how to stop it. After a 34-0 win over High Point, the Wolfpack was shut out in its next four games, losing to Davidson, Florida, Clemson and Wake Forest.
Oddly enough, it was State’s second – and final – win of the season that ended Van Liew’s tenure with the team. With his team leading Mississippi State at the half, Van Liew wandered off from Riddick Stadium.
The players scurried all around to locate him before the second half began, finding him sitting beside a creek that ran through campus, daydreaming.
The next day, Van Liew was demoted from his position as head coach to assistant coach by the school’s president and replaced by Sermon, who was already serving as athletics director, basketball coach and head athletic trainer. The Wolfpack did not win another football game the rest of the season, which ended up at 2-8.
Though it's not reflected in the current school record books, Sermon should be listed as the head coach of record for the final four losses of the 1930 season, in which the Wolfpack was outscored 52-6. That includes a 2-0 loss to Presbyterian in a game played in Asheville.
According to Beezley, Sermon did have an explanation for Van Liew’s strange behavior:
“Sermon said that just before leaving Des Moines, Van Lieu (sic) had received a head injury – one story said that while riding he had fallen and was kicked by his horse. Arriving in Raleigh, Van Lieu stayed with the Sermons for six weeks. During that time, Doc gave him osteopathic treatments. Both Doc and his wife noticed the coach suffered frequent lapses of memory loss and poor muscular control – he occasionally fell down and had difficulty grasping a water glass with one hand.”
Van Liew returned to Des Moines, and disappeared into the anonymity of high school coaching.
Of course, things never really got much better during this dark decade in Wolfpack football history. Van Liew’s successor, former Notre Dame All-America John “Clipper” Smith, lasted only three years. His downfall? He failed to show up for spring practice in 1933, leaving his players to work out on their own while he was on an eight-day bender in New Jersey.
Only 27 when he was hired, Smith left NC State after the 1933 season and became a successful coach at Villanova and Duquesne. In 1975, he was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame.
NC State hired one more Notre Dame protégé: Heartley “Hunk” Anderson, the guy who was elevated to head coach at Notre Dame for two years after Rockne died in an airplane crash in 1929. Again, he was supposed to be the guy who could make NC State a Fightin’ Irish style powerhouse.
He was fired after three seasons, amid dissention between a team made up of predominantly Northern players and a fan-base that wanted more local players on the team. A student named Parker Rand complained to the school’s top administrator at the time that NC State was operating a “gas chamber” for coaches. “We put them in, get them groggy, turn them out and they go elsewhere, recover and make good,” Rand wrote.
The school never did hire a coach with Notre Dame ties, though two former Wolfpack coaches went on to lead the Fightin’ Irish: former head coach Lou Holtz and former assistant Tyrone Willingham.
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