The Turkey Day Game - 100 Years Ago (1913)

Starting in 1898 and continuing into a contest in 1913, the record between the two teams stood at 6-6-2.  Games were not played in 1900 because Webster did not have a team and in 1899, 1904, and 1905 because Kirkwood did not have teams and a game was seemingly cancelled in 1911 because of a premature end of the season caused by national and local concern to prohibit football below the collegiate level.   The lost games of those years were made less disparate to the record because of the playing of four extra games in the years between 1906 and 1908.  Despite the balance of games after the 1912 game, Kirkwood had not won a football game against Webster since 1908 and also the coveted Points Cup (the original football trophy between the schools) had sat at Webster High School for four continuous years.  Kirkwood also lost its 1912 coach, John Engerson, who was now employed by the Maplewood School District, and had instead newly appointed coach, W. C. Ashley. 

What is known of the Turkey Day Game of 1913 – the game actually being played for the third time on Thanksgiving Day since 1907 – comes from interviews with James Hixson, longtime Webster High School principal, for the 1960 Turkey Day Program and Guy Edwin Trulock, an eighth-grade Kirkwood student, for the Kirkwood Historical Revue, September, 1968.  In Trulock’s interview he notes, “Kirkwood seldom defeated Webster in those days but hope sprang annually.  One stout basis for that hope in the fall of [1913] was Maitland McKee who lived next door to Eddie Mack.  Mait was a giant for his age.  Eddie was my size, slightly below normal, physically that is.  They were an original ‘Mutt and Jeff’ [an old comic strip] combination.  Mait, however, with his size and excellent football ability, had caught the eye of Coach Ashley who, incidentally, needed a fullback for his high school team.  Whereupon Mait’s educational processes were speeded-up to a point where he suddenly found himself in the freshman class of 1913.  It was wholly coincidental that he right away became the regular fullback.”

Trulock described the Turkey Day Game as a “junior Armageddon” and described how the students of Kirkwood boarded the Kirkwood-Ferguson train cars “with red and white streamers floating from every window, took off for the neutral ground of Washington University stadium [Francis Field].”  Before the train left from Kirkwood, however, James Hixson adds to the story that on the morning of the big game, Webster’s star fullback, Clifton Lacey, was accidentally shot in the arm by a careless hunter while hitching his horse to a buggy.  Of course, a game as important as this did not deter him from having the bullet removed and he played in the game with a bandaged arm. 

In the Turkey Day Game, Webster scored early but was unable to “kick goal.”  The score stood at 6-0 well into the second quarter when, as Trulock describes, “Big Mait, the freshman fullback, took over.  Over the goal he plunged but the kick was wide and the score at half-time read ‘Webster 6, Kirkwood 6.’”  It was just before the end of the half that Hixson noted that Webster’s hex deepened when its halfback broke his ankle.  Trulock continued to describe in the second half that “…the Kirkwood rooters, who were both numerous and vocal, including two leather-lunged uncles of mine, who had come along to work up a Thanksgiving dinner appetite, were beginning to feel that a ‘moral victory’ was impending even if K. H. S. could tie mighty Webster, the durable county champions.  This feeling grew stronger as the two teams struggled through the third quarter without a score.  Then, came the great moment…”

“Midway through the final quarter, Kirkwood had the ball on Webster’s 45-yard line, three downs and no gain.  With fourth down coming up, a kick was in order.  Back went halfback Donald Ewing, whose fine spiral punts had kept Webster deep in their own territory.  …but, what’s this?  Johnny Crutsinger, our great quarterback of those days, was kneeling… a prayer?  No, Ewing was going to try a placekick from midfield.  Ridiculous!  The ball was snapped, Johnny held it; Ewing swung a mighty foot, the ball sailed true and far – fifty yards in the air – and right smack over the middle of the crossbar!  What an uproar from the stands, but the game wasn’t over. 

Webster received and rushed the ball to midfield.  Less than two minutes to play and Webster was forced to kick.  Back stepped Lacey, their fullback and a drop-kicker of note.  He kicked; the ball rose high and far and just missed goal posts by inches.  Kirkwood had won!  McKee’s bulk and Ewing’s foot had combined to make a Thanksgiving Day in more ways than one for Kirkwood High.” 

With this win, Kirkwood won its second County League Championship and it was the fifth time in the rivalry that the teams played for a championship title.  Not until research for the 1913 game was done, was it known that this early field goal by Donald Ewing was a nationally documented “old time” record at 48 yards.  Also, the description of the game changes a wrongly reported score of 9-5 (by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) to 9-6, as touchdowns had been changed to six points by 1913. 

May the Bell ring for you this Turkey Day!

By Shawn Buchanan Greene

Webster Alumnus 1987