page_title: John Heisman
section_title: 1916
hierarchical_section_title: John Heisman / Coaching career / Georgia Tech / Football / Four straight SIAA championships / 1916
caption_attribution_description: English: John Heisman standing on Bowman Field, in front of Tillman Hall, on the Clemson University Campus.
context_page_description: John William Heisman was a player and coach of American football, baseball, and basketball, as well as a sportswriter and actor. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College, Buchtel College, Auburn University, Clemson University, Georgia Tech, the University of Pennsylvania, Washington & Jefferson College, and Rice University, compiling a career college football record of 186–70–18.
  Heisman was also the head basketball coach at Georgia Tech, tallying a mark of 9–14, and the head baseball coach at Buchtel, Clemson, and Georgia Tech, amassing a career college baseball record of 199–108–7. He served as the athletic director at Georgia Tech and Rice. While at Georgia Tech, he was also the president of the Atlanta Crackers baseball team.
  Sportswriter Fuzzy Woodruff dubbed Heisman the "pioneer of Southern football". He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954. His entry there notes that Heisman "stands only behind Amos Alonzo Stagg, Pop Warner, and Walter Camp as a master innovator of the brand of football of his day". He was instrumental in several changes to the game, including legalizing the forward pass.
context_section_description: The 1916 team went 8–0–1, captured the team's first official SIAA title, and was the first to vault Georgia Tech football to national prominence. According to one writer, it "seemed to personify Heisman" by playing hard in every game on both offense and defense. Strupper, Lang, fullback Tommy Spence, tackle Walker Carpenter, and center Pup Phillips were all selected All-Southern. Only one newspaper in all of the South was said to have neglected to have Strupper on its All-Southern team. Phillips was the first Georgia Tech center selected All-Southern, and made Walter Camp's third-team All-American. Spence got Camp's honorable mention.
  Without throwing a single forward pass, Georgia Tech defeated the Cumberland College Bulldogs, 222–0, in the most one-sided college football game ever played. Strupper led the scoring with six touchdowns. Sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote, "Cumberland's greatest individual play of the game occurred when fullback Allen circled right end for a 6-yard loss."
  Up 126–0 at halftime, Heisman reportedly told his players, "You're doing all right, team, we're ahead, but you just can't tell what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves. They may spring a surprise. Be alert, men! Hit 'em clean, but hit 'em hard!" However, even Heisman relented, and shortened the quarters in the second half to 12 minutes each instead of 15.
  Heisman's running up the score against his outmanned opponent was motivated by revenge against Cumberland's baseball team, for running up the score against Georgia Tech 22–0 with a team primarily composed of professional Nashville Vols players, and against the sportswriters whom he felt were too focused on numbers, such as those who picked Vanderbilt as champion the previous season.
caption: Heisman, circa 1917, in front of Clemson's Bowman Field
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