In America, sportsmanship is valued nearly as much as the final score. We play to win, but we also strive to play the right way, with respect for the rules, our opponent, and the game itself. And when we don’t, there are consequences that can haunt us forever.
This is the Forgotten History of the Coach’s Revenge.
The Georgia Tech Engineers simply couldn’t be stopped. Their offense seemed to score at will, and their defense was impenetrable. A few weeks into the 1916 season, they were undefeated and cruising toward their first-ever conference championship.
But their coach wanted more; he wanted vengeance, and he had been counting down the days to one game for the past five months. He was also the coach of Georgia Tech’s baseball team, which had that Spring lost to Cumberland College 22-0. The coach didn’t just resent the fact that Cumberland had run up the score, he strongly suspected that Cumberland had recruited professional ballplayers as ringers.
The coach was livid, and he couldn’t wait to settle the score on the football field. But shortly before the season started, Cumberland discontinued its football program. All of its games were cancelled, but Georgia Tech’s coach insisted that Cumberland honor its agreement to play—or pay Georgia Tech a large cancellation fee of $3,000.
The coach was so insistent that Cumberland play that he sent a letter to the school’s athletic department offering “the sum of $500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta for your football team on the condition that you honor your contract by participating in and completing the Cumberland-Georgia Tech football game.”
Cumberland didn’t want to pay up, so it reluctantly had its baseball team manager recruit a handful of his fraternity brothers and a couple of law school students to make the trip to Georgia. Along the way, they recruited a few players from the Vanderbilt University football team. Still, they only had about two dozen, and fewer than half had ever played college football before.
When this ragtag bunch walked out onto the field, Georgia Tech’s coach steeled his gaze. He was ready.
Cumberland took the opening kickoff and failed to get a first down. After a punt, Georgia Tech scored on their very first play from scrimmage. Cumberland got the ball back but fumbled on first down and watched helplessly as Georgia Tech returned it for another touchdown. With the score 14-0 after just a few minutes and the game already out of reach, Cumberland received the kickoff and again fumbled on first down. Two plays later, Georgia Tech was up by three touchdowns. The next time they got the ball, they scored again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
After the first quarter, the Engineers led 63-0 but their coach wasn’t even close to being satisfied. Georgia Tech scored another touchdown. And another. And another four for good measure. At halftime, they led 126-0 and in the locker room, the coach was still urging his players for more.
"You're doing all right, team, we're ahead,” he said. “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!”
They did, again and again and again. Even though the second half was shortened from 15-minute quarters to 12, Georgia Tech scored 54 in the third to take a 180-0 lead into the final period. Amazingly, they didn’t throw a single pass in the game, mostly because they didn’t need to: Their running backs rushed for 922 yards while their defense forced 15 turnovers and held Cumberland to 14 yards passing and -42 yards rushing.
As the famous sportswriter Grantland Rice put it, “Cumberland's greatest individual play of the game occurred when fullback Allen circled right end for a 6-yard loss.”
When the final whistle blew, Georgia Tech had won 222-0. The coach smiled, as his message had been sent loud and clear and he had gotten his revenge. Use ringers to score 22 on his baseball team? He’ll score 222 on your football team.
It was and remains to this day the single most lopsided game in the history of college football.
Vengeance was bittersweet, though, when word spread of the drubbing the coach had given the woefully overmatched Cumberland. Sportswriters dubbed him “Shut the Gates of Mercy” and his name became synonymous with unsportsmanlike behavior. He finished his undefeated season later that year and won the first of four straight conference championships, but that game haunted him for the rest of his coaching career.
He had been a true innovator—spearheading the effort to legalize the forward pass, coming up with the idea to put down and yards to go on scoreboards, and even having the quarterback yell “hike”—but it seemed as if he would never live down the lack of sportsmanship in his furious desire for revenge.
It might have been his legacy if not for the job he took after retiring from coaching in 1927 to lead the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City, which in 1935 began awarding a trophy to the best college football player east of the Mississippi.
The following year, the old coach passed away suddenly from pneumonia and the football world was saddened. The bitterness over the Cumberland beating was long forgotten, and the Downtown Athletic Club sought to immortalize his contributions to the game. They decided that their annual award would bear his name—John Heisman.
His name is no longer synonymous with poor sportsmanship, but rather with greatness because each year, the best player in college football takes home the Heisman Trophy.