Boardinghouse Guests: November Football
Julia Wolfe was probably relieved that she was not feeding this bunch. Underneath the twenty names scrawled in the Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse guest register on November 9, 1923 was written Woodrow Wilson of Wash. D.C. and Chris Columbus of Madrid, Spain. Who were these pranksters? It was the Columbia High School Football Team arrived for a Saturday 3:30 pm game at McCormick Field. During this time football was still played with eleven players on each team, all taking the field on offense and defense. The other team members were substitutes and coaching staff.
Expected to be a close game, Columbia was considered a strong contender for the South Carolina championship. The Asheville Citizen Times reported on Sunday Nov. 11, 1923 that Columbia High School defeated Asheville High School, the score 14 to 13. Columbia’s first touchdown came after an interception in the first quarter. Asheville’s kicker -also quarterback- Ralph James, playing with an injury to his side, missed an extra point in the first half. The half ending with the score 14 to 6. The newspaper observed that the boys from Columbia were “big upstanding fellows.” But “one little fellow” in a conference in which “giants were engaged” proved to be the season’s sensation. The Left Halfback for Columbia was Robert Parks. They called him Pee Wee Parks. The reporter noted, so great was his disdain for the other team he failed to don head gear. He just wore a small black band about his forehead to keep his hair from interfering with his eyesight. With “cannon-ball speed” Parks scored what would be the deciding touchdown on an 80-yard end run in the first half. While Asheville attempted to comeback in the second half, daylight faded, and they ran out of time. Columbia would later go on to win their conference and play in the South Carolina state championship in the capital city against Thornwell Orphanage. They were crushed 28 to 7.
The following week of Nov. 16, 1923, the Statesville High School Football Team arrived with nineteen more guests for the Old Kentucky Home. They departed Nov. 18, after a Saturday afternoon game against Asheville High School at McCormick Field. For Asheville’s maroon and black Warriors squad, this was described as a pre-championship game. They earned a decisive victory 39 to 7. The mainstay of the Statesville offense and defense, wearing gray and blue, described as “a big strapping youngster,” was the Full Back and team captain Louis Woodward. But overall, out weighted, Statesville resorted to a weak offensive passing game, completing only six of nineteen passes for 45 yards. To compound their frustration, they lost the ball once by fumble and were forced to punt seven times. Asheville had won the state championship in 1922, but, the following year was eliminated in a semi-final by Charlotte in a game played at Winston-Salem November 24, 1923.
