50 GREATEST GOLDEN BEARS - #1 - HAROLD "BRICK" MULLER
#1 - HAROLD "BRICK" MULLER - END (1920-1922)Most accounts of Brick Muller start with his hands. We've never seen a picture that confirms it, but many believed that Muller had the biggest hands of a man his size (6'2"/210) they had ever seen. The football that was used in the Prohibition era was much bigger and rounder than the one used today, which in part accounted for the lack of passing. It was reported that Muller could wrap his fingers almost entirely around this bigger ball, allowing him to throw more effectively than his rivals and catch passes with one hand.
Andy Smith saw this up close when Muller and his freshman teammates pounded the varsity in scrimmages; he had seen it up close when scouting Muller as a senior at Oakland Tech. No doubt the Cal coach couldn't wait for Muller to hit the practice field in August of 2000, when he became eligible for varsity play. But first there was the matter of a boat trip to Antwerp, Belgium.
You see, Muller was also a track star who had won state titles in the broad and long jumps and finished third in the high hurdles as a senior in high school. On the encouragement of Cal track coach Walter Christie, Muller trained to Pasadena and qualified for the US Olympic Track & Field team in the high jump. The year was 1920 - a time when most Olympians were upperclassmen or even college graduates. And yet the unheralded college freshman captured the silver medal with a jump of 6'3". He had just turned 19 years old.
Brick returned with his hardware to Berkeley, and helped lead Cal to one of the greatest seasons in college football history. Muller started both ways immediately - catching passes, running around end, and savaging opposing ball carriers with ferocious tackles. It's not for nothing that the Brick Muller award today goes to Cal's most valuable defensive lineman, because Muller was a beast along the line. Of course, Smith took note of those hands, and featured Brick frequently as a passer who surprised defenses and opposing fans with the long, low spirals he could manage with the rounded football.
Muller the Olympian (at right)The Bears outscored their opponents 424-14, but remained an unknown commodity to the east coast sportswriters who dominated press coverage of the game. Thus, Cal entered the 1921 Rose Bowl as a decided underdog to mighty Ohio State. Ohio State took the opening kickoff, and Brick Muller took over the Rose Bowl. On the first series he drilled Buckeye back Pete Stinchcomb, forcing a fumble on OSU's 28 yard line. On the next play he took a short pass and threaded through defenders to set up a Pesky Sprott touchdown run: 7-0 Bears. On the next series he again forced a Buckeye fumble, though he recovered this one. Then came a play that became Rose Bowl legend.
QB Charley Erb called for the "dead man's play," a favorite trick play of Andy Smith's that required some advance preparation. It called for Archie Nisbet to fake an injury and hobble around with his teammates after the previous down. The Cal backs stood hands on hips as Nisbet edged closer to where the football sat. In a flash he bent down and lateraled it to Pesky Sprott, and the play was on. Ohio State reacted quickly to Sprott's run around end, but then the halfback stopped and lateraled across the field to Muller. Cal's end was now well behind the line of scrimmage, at about his own 45 yard line.
The Ohio State defense and the Rose Bowl crowd were puzzled by the play - what would Muller do so far behind the line? What he did became headline news in newspapers across the country the next day. Rather than run, he heaved the ball higher and farther than anyone had ever seen a man throw a football. Ohio State had committed no deep defenders, and the Buckeyes watched in awe as Muller's pass traveled over their heads to fellow end Brodie Stephens, who caught it on the goal line and walked in for a 14-0 Cal lead. Muller was credited with a 53 yard pass, though witnesses claimed the ball actually traveled 70 yards in the air on the diagonal. Not impressed? It was such an unexpected feat that Ripley's Believe it Or Not featured it in one of their popular newspaper serials.
That play broke the Buckeye spirit, and Cal coasted to an easy 28-0 win that put west coast football on the national map. Muller was named the game's MVP - in addition to the touchdown pass he completed two other throws, caught two passes for 33 yards, made countless tackles on defense and punt cover, and recovered three fumbles. The Bears were 10-0, and national champions.
Over the next two years, Cal would continue its unbeaten streak, tying only in the 1922 Rose Bowl against Washington & Jefferson. Muller's play continued to gain headlines and demoralize opponents. After the 1921 season, in which he was slowed by a serious leg infection, he became the first player west of the Mississippi to be named a first team All-America, by both Walter Camp and the Helms Foundation. In his finale at Cal, he helped the Bears crush Stanford 28-0 by starting off the scoring with a memorable catch and run through Indians defenders. He was again named a first-team All-America.
Professional football was in its infancy in the early 1920s, and Muller concentrated on getting his degree and attending medical school. He was lured back to the game twice - first in 1925 when a group of San Franciscans conceived of a new post-season all-star game pitting stars of the west against their better-known eastern counterparts. Despite not having played a game in more than two years, Muller was the star of the first East-West Shrine game. He also won national notoriety for catching a ball thrown from atop the San Francisco Telephone building in a pre-game publicity stunt. In 1926 Muller played for one season for the Los Angeles Buccaneers of the NFL, who promptly folded.
Probably better that Brick Muller chose to be a physician in the long run. In those dark days of pro football barnstorming, the NFL would have only diminished his legend. At the half-century mark, Muller was named to the all-time All Star college teams by the Helms Foundation and AP. He was a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame when it opened its doors in 1951.
As a physician, he became a distinguished family doctor and, eventually, an orthopedic surgeon who served as team physician for California athletics and the 1956 US Olympic team. Those massive hands that had once enveloped a football found better use delivering babies and mending the bones and joints of his patients. Brick Muller died on May 17, 1962.
posted by Tightwad @ 12:00 PM
16 Comments:
Any guy named "Brick" has got to be intimidating.
With the contributions that guys nicknamed "Brick" have made to Cal (Clinton "Brick" Morse wrote like half our fight songs) I think we should nickname someone on EACH Cal team "Brick". (On second, thought, maybe not the basketball teams).
Mike "Brick" Tepper?
Lavelle "Brick" Hawkins?
Angie "Brick" Pressey?
Lauren "Brick" Frankowicz?
I can see it.
my great grandpa saw him play in ann arbor against big blue. he da man
He was my great uncle.. but died a month before I was born. Lots of stories.. wish I could have met him.
I was fortunate to be his grandson and although I was young had the opportunity to go to a few Cal-Stanford Big Games and hang out with him and meet a few of his friends like Brodie Stephens. I remember sitting on his lap and he would grab flies out of the air. Quick and big hands ! It was an honor to be related to him.
My name is Graig Muller. Harold (Brick) P. Muller was my grandfather. I never got to meet him. I wish I could have. I have heard that he was quite a football player.
I never knew Brick Muller, but was so privileged to study chest and heart surgery under H. Brodie Stephens, MD FACS an American Hero in Surgery... (at UCSF from 1961 to 1967)...who caught the famous Rose Bowl pass in 1921. Brodie was like a father to me as a resident at UCSF...he trusted me to assist on his private patients, and when I was 6 years into the program, and ready to go to Vietnam as a surgeon draftee in 1967, leaned over the table and said, "You have become a better surgeon than I ever was, and Vietnam will polish you to perfection. Go do your very best for our boys."
Brodie had been awarded the French Legion of Honour by President Charles DeGaulle for his brilliant work as a surgeon with the CAL group in France during WW II, coming out as a full Colonel. For me, it was a wonderful moment of compliment.
Brodie died of glioblastoma...the worst brain cancer ever invented in about 1978...of note,his wife Jeannie, died of exactly the same cancer four years earlier.
I write this humbly, at age 74 with the open expression that H. Brodie Stephens, the 5 foot 7 inch 140 pound wide receiver on that Cal team became a GIANT among surgeons, and taught so many of us not just "how to do it' but the ethics of being a great surgeon. Love you Brodie. Thank you for all you showed me...hundreds benefitted.
John N. Baldwin, MD FACS
jnbaldwin@mlode.com CAL UCSF 1969
To Dr. Baldwin, and so many other Old Blues:
The paths across our beautiful campus are deeply-tread, and the earth is packed firm by the weight of so many good people. I'm proud to have made my way across them. I hope I can look back at what I did in my life and say I pounded the dirt just a little bit tighter.
-'06.
AVI to iPad Converter is one of the most professional AVI to iPad Converting tool which could easily convert AVI files to iPad with super fast speed and excellent output image and sound quality!
pdf to gif converter
pdf to ppt converter
Good Article, agen souvenir pernikahan murah. thanks for your article. :)
www0528
canada goose jackets
ugg boots
michael kors handbags
bulls jerseys
ray ban sunglasses
polo ralph lauren
ugg outlet
swarovski outlet
michael kors outlet
true religion jeans
qzz0712
michael kors outlet
canada goose jackets
kobe shoes
nike store uk
uggs outlet
fila shoes
isabel marant shoes
fitflops shoes
michael kors handbags
canada goose outlet
nike air max
tory burch sandals
kd shoes
yeezy shoes
jordan shoes
michael kors handbags outlet
nike shoes
kyrie shoes
jordan shoes
red bottom heels
jordan shoes
michael kors outlet
yeezy boost
yeezy boost
yeezy boost
yeezy boost 350 v2
cheap jordans
russell westbrook shoes
nike shoes
westbrook shoes
The year 2000 should be 1920. Thank you for the article.
In 1970, I went to see a Berkeley doctor after I suffered a broken wrist during a Berkeley HS football practice. I was a nerdy black teen who'd never be a football star but I was a Cal football historian and major fan at 15. Anyway, I pestered this old physician at his Durant neighborhood office on where he went to college, med school, etc. After he exasperatedly told me Cal,1922, UCSFMS, 1926, I told him that HE was a contemporary of Brick Muller and LECTURED him (!) About Cal's first football immortal. I asked if he'd ever heard of Brick Muller.
He looked at me as if he'd seen a ghost! He could not imagine how a flatlands west of San Pablo Avenue Eighth street black kid could know what I did. He told me he had known Surgeon Dr. Muller very well as a great friend and colleague since their Cal and UCSFMS days together since 1920, 50 years prior. He also said it was true his hands were very large, they didn't interfere with him becoming an outstanding surgeon, and that Brick was a big man for the times. He also said his nickname was Brick because he had red hair.
He asked, of course, how I knew about him because, I presumed, because of our vast age differences and ...other factors I supposed. The answer was simple. I explained that all my football friends talked about nothing but football, past and present, and I had to read up on all of it, college, pro, historical, Heisman trophy stuff, to talk with them so I went to the Oakland public library and read every book about it so I could get up to speed. (There, I also learned about the most accomplishished black American of the 20th century and football end immortal Paul Robeson there 1915-1918, Rutgers College,Valedictorian, [voted by his all white graduating class as the person most likely to become the first Negro president of the USA but that's another story]).
He acidly but nicely said my wrist would not necessarily heal in 4 weeks like I told him it would as I had read because every patient was different. He just said "we'll see in 4 weeks."
He also rejected my request to reset it in a cast so I could get girls' sympathies and phone numbers and get my cast signed; he put the wrist on a metal splint and ace bandages wrap for ease of removal and bathing. He didn't listen to my medical know it all young ass.
But he did listen to me talk about his long lost friend and had a great time reminiscing about his younger days. He had to be at least 70-73 in September 1970.
Ironically, I don't remember my orthopedic doctor's name! But we had great fun reliving the football and medical excellence history of Harold Powers Muller.
Go Bruins! (Cal accepted then redirected me to the Southern Campus in 1972. Heartbreak at first. But beaches, blazing sunshine, soothing palm trees,babes and perpetual championship basketball [and academics!] In Fru fru Westwood LA beat the heck outta Berkeley's law enforcement CN tear gas fumes, national guard tanks on my high school fields, and constant riot threats up at Cal all the time during the 60's and early 70's. (And we kicked Cal's collective ass in all sports when I was a Bruin so it worked out. I got the Cal experience over summer sessions but overall I'll take LA. Less uptight-party for the people instead of power,...etc.)
Go Bears over USC and everyone else EXCEPT U C L A !
Post a Comment
<< Home