The 1920s
The birth of a stadium
1920 - 1929
With a permanent home atop the hill overlooking Cincinnati and a series of concrete seating sections lining Carson Field, Cincinnati football was charging into a new era as the sport’s popularity grew nationwide.
The rapid expansion also brought growing pains––a series of challenges standing in the way of modernization. Nobody could’ve imagined at the time that two of these hurdles would be cleared in 1923, making it one of the most historic seasons in the history of Bearcats athletics.
The first roadblock would be finding a creative way to marry academics and athletics.
Nippert at Night
The University of Cincinnati is a public school established for its people with a mission of educating the masses. To this end, in 1906, the university invented cooperative education, providing students with real-world experience by sending them to workplaces during the day. “[Dean of Engineering] Herman Schneider’s contemporaries ridiculed his plan to send university students to work in factories,” wrote UC Magazine. “Business owners worried about fraternity boys mangling their machinery. Faculty pictured grimy-fingered factory boys in class.”
What was originally a one-year trial that only narrowly received board approval quickly caught on. By 1909, Cincinnati football had a problem: The team needed to practice, but many of its players were down the hill working in factories until sunset, leaving no daylight hours to prepare for Saturdays. Schneider did what he could, putting boys interested in playing football on the same rotation, meaning the co-op students (half of the roster at the time) would spend their days in factories one week and attend classes the next. Unfortunately, that still wasn’t enough to provide adequate time for game preparation. The solution proved to be both obvious and unprecedented. They’d set up lights and practice in the dark.
The team first practiced at night on September 27th, 1909. “They went through a stiff workout, lasting over two hours,” wrote The Enquirer. “About a half dozen electric poles have been erected in the hollow, each suspending large electric lights. The lights did not give forth expected rays … No punting can be done by the present system.” Things continued this way for a while. Head coach Robert Burch made a habit of keeping an electrician on site at practices to attend to any needs, adjusting the carbon arc lights on the fly to provide optimal illumination. They even painted the ball white so they could see it. Eventually, it became normal—a way of life for kids wanting a blue-collar education to go with their blue-collar sport. The system incrementally improved until the university decided to spring for something bigger.
In 1921, electrical engineering student Jack Bernard Silverman designed an incandescent lighting system as his co-op thesis––the genesis of a problem crafting its ultimate solution. The new array consisted of 28 light towers, providing five times the illumination as the original setup. “They make the field almost as bright as day after dark,” claimed The Enquirer.
The lights were good enough that university officials had an idea. If a team could practice at night, why not play a game?
A Pioneering Idea
In 1923, Cincinnati set out to play the first intercollegiate night game in the Midwest, fourteen years after it began practicing under the stars. They felt their system was reliable enough, and the team was used to the concept, though outsiders remained skeptical. The Cincinnati Post sent a photographer to Carson Field the night before the game to stage photographs of the team “without the aid of a flashlight” just to prove the whole thing was real, and it was. Cincinnati invited Kentucky Wesleyan to be its opponent and offered them the field one night to get themselves acclimated to the lights, then they grabbed a white football and put their idea to the test.
“Other schools located in large cities throughout the country are watching the experiment closely,” reported The Cincinnati Post. “And if it is as successful as these photos indicate it will be, night football games early in the season are likely to become common in a year or two.”
The Bearcats beat Kentucky Wesleyan by a 17-0 final score that night, but the real story was the spectacle:
“Substituting a great battery of searchlights for the sun, the University of Cincinnati eleven introduced a new game to pigskin followers and one which was the first to be played in gridiron history under similar conditions, when it defeated Kentucky Wesleyan at Carson Field last night, 17 to 0.
With the huge lights turning the night into bright daylight, every play could be followed in every detail, and punts and passes were as plain to the 5,000 spectators as if the game was being conducted with the sun shining brightly.
While those in the first three or four rows were bothered a bit by the lights directly across the field from them, those in the upper tiers and at the end of the rows never missed a move, and announced that the new game was a great success.
Never at any time during the contest were the players of either team bothered by the bright rays. This was shown particularly by the fact that the contest was marked by few fumbles. Few punts were misjudged, and when they were it was the player’s fault.”
Participants in that pioneering game remembered it fondly. “We were sure of one thing,” recalled Kentucky Wesleyan captain George Ditto years later. “We were going to carry the battle to the Bearcats if we had to wear miners’ caps to see.”
Word of the experiment’s success quickly traveled. Reports reached newspapers in Texas, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, The Miami Herald, and The Boston Globe.
The game was such a hit locally that the Bearcats turned around and tried to schedule their Week 2 game against Kentucky after dark, though opposing head coach Jack Winn refused. “Whether Winn’s refusal to play at night is caused by fear of the Bearcats … is not known,” speculated The Kentucky Post.
The season opener would be the only game the Bearcats played under the lights in 1923. While the pioneering move would help popularize a tradition that continues across college football today, September 29th wouldn’t be the most fateful day of that season. The enduring legacy of the 1923 Bearcats was cemented two months later and involved a team captain who didn’t even intend to play football that season but who would provide an unexpected and tragic solution to the stadium’s funding issue.
The Legend of Jimmy Nippert
James Nippert––or “Jimmy,” as everyone knew him––retired from the sport after his junior season to focus on the final year of his law studies. Yet by October 1923, the Bearcats were floundering, having lost the two games following their twilight debut, and head coach George McLaren determined that Louis Nippert––Jimmy’s younger brother––was “not quite ready” to replace Jimmy at center.
The Bearcats needed a proven, veteran presence in the middle of their offensive line, so with a year of eligibility remaining, they called upon Jimmy, and he answered. On October 20th, 1923, Nippert started the first game of his senior season.
Jimmy stepped in and led his Bearcats to a 13-6 victory against Ohio in Athens, and soon the tides were turning. Heading into the season’s final game, the team was riding a three-game win streak. Rival Miami loomed large, with the 30th Battle for the Victory Bell slated for Thanksgiving Day at Carson Field.
The weather was terrible that day.
“Eleven football players wearing the colors of the University of Cincinnati and without stockings stepped forth in the mud and rain before 5,000 fans at Carson Field Thursday,” wrote the Enquirer‘s Tom Swope.
Cincinnati surged to a dominating 14-0 lead at halftime through the rain. “Miami never showed anything resembling a real offense,” reported the Enquirer.
When the teams returned to the mud after halftime, it happened. Early in the third quarter, “some player” stepped on Jimmy’s left leg with a muddy cleat, gashing him to the bone. He remained in the game, helping to complete a 23-0 UC victory that newspapers called “the worst licking Cincy has dealt out to the Oxford team since 1904.” After just two wins in 16 games, the Bearcats went 5-1 to end the season, capping 1923 with a rivalry win to earn a 6-3 record.
Nobody, not even Jimmy, knew of the severity of the injury until after the game. “The warm water of the shower started the pain in the injury, and examination disclosed an ugly wound.” He was cleaned up and sent to his home in Westwood, encouraged to rest for a few days. Yet two weeks passed, and Jimmy’s leg continued to bother him to such an extent that his family checked him into Christ Hospital on December 15th, where physicians discovered blood poisoning. “Half a dozen doctors” initially believed a blood transfusion could top the deterioration, and scores of teammates and students lined up to donate. Seven players, including his brother Louis, donated blood, but doctors decided Jimmy was too weak for the procedure. By December 20th, the Cincinnati Post was reporting that Jimmy was fighting for his life.
“UC football fans never rooted as hard for the Bearcats at Carson Field or any other gridiron as they are rooting for Jimmy Nippert as he fights to break thru the strongest line he ever tackled,” wrote the Enquirer. “Personally, we think so much of Jimmy our eyes are dim with tears as we write this.”
Jimmy Nippert died on Christmas morning, 1923. The passing of Cincinnati football’s “most-loved player” sent shockwaves through the community. The Bearcats men’s basketball team had a game against Yale on the 29th, and school officials debated postponing in light of the tragedy. Ultimately, they determined Jimmy would’ve wanted them to play on. “Jimmy was never a boy to ask special concessions for himself,” explained the Cincinnati Post. “He was just one of the student body and one of the football team.”
The funeral was held on December 28th at Westwood Methodist Episcopal Church. Coach McLaren, Athletic Director Boyd Chambers, and several football players served as pallbearers. “James Nippert gave promise of great things to his beloved city, state, and nation,” read his eulogy. “His loyalty to his team, his experience in the game and his great ability to handle men did much to stabilize the team and carry it on to victory.”
A Stadium is Born
Jimmy, whose middle name was Gamble, came from Procter & Gamble lineage. Amidst the crushing sadness of his sudden death, his grandfather sprang to action. James N. Gamble––son of the Procter & Gamble co-founder and inventor of ivory soap––wrote a letter to UC president Fredrick Hicks just one week after Jimmy’s passing and announced a gift that would change the university forever:
“I have no particular wishes or conditions attaching to the development of this plan,” Gamble elaborated. “But should like to add to the regular stadium structure certain dressing rooms, bathrooms and two fully equipped dispensaries, one for each contending team, so that in case of even the slightest injury to a player the best and most scientific treatment may be administered immediately.”
A stadium construction project mired in fundraising problems for years––and only partially completed since 1915 when workers first began building its permanent structures––was suddenly saved.
The stadium would be named James Gamble Nippert Memorial Stadium. It’s an enduring legacy that he couldn’t have envisioned; then again, neither could he have envisioned dying from a football injury after returning to the Bearcats when they needed him most. There’s some irony in such a distinction being bestowed upon a player who didn’t seek any of it, but there’s no irony in the fact that it was Jimmy Nippert. In many ways, he’s a prototypical Bearcat: Courageous and gritty, ready to rise to the occasion when needed, and doing it all for the pride of himself, his school, and his city.
Gamble’s gift of $270,000 added 18 sections to the 14 that had already been completed, in addition to the medical facilities, which were state-of-the-art for their time.
Nippert’s final words, “Five more yards to go — then drop!” were carved into a memorial at the south end of the stadium, just above a 10-foot etching of Jimmy himself.
The dedication ceremony took place on November 8th, 1924, before the game against Oberlin. More than 10,000 fans were in attendance, according to the Enquirer. Among them were Jimmy’s parents, as well as representatives from colleges and universities in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia.
UC’s yearbook, The Cincinnatian, dared to dream that games would be played at Nippert Stadium “long after we, our sons, and perhaps our grandsons” passed through the halls of UC. At the ceremony, James N. Gamble delivered a similar message in his address to the crowd:
