Gus Hornsby's Gamble

Augustus “Gus” Hornsby was a man of many parts and many pursuits, which included being an enthusiast for the new sport of American football. Born in India and educated in England, Hornsby had one of those turn-of-the-century lives that contemporary readers view with awe. He attended Wellington College and then the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He served in the British Army in Britain, India, and South Africa, where he used his leisure time to hunt big game. He killed, among many other beasts, a tiger. He could speak five languages in addition to English, and while his regiment was stationed in South Africa, Hornsby tried his hand at prospecting for diamonds.Wherever he went, however, Hornsby played rugby football. He began playing at Wellington, participated in the first international match between England and Scotland in 1871, and when he could not find a local team, he organized one. When he resigned his commission, Hornsby came to the United States and eventually settled in Chicago where he became aware of the hybrid game that Americans were beginning to play. He formed the Chicago Football Club (CFBC) in 1875 and organized the first midwestern American football game between the CFBC and players from Northwestern University in 1876.Though he did not find wealth in the diamond mines, he did make his fortune in real estate after he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. He also gambled much of it away in a high-stakes card game. He then engaged in a swindle that led to his arrest, which he briefly escaped from, and then to a stretch in Stillwater Prison where he edited a newspaper that had been founded by Cole Younger, the famous bank robber and confederate of Jesse James.Author Larry LaTourette, who has also published a book on Northwestern football history, sprinkles the story of the first midwestern football game throughout his work. His narrative sometimes zigs and zags like a broken field runner. He includes a great deal of the history of Chicago, St. Paul, the first wave of feminism, and the effort to banish alcohol in the United States, along with brief biographies of many of the players in that first game who went on to greater things.Chicago players, for instance, include Louis Sullivan who became known as the “Father of Skyscrapers” for his architectural work (62) and William B. Curtis, the founder of the New York Athletic Club who helped create the Amateur Athletic Union and the US Olympic Committee. William Hulbert, the president of the Chicago White Stockings, was a member of the CFBC and was originally scheduled to play fullback, despite being the oldest member of the team at forty-three. Hulbert missed the game, however, because he was busy meeting with other baseball owners to organize the National League.The Northwestern team drew many athletes from the Spade and Serpent Society, which was a secret society on campus akin to Skull and Bones at Yale. One of the players was Fred M. Taylor who went on to lead the economics department at the University of Michigan and serve as president of the American Economic Association, where his market-socialism theories influenced politicians such as Franklin D. Roosevelt. Simon Douthart may not have gone on to great renown, but he was already famous on campus as a wrestler, and as one of the students who had captured a bear that had wandered onto campus.LaTourette mentions several other prominent Americans in Gus Hornsby's Great Gamble, including George Armstrong Custer, who, along with much of his command, would be dead at the hands of Native American forces at the Battle of the Little Bighorn several months after the first midwestern football game. Custer receives only passing mention, but Frances Willard receives considerably more.Willard was the dean of women at Northwestern from 1872 to 1874 before she left to lead the Women's Christian Temperance Union from 1879 to 1898. Her connection to the story revolved around her mentorship of Frank Casseday, one of the Northwestern players. In his later life as a physician, Casseday and his wife went on to lead a suffrage organization in California.LaTourette also brings feminism into his story by quoting from one of Hornsby's pro-suffrage editorials that he wrote while in prison. Also receiving mention is Jessie Brown, the daughter of Northwestern's cofounder, who was one of the first women to graduate from Northwestern's classical program and the girlfriend of one of the athletes. LaTourette asserted that Brown, who later married player Theophilus Hilton, along with many temperance advocates, supported athletics since it gave men something to do rather than drinking.The author also adds interesting stories that had more to do with the history of Northwestern football than Hornsby or that first game. The reader learns, for instance, that in 1931, Chicago mobster Al Capone was once booed by Northwestern football fans when he attended one of their games just prior to his being sentenced to prison for tax evasion.LaTourette, in Gus Hornsby's Great Gamble, gives the reader a fascinating look at a country on the cusp of great change. The work is packed with interesting side stories such as those mentioned above. Sometimes this might detract from the smooth narrative around the 1876 football game. Despite that, LaTourette has written a book that is a pleasure to read. His writing style is accessible, and the stories make this an often eye-opening read.Although much of the content deals with sports, this is not primarily a book about rugby or football. Therefore, its utility to sport historians would be negligible. The story of Hornsby's life and turn-of-the-century America would be interesting for those who wish to read more about those times of great change in American (or to a lesser extent Atlantic) history. LaTourette's research for the book is impressive, and includes endnotes, as well as a bibliography that would be of use to historians of the period, and to general readers

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