Robert “Chief” Myers’ step by step course to fulfill a dream to take Centre to first local, then regional, and finally national dominance is something that could only be realized in the imagination of an irrational dreamer. If it were a motion picture or television series, the Centre College script would have been penned as improbable, laden with a cast of contrived characters brought together by unlikely to impossible terms that only a screenwriter could have imagined.
“Chief” Myers knew that a dream without a plan was but a wish unfulfilled. The story about the Centre “Wonder Team” reveals the years that Myers indeed made his plan become reality.
Much has been written over the past century about the Centre story but now the whole story from the beginning of the dream that “Chief” Myers had from his entering Centre as a 16-year old freshman in 1907 to elevating Centre to the pinnacle of the college football world from 1917 through 1924 is available. It is so unlikely that only by reading this book can it be believed.
With first person accounts and over 1200 photographs andi illustrations, the newly created online version of The Wonder Team is the penultimate work of the story of a team that achieved a litany of firsts. In an era where play was conducted on the regional level, one could argue that Centre was the first team to play a national schedule. In addition to playing games in major cities on both coasts, the “Praying Colonels” played in the second, third and fourth ever post-season bowl games.
The Centre story is one of unique personalities in addition to that of achievement. The tiny Kentucky school produced three All-America players in an era where eastern bias predominated. Two players became members of the College Football Hall of Fame, Bo McMillin as a player and Matty Bell as a coach.
While the run lasted less than a decade, Centre College’s success inspired teams from the southern region of the country to pick up the fallen mantel and raise the level of their play to that of the rest of the country. Alabama and Georgia Tech soon won national titles with Tulane, Tennessee, and Georgia routinely producing teams that could compete on a national level, all influenced by Centre’s pioneering successes.
Today’s college football landscape is overshadowed with players being able to transfer from college to college, with literal monetary bidding wars rather than loyalty to a team as the motiving factor in their college experience. The result is that the sport is dominated by the big-school powers, excluding any small college, non-traditional upstarts such as Centre to become factors. In 1917, Centre was a small insignificant speck in the college football world looking to make a mark. If alive today, I can only wonder if Chief Myers would have thought his and Centre’s achievements possible, or even imagined, must less become a significant part of the history of college football.
Kent Stephens
Historian Emeritus
College Football Hall of Fame