"Little Joe" Wentworth, 1900: Scholar, Athlete, Gentleman
The name Wentworth has figured prominently in the history of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. It started with the last royal governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, who was instrumental in helping Eleazar Wheelock found Dartmouth in 1769.
An early descendant, "Long John" Wentworth, Dartmouth 1836, was, as Dirk Olin 'Bl pointed out in a recent Dartmouth Alumni Magazine article (March 1983), known nationwide as a newspaper editor, U.S. Congressman, mayor of Chicago, and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. He was also, according to the article, "as flamboyant a graduate as Dartmouth ever produced."
Not at all flamboyant, and far from towering in height, was "Little Joe" Wentworth, Dartmouth 1900. Quiet but dapper, almost a "David Niven" type, Joe entered Dartmouth in 1896 after preparing at Phillips Academy, Andover.
He soon became one of the prominent undergraduates of his day, quarterbacking the Big Green football team, and serving as captain his senior year. He starred in baseball, was a member of Alpha Delta Phi, Sphinx, and Palaeopitus, and was chairman of the Committee on Canes.
Soon after graduating with a B.Litt. degree, Joe decided to capitalize on his knowledge of football strategy and go into coaching. After making a debut at Kenyon College in Ohio, he succumbed to the lure of the big city, signing on as head coach at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland.
Every sports fan knows today that the Buckeyes of Ohio State University are perennial Big Ten football champs or runners-up, frequently playing in the Rose Bowl or some other highly-touted bowl game. But there was a time when this was not the case. At the turn of the century, OSU conceived the idea of proving it was the best football School in Ohio. It wanted to convince the Big Ten that it should become a member of the conference, with all the prestige that involved.
How better to do this, OSU officials thought, than to offer a trophy to the Ohio college eleven that could win the state championship the most times in the next decade. The offer was made in 1902, the first year that "Little Joe" Wentworth coached Case. A large trophy known as the Ohio State Championship Football Award went on display in Columbus.
Ohio State was confident it would keep the trophy and receive the Big Ten invitation. The rash Buckeyes, however, forgot to reckon with Case, a relatively small private engineering college in Cleveland with a tough curriculum. On the average, approximately half of each entering class flunked out by graduation. Even with this handicap, Case, under Wentworth, managed to field a highly-spirited and talented championship football team.
As every old-time Case alumnus will tell you today, the glory years of the college's football history were those when "Little Joe" was at the helm, from 1902 to 1906. That was when Case, by winning the state championship four times, began a long series of triumphant seasons that culminated in permanent retirement of the Ohio State Award Trophy to the shelves of the Case trophy display room, where it remains to this day.
Extremely popular with his players and a brilliant gridiron strategist, Wentworth, in his first year of coaching Case, turned out a championship team with almost the same players who had gone through a mediocre season the year before. Wentworth's five-year record at Case was 34 wins, five losses and one tie from 1902 to 1906 and, along with it, four state championships.
Moreover, "Little Joe's" first team was the only one in 17 games to score on the renowned "point-a-minute" steamrollers of the University of Michigan, coached by Fielding H. "Hurry Up" Yost. In the same period, Case scored a total of 132 points to nil for arch rival Western Reserve University, its next door neighbor. (In 1970, after 80 years of intense athletic rivalry, the two federated, as Case Western Reserve University.)
As for Ohio State, the Bucks were plenty worried, with Case having such a head start on its trophy. The Wentworth momentum continued for an entire decade until Case retired the trophy. By 1912, Case had defeated Ohio State 10 times, lost only four and tied two. OSU was told, when it applied to the Big Ten for admission, "You'll first have to prove you're Ohio's best by beating Case!" But that's another story.
How was all this accomplished by a small engineering college with a notably tough academic schedule that provided no favors to athletes? There are two answers.
the first has to do with the talents and personality of Dartmouth's "Little Joe." When he left Case in 1906 to go into the law Wentworth eventually became a leading trial attorney in Boston the captain of his last championship team wrote a tribute in the Case alumni magazine. In 1905, with the marvellous Ira Baker at fullback bearing the brunt of the attack, Case compiled a 9-1-1 record. Baker recounted his years under Wentworth:
"In 1902 a man was needed who would be both a coach and diplomat, to overcome lack of enthusiasm and a mutual distrust between faculty and students. Joe Wentworth was that man. He whipped the team into shape, aroused the interest and enthusiasm of the student body, and made the faculty see the benefits to be derived from football, properly conducted. Every student who wanted to try out was given a chance to make the squad.
"His success was assured from the start. His lovable personality, combined with his unusual coaching ability, had its immediate effect in the way the team worked. His methods were new, including using a track starting pistol to help the team get the jump on the opposition, in running off practice plays. Always a perfect gentleman on the field, he expected the same from his players. His entire day and evening were spent with the men; he was at all times anxious to give them the benefit of his extensive football experience, as captain and quarterback for Dartmouth.
"The charm of his personality and his confidence in himself and his men at once inspired the team. They became a well-balanced and perfectly oiled machine in the hands of a competent football engineer. Joe's personal interest in the team, which far surpassed his mercenary interest in importance (Joe was reputedly the highest paid coach in the nation at the time!), made him the friend of every man, whether varsity or scrub. To know him and work under him was an inspiration and a pleasure to all of us.
"In his leaving, the team has not only lost a wonderful coach, but each of us has suffered the loss of a personal friend. Other men will come and turn out winning teams, but in the hearts of the old men, no one will ever replace "Little Joe."
A further light on "Little Joe's" qualities is found in an obituary eulogy: "After an illustrious four years of football coaching at Case in Cleveland, Joe became a partner in the well-known Boston law firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart. He was an excellent trial lawyer, thoroughly esteemed by his colleagues at the bar. One of them remarked, 'Joe always fought fairly, and, I think, cleverly. His natural ingenuity coupled with his careful preparation made him a hard man to defeat'."
It is likely that Joe Wentworth never had planned to make a career of coaching. Successful as he had been, he apparently always kept in mind his goal of entering the legal profession. He was not even tempted to stay on when the Case student body, en masse, accompanied him to the train with last-minute pleas the day he left Cleveland. Yet even his subsequent accomplishments at the law did not keep him from developing another amateur interest, the improvement of his home community of Sandwich, New Hampshire.
Although for the greater part of each year, his legal business kept him in Boston, he regarded his ancestral home in Sandwich, which had come down in the direct line of the distinguished Wentworth family for 125 years, and was his birthplace, as his real home. In Joe's later years, he commuted between a weekday home in Boston and Sandwich, where, among other improvements, he and Mrs. Wentworth set up an elaborate flower garden, a genuine showplace in the region that was open to the public for many years. Considered by the citizens of Sandwich as one of themselves, Wentworth was consulted on all community interests, serving for many years as president of the Sandwich Historical Society.
Here, then, in the person of "Little Joe" Wentworth, Dartmouth 'OO, was a renaissance man a man for all seasons a shining example of the old spirit of amateurism at its best. W
"Little Joe" Wentworth's legendary 1902 Case team; the first to score on Michigan's famous"point-a-minute" team in 17 games. Wentworth was so sure Case couldn't score againstthe Wolverines he bet his own scatback, Harry "Divvy" Davidson (third from left, thirdrow) a new hat. "Divvy," all 140 pounds of him, ran 40 yards for the touchdown.
John F. Anderson '34 has helped recruitscholar-athletes for both Dartmouth and forCase Western Reserve.
