“...uninvited”: Andy Kerr’s legendary 1932 football team

“The most breaks come from brainy football.” — Andy Kerr

A disciple of Glenn “Pop” Warner, head coach at Pitt and later Stanford, Kerr learned Warner’s double-wing offense while working as his assistant at Pitt. Kerr went on to coach at Stanford and then at Washington & Jefferson before joining Colgate in 1929.³

Except for a year off (1918) during World War I, Colgate had been playing football since 1890, with reasonable success, when Kerr arrived. He was to take that success to a different level during his 18 years as head coach, and especially during his first eight seasons when his teams amassed a record of 60-11-1, never losing more than one game in a season until 1935.

Collegiate football was more equitable in those days, before television contracts and the infusion of huge amounts of capital skewed the competitive balance, and a well-coached team from a small place like Colgate could hold its own against future powers such as Michigan State, Wisconsin, Penn State, Syracuse, and Pitt, while also competing against more like-sized rivals such as Hamilton, St. Lawrence, Hobart, and the teams that would join together in 1954 to form the Ivy League.

Colgate’s schedule in Kerr’s first season (1929) included Wisconsin, Michigan State (played in Hamilton), Indiana, and Syracuse as well as Columbia, Brown, St. Lawrence, Providence, and Hampden-Sydney. The team outscored its opponents 315-19, and lost only to Wisconsin (13-6).

The 1930 team was 9-1, losing only to Michigan State (14-7). Colgate beat NYU 7-6 that year in a benefit game played at Yankee Stadium. Fullback Len Macaluso ’31 was named All-America at the end of that season.

Colgate went 8-1 in 1931, losing only to NYU (13-0, again at Yankee Stadium). End Johnny Orsi ’32 was named All-America that year. Andy Kerr had established his bona fides, and the national football press had taken note of his teams.

Colgate sported new uniforms for the 1932 season — maroon pants, white jerseys trimmed in maroon, and white helmets — and sports publicist Dex Teed nicknamed them “The Red Raiders.” Kerr said he expected a good team, but withheld predictions beyond that.⁴

Bob Rowe '33 plunges in for a touchdown vs. Syracuse

Under the headline “30,000 to See Colgate’s Unbeaten Eleven Play Syracuse in the 35th Game of Their Series,” the New York Times led with an Associated Press account that began, "Colgate’s Red Raiders, unbeaten and unscored upon, were overwhelmingly favored tonight to defeat Syracuse in their thirty-fifth meeting in Archbold Stadium tomorrow. The only betting was on points, with Colgate supporters freely offering 20 points."⁵

History shows that Colgate didn’t beat that point spread, winning 16-0, but the victory sent the team to Aldrich Field in Providence, R.I., undefeated and unscored upon, to face its final regular-season opponent: Brown, also undefeated, on Thanksgiving Day.

Colgate defeated Brown 21-0.

Alas, a trip to the Rose Bowl was not to be. Instead, unbeaten USC invited Pitt’s Panthers — a decision many writers speculated was made on the strength of Pitt’s schedule — and drubbed them 35-0.

Prompted by a letter from Colgate alumnus Nate Tufts ’32, LA Times columnist Jim Murray — a half-century later — implored the Rose Bowl Committee: “Next Time Give the Bid to Colgate.” In that column, Murray reported, “…when the Red Raiders were snubbed, a rueful Andy Kerr was to scribble on the blackboard the immortal identification which would follow his team throughout history, ‘Undefeated, Untied, Unscored-upon—and Uninvited.’ History was ill served.”⁷