1912 College Football All-America Team - Other Selectors

Other Selectors

By 1912, there was a proliferation of newspapers, sports writers, coaches and others choosing All-America teams. Recognizing the difficulties faced by any single person who could only watch one game per week, some began to seek better methodologies for selecting a true "consensus" All-America team. One writer, Louis A. Dougher of the Washington Times published a "Consensus Team" which he arrived at by aggregating the picks made by 23 newspapers, writers, coaches and football experts. The 23 All-America teams aggregated by Dougher included those picked by Walter Camp, football historian Parke H. Davis, Dartmouth coach Frank Cavanaugh, former Harvard star Hamilton Fish III, Fordham coach Tom Thorp, former Chicago star Tiny Maxwell, the New York American, The New York Globe, the New York World, The Evening World, the New York Tribune, the New York Press, The Sun (New York), The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Public Ledger (Philadelphia), The Philadelphia Press, the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, The Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore News, the Pittsburgh Dispatch; the Pennsylvanian, and Dougher's own selections.

Dougher's efforts revealed that a number of Camp's picks were not truly "consensus" picks. For example, five of the eleven players identified by Dougher as consensus picks were overlooked by Camp. They are:

• Robert Treat Paine Storer. Storer was a tackle at Harvard. He was selected as a first-team All-American by 21 of the 23 selectors polled by Dougher. Yet, Camp did not name Storer to his first, second or even third team.
• Rip Shenk. Shenk was a guard for Princeton. He was selected as a first-team player by 14 of Dougher's selectors. Yet, Camp did not name him to his first, second or third teams.
• John Brown. Brown was a tackle for Navy. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951. He was selected as a first-team All-American by 13 of Dougher's selectors. He was selected by Camp for his third team.
• Hobey Baker. Baker was a halfback at Princeton. He has been inducted into Halls of Fame in two sports -- the College Football Hall of Fame (in 1975) and the Hockey Hall of Fame (in 1945). Baker was selected as a composite All-American with votes from nine of Dougher's selectors. Camp placed Baker on his third team. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a fellow Princeton student who idolized Baker and included several references to him in his first novel, This Side of Paradise.
• Pat Pazetti. Pazetti of Lehigh was the consensus pick on Dougher's list with seven votes. Pazetti was chosen by Camp for his second team.

Dougher sought to explain the lack of representation of players from the West as follows: "The complete absence of any western players from all the selections except Camp's is easily explained in that western writers call their teams all-western instead of all-America as do the writers of the eastern sheets."