1918 Michigan Wolverines Football Team - Impact of World War I

Impact of World War I

In 1918, the United States was embroiled in World War I. Many University of Michigan students, including athletes, were serving in the military. Team captain Elton Wieman did not play during the 1918 season as he had enlisted in the Aviation Corps. Halfback Eddie Usher was also taken into active military service after the first game of the season.

Three former Michigan football players were killed in the war. One of the casualties was Curtis Redden, star end of Fielding Yost's "Point-a-Minute" teams. In April 1918, newspapers published a letter from Redden to a friend back home describing his unit's "baptism of fire":

"And so it went from day to day, but oftimes the nights were very bad. At night, when the infantry launched its raids, or the enemy his, or the infantry became nervous and called for help, the guns stamped like stallions and snorted their breaths of fire. The blackness of the night became a series of dots and dashes, until the world resembled a vast radio station, spelling hell, hell, and hell again. To this must be added the shriek of shells, the whistle of fragments, the automatic hammer effect of the machine gun, the rattle of the rifle fire, the rockets and star shells out over No Man's land—all combined to make the night weird, hideous, fascinating, sublime."

The Michigan Alumnus published a letter from another Michigan athlete, Cecil F. Cross, recalling memories of football in Ann Arbor:

"The autumn is approaching here. The days are getting shorter and there is a chill in the air ... It seems to bring back the old feeling which is experienced where the smell of football is in the air, the first cold days of autumn and it makes me homesick, though only slightly. Ralph Henning, of Bay City, is here, and though we come from different parts of Michigan and attended different schools, he being the captain of the Michigan Aggies' football team in 1916, we quite frequently talk over the old scenes with which we are both familiar. He, too, has mentioned the feeling of football in the air. If they were to train an army of football players and throw them into the lines, the last weeks of October, with Coach Yost to address them just before the battle, we would score a touchdown the first half, and before Thanksgiving we would have pushed the Germans under their own goal posts and eat dinner in Berlin."

Before the football season began, a rumor spread that football would be abandoned for 1918. The university decided to proceed with the football season, though war-time restrictions limited travel and practice time. To compensate for the players serving in the military, the existing prohibition on freshman players was lifted for the year.