1922 College Football All-America Team - Controversy Over Eastern Bias

Controversy Over Eastern Bias

Controversy surrounded the dominance of Eastern players on Walter Camp's All-American team. Among the nine major selectors in 1922, Camp was alone in naming several Eastern players as first-team All-Americans, including Harvard guard Charles Hubbard, Navy end Taylor, and Penn tackle John Thurman. A syndicated columnist from Ohio accused Camp of favoritism:

"We print with apologies the All-American football teams selected by Walter Camp. We print them because Walter picks them and for years have been accustomed to regard Camp's choices as official. But in our opinion Camp's teams this year are positively the poorest that the dean of football critics has ever foisted upon the public. For we find Camp drifting unquestionably back into the old rut of letting his eastern feelings dominate his selections. It is a positive travesty upon All-American selections to have six members of the first team honor teams chosen from the eastern Big Three -- Harvard, Yale and Princeton ... Camp should begin once more to see the light or the first thing he knows folks will forget the halo with which he has been for years blessed in the opinion of football followers."

Notable omissions from Camp's 1922 squad included Bernard Kirk, who Camp named to his second team at the end position. Kirk, who had been teammates with George Gipp in 1919, was named a first-team All-American by several selectors and died in an automobile accident in December 1922—before all of the All-American selections had even been announced. Several writers at the time noted the coincidence that former teammates Gipp and Kirk had both died at the height of their popularity and before all of the All-American teams had been selected (Gipp having died in December 1920, and Kirk in December 1922).