1949
It’s hard to imagine cheering for a mascot with four paws rather than two guns.
But before Pistol Pete entertained the sidelines, students cheered for the Oklahoma A&M Tigers.
The Aggie football team wore striped pants, and one of the school songs was “Hold That Tiger,” according an article in the A&M College Magazine. However, the general feeling was that the tiger did not truly represent Oklahoma.
The Aggies considered using American Indians, deputy marshals and various animals, according to the article.
However, the search for a mascot ended when students saw Frank Eaton, commonly referred to as “Pistol Pete.”
And now, generations later, the Oklahoma State community celebrates 50 years of Pete with its homecoming theme “generation COWBOY.”
In the photos, past generations of Tigers turned Cowboys are shown celebrating homecoming festivities. In the 1949 photo, the Oklahoma A&M band spelled out “Hi Grads” to the huge homecoming crowd, according to the OSU yearbook.
That year, the Aggies won the game, 41-7, against the University of Temple Owls.
Oklahoma A&M was one of America’s dominant teams at the conclusion of World War II. During the 1944-1945 seasons, the Aggies posted a two-year record of 17-1 and claimed both the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl victories.
The 1945 team was Oklahoma State’s first undefeated team and would finish No. 5 in the Associated Press poll.
Meanwhile, the campus saw a rise in population as veterans returned to campus. The veterans’ group entered floats in the homecoming parade and crowned its own homecoming queen, according to the OSU Centennial Histories series.
Less than two years after WWII ended, enrollment had grown to 11,882 students, about half of them veterans, according to the series.
A decade later, the homecoming traditions continued to grow. The 1958 photo shows young women pomping. That year, “Charley Lester, agriculture sophomore from Clinton, appeared as the first Pistol Pete in the annual homecoming events,” according to the series.
For the homecoming game, the Cowboys faced off against Texas Tech, winning 13-0. “The powerful State defense completely bottled up the Red Raiders from Lubbock, and the Texans never threatened seriously,” according to the yearbook.
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It’s all nice and dandy that we read about the “good ole times” back in the 1940’s & 1950’s, but the O’ Colly has overlooked one extremely important game that occurred on Oct. 20th 1951. On that day our (1-3) Oklahoma State football team, then still the Oklahoma A&M “Aggies”, took the field against an the undefeated (5-0) Drake University team from Iowa. The Aggies won the game 27-14, but did so in a way that the New York Times ended up calling it “One of the ugliest racial incidents in college sports history.”
Drake had an outstanding player by the name of Johnny Bright, who led the NCAA in the national statistics in total offense rushing & scoring and was Black. Two years earlier Bright became the first Black man to play on Lewis Field, the Aggies had won that game. A white Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle, Wilbanks Smith, made it his priority to take Bright out of the game. Within the first seven minutes of the game, Bright was knocked unconscious three time because Smith would “cheap shot” him in the jaw. What inevitably happened was after the third concussion, Bright did not return to the field for the rest of the game and suffered a broken jaw. As stated before, Oklahoma A&M won this game 27-14, but the “cheap shots” made by Smith were captured by Don Ultang and John Robinson of the Des Moines Register on film and published in the paper the next day.
This incident made us famous for creating new blocking rules in NCAA football and more protective helmets that included facemasks. The reporters that captured it all on film for the Des Moines Register won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for their photographs and story following this game. There were no actions taken against Smith by Oklahoma A&M or the Missouri Valley Conference, he went without scholastic or athletic punishment, but this game and his actions would ultimately cast an unaccountable shame on the history of Oklahoma State University and its football program.
As current students here at OSU, we should relish in the success that our athletes have recently brought us, but remember that it has come at a highly forgotten cost.
More info on the Johnny Bright incident can be found at Drake University’s library website: http://www.lib.drake.edu/heritage/bright/story/index.php