Treasures of the Texas Collection
Baylor University’s Immortal Ten
Hi! I’m your host, Robert Darden. Welcome to Treasures of the Texas Collection.
It was a cold, dreary morning on Saturday, January 22, 1927. A group of 21 student athletes from BaylorUniversityleft Waco for Austin for a men’s basketball game against the University of Texas. They were in good spirits and looking forward to the competition.
They never made it to their destination.
While crossing railroad tracks in Round Rock, the bus was hit by a train. The result was heartbreaking — ten students died that day. It was one of the greatest tragedies in the history of intercollegiate sports in Texas.
Join me as I talk with Austin freelance writer Hans Christianson about this poignant incident in Baylor University history -- the story of the Immortal Ten.
Welcome back to the show, Hans.
Thanks, Robert. It's great to be back on the show for a new season.
Before we dive into the crash, let’s talk about the various people who were on the bus that day, including head coach Ralph Wolf. 1927 was his first year at the helm of the varsity basketball team, right?
Yes it was, but Wolf was no stranger to Baylor or athletics. He was a 1921 alumnus and a three-sport letter winner in football, basketball and track, where he held conference records for the 100-, 200- and 440-yard dashes.
After Wolf graduated, he held several positions in the Baylor athletic programs, including five years as a trainer for the football team. He also enjoyed stints as the head track coach and head coach of the men’s freshman basketball team.
Wolf was described as a mild-mannered coach but with a competitive streak. He also favored bow ties and coat pocket handkerchiefs.
This trip to Austin was the first road trip of the season, but Wolf did not know if he would be able to accompany the team. His wife was pregnant and due at any time. In the end, he decided to travel with the team.
So very sad. Tell us about some of the otherpassengers on the bus.
There’s not enough time to talk in depth about all 21 passengers, but I can share some details about a few of the passengers.
There were several boys from Waco: junior Robert Hannah Jr., a junior and starting guard; senior William Winchester, a substitute center and guard; junior Clyde “Abe” Kelley, a substitute forward; and junior Weir Washam, who played as a backup on the team.
Junior starting forward Keifer Strickland had previously lived in Waco before attending high school in Hazard, Kentucky. Two players from Gatesville included junior forward James Walker and junior Willis Murray, the team’s manager and substitute forward.
Senior Jack Castellaw served as the team’s official scorekeeper. Fort Worth native and junior Sam Dillow was the starting guard,while sophomore Robert Hailey substituted at guard. Other passengers included equipment manager Ed Gooch and the managing editor of the Baylor student newspaper, Dave Cheavens.
Many of these players also logged double time on the football team. In all, there were 21 passengers on the bus, which would have made for a tight fit.
Who was responsible for driving the bus?
At that time, the university couldn’t afford to hire a professional driver. Instead, freshman Joe Potter had earned the job as bus driver earlier in the year. Potter was an outstanding fullback on the freshman football team, and the bus driving gig helped pay for his way at Baylor. By the time they left for Austin on that blistery morning, Potter had already logged many miles piloting various Baylor teams around the state.
So, what was a road trip to Austin typically like in 1927?
Transportation in 1927 was much different than what current college athletes are accustomed to. Baylor owned a parlor bus purchased from the REO Motor Car Company a few years earlier. It measured approximately eight feet wide by 25 feet long, with a narrow aisle. Two columns of wicker chairs were anchored to the wooden floor and cloth drapes hung across the windows.
On a typical road trip to Austin, players could expect at least a three hour ride since the bus only averaged a speed of 35 to 40 miles per hour on the terrible roads of those days.
Do we know anything about the mood of the team leading up to the game?
When the team left Waco for Austin, they were looking for a jumpstart to the season. In the preseason, Baylor had been favored to win the Southwest Conference, due to the fact they had all five starters returning. However, the Bears had lost their first three conference games. To make matters worse, the losses all occurred on their home court. The game against UT was going to be their chance to turn the season around and gain some revenge – the team had lost previously to UT by a score of 22 to 15.
What was the weather like on the day of the crash?
It was a cold January day … aNorther had blown in. The temperature was dropping toward freezing and mist and fog peppered the landscape. Records show that the team got off to an early start with everyone piling into the bus around 8:30 a.m.
The bus started out with 21 passengers, but some reports talk about 22 passengers at the time of the crash. What’s the correct number?
Actually, both numbers are correct. When the bus left Waco, there were only 21 passengers, but when they reached Temple, they picked up a hitchhiker — Ivey Foster Jr. He was a freshman football and basketball player who decided to hitchhike down to Austin for the game.
Since the weather was so miserable, and he was a fellow Baylor student, the team invited him onto the bus. And I mean literally on the bus. It was so crowded, that he had to stand on the running board. After a few miles, Ed Gooch took pity on the freshman and offered him his seat. By a strange happenstance, this gesture would ultimately save Gooch’s life but cost Fosterhis own.
I know it’s not fun to talk about the graphic details, even after all these decades, but it has become a defining moment in Baylor history. What can you tell us about the actual crash?
The group had been traveling for more than three-and-a-half hours when they reached Round Rock. The weather had gotten progressively worse along the way, and the windshield was covered in mud and mist from the intermittent rain.
Potter followed the highway through the business section of town and approached a railroad crossing. It was an open crossing, one that most local people were familiar with.But Potter did not realize the railroad crossing was there since he had never driven this route before.
His unfamiliarity with the highway, coupled with bad weather, had caused him to slow down to around 20 miles per hour. As the bus approached the railroad tracks, he was unaware that the Sunshine Special, a northbound passenger train, was moving fast from the west.
The Sunshine Special was behind schedule, so the train’s engineer was trying to make up time. The train was going approximately 60 miles per hour as it approached the bus.
The bus was nearly at the tracks — about 100 feet away — when Coach Wolf noticed the speeding train. He yelled, “Look out!”
Why didn’t they stop?
Apparently Potter did think about stopping, but apparently figured that would be useless since there was so much water on the road. Instead, he accelerated in an attempt to beat the train.
With 20 feet to go, it was obvious that he wouldn’t make it, so he cut hard left and tried to make it over the tracks at an angle in front of the train.
Several boys jumped or were thrown out of the bus as it started to pass over the tracks. Most of the bus had actually cleared the tracks when the train slammed into the rear end, destroying the vehicle.
In all, 10 of the passengers died from the accident: Jack Castellaw, Sam Dillow, Merle Dudley, Ivey Foster Jr., Robert Hailey, Robert Hannah Jr., Clyde “Abe” Kelley, Willis Murray, James Walker and William Winchester.
That’s just horrible. What happened right after the crash? Do we know?
Local residents immediately began to help the survivors. Doctors arrived at the scene, and survivors were taken into the station. As the bodies were identified and survivors accounted for, everyone was placed in the baggage car of the Sunshine Special and taken to Taylor for medical treatment. Two of the injured students were transported to a hospital in Georgetown, where they later died.
News of the tragedy quickly spread out to the various news services and throughout Texas.
Once they arrived in Taylor, the injured students were transported to the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital for treatment. The dead were taken to a funeral home.
Another sad part to this story involves a local laundry owner who joined the volunteers in transporting the bodies. As they were moving the fourth victim, the businessman realized it was his son, Ivey Foster Jr. He was devastated at the sight of his son’s lifeless body.
Unbelievable!
Eventually, the rest of the students left Taylor on a train back to Waco. They arrived to a waiting crowd around 6 o’clock in the evening.
I’m sure it was a long, somber ride back to Baylor.
How did the university and the community react to the news? It must have been terrible.
It was difficult for everyone. Baylor was a relatively small university at the time, around 1,500 students. It was an intimate campus where students knew one another. Over the next week, several funerals were held throughout Texas. Baylor hosted a memorial service that drew more than 3,000 people.
During the service, local businesses closed for an hour at the request of a mayoral proclamation and the city’s telephone system shut down. Flags flew at half-staff and the local schools let out at 2 p.m.
To a grieving audience, President Samuel Brooks offered these words:
“They were our boys — they can’t know how much we loved them.”
Obviously, the entire state of Texas reacted to this news.
That following Monday, the Texas House of Representatives immediately passed a resolution — drafted by alumnus and state legislator Robert Poage — that described the Immortal Ten as “worthy in every way to be acclaimed true sons of those great spirits who died at the Alamo and Goliad.” The flag flying over the capitol was also lowered to the half-staff position.
Something good did come out of this terrible accident, though.
Right. The tragedy also served a rallying point for railroad safety in the state. Texas House of Representatives Speaker Lee Bobbit wanted to pass a bill that would require automatic safety devices placed at all railroad crossings. Two other representatives, Ray Stout of Ennis and Roscoe Munge of Mason, drafted a bill that includedeliminating grade crossings and building overpasses throughout the state. Unfortunately, the bill did not have the support of Texas Governor Dan Moody and it eventually stalled out.
It would take eight years before an overpass was built over the railroad tracks in Round Rock.
Over the years, it seems like many of the survivors were not comfortable talking about the tragedy.
I think it was a bittersweet memory for most of them. Obviously, they were thankful to be alive but at the cost of their friends and teammates. Still one of the survivors, Dave Cheavens, sometimes spoke candidly about the event.
In the early 1960s, he accepted a position as chair of the Journalism Department at Baylor. And in 1964, he shared his story with the student body during a morning chapel service. He continued to do this for several years until the memory became too much for him.
An interesting thing about Cheavens is that he credited the tragedy with inspiring him to become a writer. In the mid-to-late 1960s, he described this in a letter to Jack Castellaw’s mother, Janie. He wrote:
“I, too, was a passenger in that bus, but the Lord spared my life. From that day to this, I have felt an obligation and challenge to dedicate my talents in writing for the good of mankind.”
Cheavens wrote this letter shortly after Janie made a gift to Baylor to construct the Castellaw Building — which still houses the Journalism and Media Arts and Communication Studies departments — in honor of her son, Jack.
A tragic tale like this needs a little sunlight. I seem to remember a story about one of the survivors who fell in love with his nurse?
Yes, Wesley Bradshaw received serious back injuries during the accident that resulted in surgery a few weeks later. That was followed up by five months of recovery in and out of hospitals. During this time, he met and fell in love with his nurse, a woman named Nola Knight. They eventually married.
And another nice part of the story involves Coach Wolf. If you remember, his wife was very pregnant when they left for the UT game that fateful day. When Wolf finally returned home — four days later — he got to meet his second child, a son named Ralph.
And one of the survivors named his son after one of the victims.
After the accident, Kiefer Strickland sent several letters to his friend Robert Hannah’s mother. In the letters, he described his grief and the emotional weight of being a survivor. He wrote:
“Yes, I am tired of school. I have been ever since the accident. There has never been anything to take the heart out of me so much as that. I do hope I can find some sort of recompense.”
He finally found his recompense 17 years later when he named his son Robert Hannah Strickland.
What can you tell us about the other survivors? Do we know what they did with their lives?
It’s not a surprise that several of the men pursued teaching and coaching careers. Keifer Strickland taught and coached basketball at SunsetHigh School in Dallas. Gordon Barry served as a superintendent in the HondoIndependentSchool District. Wesley Bradshaw taught and coached at the high school and college levels, including a stint as head football coach at OuachitaBaptistCollege. Cecil Bean served as principal of IrvinHigh School in El Paso.
Some of the other survivors enjoyed interesting careers, as well. Fred Acree enjoyed a long career as a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Louis Slade found success in the saddle-making business. Weir Washam coached the freshman football and basketball teams at Baylor for one year after graduation before moving on to the high school level.
But perhaps the most famous was John Kane, who became a B-24 bomber commander and was awarded a Medal of Honor for his role in “Operation Tidal Wave,” a large-scale bombing raid on Nazi forces in Romania during World War II.
I know that Coach Wolf enjoyed a long career at Baylor in the athletic program, but many people might not realize that he was also the Mayor of Waco during the 1953 tornado.
That’s another one of life’s eerie coincidences. Coach Wolf stayed at Baylor for almost three decades — until 1954 — and served in a variety of roles, including director of athletics. He also served as vice president and general manager of the Baylor Stadium Corporation, which was responsible for construction of the university’s football stadium. In 1932, he led the men’s basketball team to its first conference championship.
Twenty years later, he was elected as mayor in 1952, and a year after that, a devastating tornado ripped through and destroyed much of Waco’s downtown area. It would seem that fate placed the city in Wolf’s capable hands, according to The Waco Tribune-Herald, which published an editorial that read, in part:
“Ralph Wolf took his rightful place at the head of the disaster work with extra energy and zeal from his own rugged personality. It was a most fortunate meeting of man and destiny.”
Every year at Baylor’s massive Homecoming festivities, the story of the Immortal Ten is told during the Freshman Mass Meeting. How did that tradition start?
According to legend, the Freshman Mass Meeting started at Homecoming in 1928 as a way to honor the Immortal Ten and review other Baylor traditions. No one knows for sure if this emphasis remained after those initial years, especially during World War II, when Homecoming was suspended.
In 1947, the story gained a new place of prominence at Baylor. The Freshman Mass Meeting was led by yell leaders and dedicated to the memory of the Immortal Ten. What’s interesting is that the story was repeated the following morning in chapel — as a live radio drama.