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HB/S/P/PK "Chic" Harley (3x All-American, CFB HOF)

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Chic

I totally agree on retiring his number. Its long overdue.

What happens when Ohio State runs out of numbers? Will the use a decimal?

Frank Kremblas wore #22 as well. That number is retired. Just a plug!
 
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It's great to see that old footage. I was just reading about The Game in 1919 this morning, in Bob Hunter's book: Chic - The extraordinary rise of Ohio State football and the tragic schoolboy athlete who made it happen".

That's the only time Harley played against TSUN. They left the Western Conference (Big Ten) in 1907 because they objected to the conference implementing rules designed to give more faculty control over athletics. The conference was initiating limits on the number of games, 3-years per player, and eliminating training tables. TSUN didn't return to the conference until 1917, and tOSU didn't play them from 1913 (the year tOSU joined the conference) until 1918, due to a rule called 'non-intercourse'. Apparently that meant that the other members wouldn't have any fucking thing to do with TSUN.

And in 1918, Chic was in the service, so he only met the Vulvarines that single time in 1919. Coach Wilce was practicing for TSUN the week before The Game - when Kentucky was scheduled - that sounds familiar, doesn't it? tOSU then beat Kentucky 49-0, and during the game they sold enough 'tags' to raise the money to send the tOSU band up north for The Game.

The week before The Game, Wilce closed practices, stretching a canvas across the fence at the south end of the practice field; and enlisting trusted students to keep guard. Practices weren't open to the public in those days, but special attrention was used that week. Members of the press and others who often were present at practices were not allowed in.

Before a certain new play was run, everyone on the practice field had to show their passes again. This suspicion during practices also sounds quite familiar.

There was a full crowd of 28,000 at Ferry Field on October 25, 1919, an estimated 5,000 of them tOSU fans (no, I wasn't there). After tOSU fumbled the opening kickoff, they held TSUN without a score, then later in the first quarter got on the board by recovering a blocked TSUN punt in the end zone. After a TSUN field goal made it 7-3 at the half, Harley scored from 42 yards out on a play later described like this by TSUN coach Fielding Yost:

"Harley's change of pace, straight-arming, and shifting of the hips as he shook off those tackles in making his run for a touchdown was as pretty a piece of work as I ever saw any player do. Harley threw off my best tacklers when making that run."

Down 13-3, TSUN turned to a passing attack. They attempted 16 passes, and completed nary a one, unless you're counting the three caught by Buckeyes, two of them by Chic.

After The Game, Fielding "Hurry Up" Yost, who had been at TSUN for 19 years and had coached them to 5 undefeated seasons and multiple MNCs, did something he had never done before: he went to the opposing team's locker room after a loss, and said this:

"You deserve your victory. You fought brilliantly. You boys gave a good exhibition of football strategy, and while I'm sorry, deadfully sorry, that we lost, I want to congratulate you. And you, Mr. Harley, I believe you are one of the finest little machines I have ever seen. Again, I want to congratulate Ohio State."

tOSU and TSUN had played 15 times before that, but with Chic Harley in 1919, it was the first time it was The Game.
 
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Chic a tribute to OSU footballs beginnings
By Marc Katz
Staff Writer
Thursday, May 28, 2009

Fathers Day is next month, and while normally self-promotion is taboo, let me suggest purchasing the book Chic for any fatherly Ohio State fan.

Bob Hunter of The Columbus Dispatch wrote the copy, and I helped with the research. Its a tough book to find outside Columbus, as tough as bringing down Chic Harley, a halfback who also was an exceptional passer, punter and drop kicker.

He was an unassuming kid who later encountered mental problems that faded him off the sports pages but not out of memory. Three decades after his on-field exploits, Columbus fans fashioned a Broadway-type motorcade when he returned for a Michigan game.

Harley was OSUs first All-America, and his 1919 team was the first to beat the Wolverines.

Our original focus was on Harley as the guy who made it possible for dreamers Thomas French and Lynn St. John to build Ohio Stadium.

Not long into our research, Hunter and I discovered what should have been obvious from the start. Harley was the impetus for OSU football as we know it. Without Harley, OSU is, well, Wisconsin or Iowa.
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‘Chic’ a tribute to OSU football’s beginnings

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Chic-Extraordinary-Football-Schoolboy-Athlete/dp/193319748X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243548126&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: Chic: The Extraordinary Rise of Ohio State Football and the Tragic Schoolboy Athlete Who Made It Happen: Bob Hunter, John Baskin: Books[/ame]
 
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No one in American sport lived a life quite like Chic Harley.

"What people don't know about Chic is what a fantastic person he was. He was bashful and so unassuming.
He never pushed himself on you. I think it's one reason so many people loved him."
---Charlie Seddon, Chic Harley's college teammate and lifelong friend.

Born Charles William Harley in 1894, he was considered one of the two greatest college halfbacks of the first half of the twentieth century. Harley could do everything exceedingly well: run, pass, punt, kick extra points and field goals, tackle, block, and play safety. He was born in Chicago, the sixth child of Charles and Mattie Harley. He played in an era long before the spoilage of multi-million dollar salaries and the use of drug enhancements. Players competed because they enjoyed and loved the game, not as a means to make money. As a high school quarterback, he lit up Ohio gridirons by scoring three or four touchdowns and kicking as many as eight extra points per game on a regular basis. As Ohio State halfback he did the same propelling the small school into national prominence almost single-handedly.

In 1921, following Harley?s college career, George Halas, the manager of the Decatur Staleys (later to become the Chicago Bears), football team wanted to recruit Chic so badly that he offered he and his brother, Bill, half of the season?s proceeds. But by the end of the 1921 season, everything had changed and Chic was embarking on a terrible struggle to maintain his sanity. Within days after his final game as a pro, Chic found himself confined to a sanitarium in Dayton, Ohio. It was the start of a battle with mental illness that would tragically remain with him the rest of his life.

For the next four decades, Harley lived in an Illinois Veterans Administration Hospital. While his close friends never forgot what he had done for American sport and in particular for Ohio State University, Chic?s star slowly faded into near obscurity. It was the love of his friends and, in particularly his loving sister Ruth, that gave Chic the strength and determination to live his life as best he could. It was also the love of his nephew, Richard, the only child of Ruth, who played a pivotal role in keeping Chic?s flame alive to this day.

The new book The One And Only chronicles the exhilarating ups and tragic downs of this quiet, modest sports hero as told by a family member who knew him well.
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http://www.chicharley.com/

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFX11ojXBDE]YouTube - Todd Wessell, Author - What is the Book About?[/ame]
 
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Commentary
For all he gave, and suffered, Chic Harley deserves more
Saturday, August 15, 2009
By Mike Harden

225chic_harley.jpg

File Photo

After his career at Ohio State, Chic Harley spent much of the last 54 years of his life in sanitariums or veterans hospitals.
The twinkle in his eyes made it easy to imagine him as a white-robed choirboy with a black eye. His devilish smile was wrought with undiluted orneriness.

OSU football great Chic Harley had the world on a string, and an adoring Columbus in the palm of his hand in those long-gone glory days when he dazzled the Buckeye faithful with the moves of a water spider on Dexedrine.

My colleague, Dispatch sports columnist Bob Hunter, recounted Harley's life in the compellingly written Chic, published in October.

Now comes Harley's great-nephew Todd Wessell with a biography titled The One and Only.

An abiding melancholy colors both books.

Imagine the mental equivalent of Lou Gehrig's disease, and you have the affliction that dogged the former Ohio State great from the end of his collegiate career to his death.

Diagnosed schizophrenic, Chic grew quiet and withdrawn.

"I knew him as this bashful, kind guy," Wessell said Thursday. "He'd be sitting there wearing a sheepish little smile. He rarely talked."

When the demons besetting him were working overtime, he'd be found kneeling in prayer in snowdrifts, muttering about the end of the world, going missing only to be found at a potato farm in Michigan.

He was no longer the Chic whose feats helped lift Buckeyes football from pasture muggings to a pastime.

In 1919, Harley's stellar play helped Ohio State beat Michigan for the first time in 15 games.
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The Columbus Dispatch : For all he gave, and suffered, Chic Harley deserves more
 
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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQgWwelb6PA"]YouTube - LOST LEGEND: The Chic Harley Story- OSU's first great football player[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMZ-DIS9BUU]YouTube - LOST LEGEND: The Chic Harley Story- OSU's first great football player- TRAILER[/ame]
 
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Ohio State football great Chic Harley is getting his share of props this fall. Dean Carnevale is wrapping up work on a one-hour video production titled Lost Legend, The Chic Harley Story, and plans a private premiere to invited guests at the Buckeye Hall of Fame Cafe on Oct. 29.

Meanwhile, a banner marking "Chic Harley Field" will be unveiled at East High School before a game on Oct. 9. The sign was paid for by Todd Wessell, Harley's great-nephew and author of a book about him entitled The One and Only. The football field was once marked by a sign honoring Harley, an East graduate, but it has been gone for several years.

Harley, who died in 1974, played for Ohio State from 1916 to '19.
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Bob Hunter commentary: Rumblings | The Columbus Dispatch
 
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The Old Oaks Civic Association hopes to create a memorial garden at the empty lot at 689 S. Champion Ave., site of one of the childhood homes of former Ohio State football great Chic Harley. The house was razed in the 1980s.

The association hopes to raise money for a historical marker for the site and has been tossing around ideas for the garden; a topiary of Ohio Stadium, known as the House that Harley Built, is among the suggestions.

Harley fans interested in contributing ideas or money can contact association President Bryan Boatright at [email protected].

It might be a while before Harley is honored with that marker, but he will get his due before tonight's East-Linden football game. The sign marking "Chic Harley Field" at East will be unveiled there.
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Bob Hunter commentary: Rumblings | The Columbus Dispatch
 
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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkvilLMgLJ4]YouTube - Football Then and Now[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25zbnx4JWtQ]YouTube - The True Feeling of the Book[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBFdjxnrVPs]YouTube - Chic Harley Trailer- In Memorium[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNrh6X9_I0M]YouTube - College Football Hall of Fame - Chic Harley Highlights[/ame]
 
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