Johnny Bender, Sutton Football Hero

Who is Sutton’s Number One individual sports figure?

About five years ago, we suggested that the 1922 Sutton High basketball team was Sutton’s No. 1 sports story, and no one has questioned that assessment. This month we suggest that Johnny Bender was the top individual sports figure of our community.

Johnny Bender left a broad legacy across the world of sports. He was an outstanding collegiate athlete but his bigger impact was as a coach.

He was a graduate of the Sutton High Class of ’00 and as much as we’d like to detail his high school career, we lack details to tell that story. 

Johnny Reinhold "Johnny" Bender was born in Sutton in 1882 and was in the
Sutton High School Class of 1900.

Let’s move on to college.

Johnny Bender was one of the first Nebraska football stars. The pertinent entry on the all-time list of Nebraska lettermen reads, “Bender, Johnny, 1900-01-02-03-04. Yes, you saw that correctly. Johnny Bender was a 5-year letterman the University of Nebraska football team. He was one of only two players to have that record. John Ringer from Lincoln did it one year earlier, 1899 – 1903. That is a record that will stand for all time, unless the NCAA makes some major rule changes.

Johnny Bender arrived on the Nebraska campus in 1900 along with the new coach, Walter C. “Bummy” Booth who had graduated from Princeton that spring. Booth compiled a 46-8-1 record in his six years at Nebraska, five of those years with Johnny Bender as his star halfback. One Husker recruiting website states that Bender arrived at Nebraska on a scholarship to play quarterback.

That 1900 season was also the first year Nebraska played as The Cornhuskers.

Nebraska was undefeated through the 1902 and 1903 seasons ripping off 24 consecutive wins until a 6-0 loss to Colorado in the third game of the 1904 season. That record stood until the Tom Osborne led Huskers won 26 in a row, ending with the 19-0 loss to Pat Tillman and the Arizona State Wildcats in the second game of 1996.

The 1902 team was not scored on; the 1903 team gave up 5 points to Knox College though Lincoln High did score 6 points on them in an exhibition game. Johnny Bender was the captain of the 1903 team. He held the Nebraska career scoring record when he left the Huskers.

His Wikipedia entry claims that he balked at playing against Minnesota one year until the school made good on his pay demands. Could be.

John Reinhold Bender was born in Sutton on May 14, 1882, the son of Jacob Andrew Bender and Eugenia “Jennie” Reuss. Jacob Bender was from the Russian village of Balzer along the Volga River, his wife was from the nearby village of Moor. Their arrival in Sutton in 1875 was as part of the migration of Germans from Russia after 1872.

The oldest Bender child was Henry who became a Sutton auctioneer. Emilie Bender married Elmer Trabert; Theresia Bender was the wife of Dr. Herman Bening. John Reinhold “Johnny” was the fourth child in the family. Nathaniel Gustave “Gus” followed Johnny and Irmengarde Bender was married to Joseph Hash.

Eugenia Bender died in 1898 within a year after Irmengarde was born. Jacob married Amalia Heinz in 1902; she died in 1912. He then married Pauline Leonhardt in 1913. Jacob died in 1928.

The Bender business was the John Deere Implement dealership
that operated in Sutton for about 125 years. Johnny's father
Jacob built this building in 1906.

Jacob Bender began business with Mr. Zimblemen with the Bender & Zimbleman implement dealership. The partnership ended and the business was soon named Jacob Bender & Son with Gus Bender as the partner. The business operated for about 125 years, later in the hands of the three sons of Gus Bender and Clara Henrietta Landmann, Paul, Fritz and Wally. (Paul Jacob, Frederick Gustave, and Wallace Niel). It was a large John Deere franchise earning performance awards from that company regularly.

But back to Johnny.

Johnny Bender’s first coaching job was at Washington State University where his 1906 team went 6-0 and the next year posted a 7-1 record. He also had the head basketball coaching gig where his team was 12-3, the schools best mark so far, by far. And he was the baseball coach.

His next job was at the Haskell Indian Nations University where his 1908 and 1909 teams were 3-6-1 and 7-2.

Then onto Saint Louis University in 1910 and 1911 where Johnny Bender entered sports folklore.

A St. Louis sportswriter thought that Coach Johnny
Bender looked like the Billiken doll leading to the
Saint Louis U. sports teams becoming the Billikens
and they still are.

There was a doll on the market in those days, designed by a Kansas City art teacher that was called the Billiken. Wikipedia describes the doll as, “…elephant-like with pointed ears, a mischievous smile and a tuft of hair on its pointed head. His arms were short and he was generally sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. Billiken was known as ‘The God of Things as They Ought to Be.’” The doll was associated with good luck. A St. Louis sports reporter also thought it looked a little like Johnny Bender.

Locals began to refer to the Saint Louis football team as “Bender’s Billikens” and the name stuck. It is still the nickname and mascot of teams at Saint Louis University St. Louis University High School.

The cultural reach of Sutton history stretches far and wide.

Bender’s next move was rare among coaches. He returned to Washington State for the 1912-1914 seasons giving him five seasons with that school divided into two separate appearances. Did any other coach, and school, do such a thing?

Next was a one-year stop at Kansas State and a mediocre 3-4-1 season but Johnny Bender did have two lasting contributions to that institution. He started the annual homecoming event and named his team the “Wildcats”.

We come to a singular event in collegiate coaching history with Bender’s next move, at least, I can’t find another like it. Coach Bender swapped jobs with Tennessee head football coach Zora G. Clevenger between the 1915 and 1916 seasons. Coach Bender was at Tennessee from 1916 through 1920 posting an 6-0-1 record in 1916, 3-3-3 in 1919 and 7-2 in 1920. The school did not field teams in ’17 and ’18 as the nation had a distraction for its young men during those years.

John Bender served in the 360^th Infantry during World War I. He was a captain when he filled out his WWI draft registration card listing his wife’s home address in Knox, Indiana and his employment at Ft. Bliss near El Paso, Texas. He attained the rank of major in the army.

Tennessee had a lousy football program in those years. Bender’s team shocked the southeast, including Tennessee fans with an upset of Vanderbilt one year. A book called “Legends of the Tennessee Volunteers” by Marvin West illustrated the weakness of the program by pointing out that Coach Bender resigned at UT because Knoxville High made him a better offer. Maybe. Could be. Anyhow, Robert Neyland arrived in the mid-1920’s fixing things for the Volunteers.

Coach Bender’s contribution to football strategy while at Tennessee was the short punt formation.

And our coach had the Tennessee basketball program in 1917, 1920 and 1921 with a 29-15 record; and was coach of the baseball team in ’17 and ’20.

 

Sutton's Johnny Bender was the first star running back for
the Cornhuskers and made his name in collegiate coaching.

Johnny Bender’s career in coaching major college football ended at Tennessee. He took a job as a physical education instructor at a small college in Houston where he coached a squad of volunteer football players. He named them the Cougars after his Washington State team. The college newspaper picked up “The Cougar” name. The small college grew into the University of Houston still using that name.

Johnny Bender had married Pearl Josephine Cassell in Knox, Indiana in 1909. They had three children, John Jacob, Margaret Josephine and William Cassell and were living in Houston when John Bender died on July 24, 1928.

He is buried in the Sutton Cemetery where the flagpole was dedicated by Pearl in 1933 in memory of Major Bender.

Pearl Cassell’s name had a personal interest for me. Cassell was my mother’s name. The Cassell surname has at least two separate origins. Ours is Scotland where the Cassels clan is a sept of Clan Kennedy. The German Cassell name originates in the city of Kassel. Spellings in both branches became innovative.

 

Johnny Bender is buried in the Sutton Cemetery

While we are talking about individual sports figures, we’ll briefly mention one more, not a Sutton story, but an area story.

Clarence Mitchell was born in Franklin, Nebraska on February 22, 1891. He was a baseball pitcher in the major leagues from 1911 to 1932 playing for the Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, Brooklyn Robins, Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a spitball pitcher.

For the youngsters in the crowd, the spitball was an especially effective pitch that was enhanced by placing a foreign substance on the ball affecting the balance of the ball. The most readily available substance was expectorate, yes, spit. The subject still comes up when an umpire detects evidence – there are rules.

The rule against the spitter went into effect in 1920. A number of spitball pitchers, 8 to 17 depending on your reading choices, were allowed to continue to throw their spitter through the end of their careers – they were “grandfathered”. Clarence Mitchell was a left-handed pitcher. He was the “Only Grandfathered Left-Handed Spitball Pitcher” in the major leagues. A singular distinction.

But after Mitchell retired and was running a bar in Aurora, Nebraska, his spitball pitching distinction was not what he capitalized on.

Mitchell was with the Brooklyn Dodgers (aka Robins) in the 1920 World Series against the Cleveland Indians. In Game 5, Clarence Mtichell came up to bat with men on first and second and hit a line drive to Cleveland second baseman Bill Wambsganss who then stepped on second base and then tagged the oncoming runner from first completing the only unassisted triple play in World Series history. A big enough deal, but in Mitchell’s next at-bat, he hit into a double play accounting for five outs in two consecutive at-bats, in a World Series game – a serious record.

Clarence Mitchell’s post-career Aurora bar featured a swizzle stick stamped with the account of his ignominious World Series batting feat.

Oh, yes, game 5 of the 1920 World Series also saw the first World Series grand slam home run AND the first World Series home run by a pitcher – not Clarence Mitchell. And Brooklyn outhit Cleveland in that game but lost 8-1.

Clarence Mitchell is buried in the Aurora Cemetery where his tombstone has to make the short list for "most interesting".