Cicero Red Devils Oil-up Right into State Finals!
ANDERSON, Ind. -- The Cicero High School Red Devils won the 1916 Sectional in dramatic fashion, downing Anderson, 18-12. However, it seems Cicero Coach A. Landreth had a unique tactic, that while not specifically against the rules, clearly smeared the spirit of it.
The Red Devils came out of the locker room for the tip-off covered in olive oil. Eyewitnesses account that it wasn’t just a small amount either. "Gleaming in the lights head to toe," one spectator noted.
One newspaper remarked about their “sleek appearance” in warm-ups, and when they moved, “their bodies flashed like mirrors.”
It wasn’t only their appearance that had changed. The Anderson five had almost no success in keeping the slick Devils away from the basket. When the half had ended, Cicero was on top in a near walk-away for the time, 13-6.
But this is when things get interesting because on hand in the capacity crowd of 2400 frenzied spectators was none-other than the IHSAA Secretary himself, King Arthur Trester.
Trester demanded and received a halftime audience with Coach Landreth. A newspaper account indicates as soon as he entered the Cicero locker room, his nose told him all he needed to know – olive oil!
The Coach didn’t deny the heavy application, but instead justified it for its medicinal properties, as it helped “keep his boys’ muscles more pliable.”
The no-nonsense Trester wasn’t having any of it, stating wonderfully, “That in this great and glorious state of Indiana, you cannot mix olive oil and basketball. Off with the grease!”
“That in this great and glorious state of Indiana, you cannot mix olive oil and basketball. Off with the grease!”
Coach Landreth immediately took to trying to towel the boys off and even attempted to apply powder to foil the oil, but again Trester was not going along with it.
“To the showers!” ordered the state’s most powerful Secretary.
And off they went. Every Cicero player showered, and each uniform personally inspected by Trester before the Red Devils were allowed to return to the bench. One report indicated the halftime period lasted more than an hour.
Cicero, now sans grease, held on for an 18-12 Sectional championship. One Anderson fan actually credited the halftime showers as the true advantage gained by Cicero. “Those showers freshened-up the Cicero players considerably, and they went back into the game as frisky as comic opera chorus girls.”
“Those showers freshened-up the Cicero players considerably, and they went back into the game as frisky as comic opera chorus girls.”
Anderson was not the only victim in the historic greasing of the 16-team Sectional.Cicero opened up the action by downing Mt. Comfort, 73-9. Their second round was a 45-15 pasting of Yorktown.Cicero next slipped past (literally) a game Muncie squad in the Semifinal, 23-19, setting-up their noteworthy Championship tilt with Anderson.
It has been reported over time that Trester allowed the Sectional title to stand, but denied Cicero the right to compete at the upcoming State Finals a few days later.
To the contrary, Cicero did in fact compete in Bloomington, but they were martyred by Valpo in their first game, 34-23.
Cicero finished the season 18-4-1 (25-25 tie with New Castle.) There is no reference to any oiling during their regular season games, just the last two Sectional games with Muncie and Anderson.
A new IHSAA rule emerged shortly thereafter. This from the IHSAA Board Minutes from later that spring.
ANDERSON VS. CICERO. IN RE-OILING OF PLAYERS
The Board hereby censures the management of the Cicero team for using tactics meant to give advantage and which marred an otherwise successful tourney at Anderson. The Board does not sanction such methods and its stamp of disapproval is hereby placed on the conduct of the Cicero management and upon all such management in the future. In the absence of any rule or precedent in the case the decision was free from a severer penalty. The following ruling will govern all future cases of a similar nature and the Board offers no leniency whatever to any school. "No school shall at any time use any methods in any contest which are meant to be unfair and which appear on the surface as being unsportsmanlike. The burden of proof here will be on the school violating the spirit of courtesy, friendliness, co-operation and clean athletics."
A national sports writer actually picked-up this story as it ran in a New York paper. He summed it up nicely with this:"The moral of the story? Use olive oil for salads and medicinally, but don’t extend its uses to basket-ball contests."
Not to be outdone, a poet from the Muncie Evening Press shared this gem:
Oil Town Boys
They thought they’d slip one over,
On the boys of Muncie high.
They thought they would use olive oil
And they thought they’d get by.
Whene’er they slipped into a clinch,
They laughed and slipped on through.
And Muncie High, poor Muncie High,
Just didn’t know what to do.
Then someone noticed the Cicero bunch,
As they walked under the light.
And noticed they shined and glistened,
Like a red nose on Saturday night.
And when they sweat great globs of sweat,
The oil it oozed right out.
It oozed and flowed and flowed and oozed,
Like water from a spout.
That settled it for Muncie High,
And the other schools of learn’n.
And Cicero’s race hangs side by side,
With Foulis and Dai Vernon.*
*Foulis – Inventor that died in poverty
*Vernon – Famed magician of the era
I didn’t know the 1916 references either... Also of note, I have referenced Cicero as the Red Devils throughout this story, but truth be told the earliest I have found them using that mascot/nickname was 1933. It is very likely they were not yet the Red Devils in 1916.