Craig Ross must love scavenger hunts. On yesterday's WTKA MGoBlog Roundtable, he suggested that I look into Wu Tingfang, the Chinese minister who attended a Michigan football game in Detroit at the turn of the century. This is therefore something of a follow-up of the story of the 1925 Michigan-Northwestern game and the riots that followed (LINK).

The New York Times (November 3, 1901) preserves the basic facts (LINK):

          MICHIGAN, 22; CARLISLE, 0.

     DETROIT, Mich.. Nov. 2.-The University of Michigan defeated the Carlisle Indian School football team at Bennett Park this afternoon before 8,000 people, by the score of 22 to 0. Wu Ting-Fang, Chinese Minister to the United States, occupied one of the boxes with former secretary of War Alger, who, at the close of the game, in response to the demands of the spectators, addressed them, congratulating Michigan on its victory.

     Michigan made three touchdowns, Shorts kicking goal twice, and scored five points on a place kick. Two of the touchdowns and the place kick were made in the first half. The Indians braced up wonderfully in the second half, and it was only by the hardest kind of line-bucking that Michigan scored one touchdown. Line-up:

 

Michigan (22.)	Position	Caslisle, (0.)
Redden, Knight	Left end	Beaver, Bradley Coleman.
White	Left tackle	Lubo
McGugin	Left guard	Phillips
Gregory	Centre	Schouchuk, Chesaw
Wilson	Right guard	White
Shorts	Right tackle	Dillon
Hernstein	Right end	Hare
Weeks	Quarter	Sheldon, Johnson
Heston	Left half	Johnson, Beaver
Sweeley	Right half	Yarlott, Saul
Snow	Full back	Williams

Referee--Louis Hinkey. Umpire--Ralph Hoagland. Time of halves, 27 1/2 minutes.

Minister Wu Ting Fang of China witnessed the football game between the University of Michigan and the Carlisle Indians, October 2. It was his first game and he certainly made satisfactory progress in knowledge of the sport. He entered the grand stand just after Michigan had pushed the ball over the line, leaving two redmen overcome on the ground.'

"Are they dead yet?" queried Mr. Wu with polite solicitude, as he surveyed the spectacle.

"Oh, no!" said one of the party's student guides. "Look, they are getting up."

"Marvelous tenacity of life," commented the distiguished visitor. "How many sudden deaths would it take to postpone the game?"

Presently, as the game went on, Mr. Wu became philosophical.

"It is a beautiful thought," he said sententiously, after watching the game fora time, "to think that the fathers of these red men, a few years ago, were being shot down and hunted, and now their sons are taking strides in civilization, are given a helping hand by a mighty government, and, ---"

Just at that moment the Indian full back, scopped in a hot punt, and had started up the field when the two Michigan ends came thundering down on him and dragged him back toward his own goal.

"And," continued Mr. Wu, "taken in the arms of the white man like a brother. There is no discrimination because of his color. It is a truly beautiful thought."

Everybody agreed with Mr. Wu. After the game, won by Michigan, the minister made a little speech of congratulation to the victors, and condolence to the vanquished.

[Mr. Wu] laughed heartily when General Alger suggested that he was the mascot and brought victory to the Wolverine camp.

We have nothing corresponding to tennis and other Western ball games, nor, indeed, any game in which the opposite sexes join. Archery was a health-giving exercise of which modern ideas of war robbed us. The same baneful influence has caused the old-fashioned healthful gymnastic exercises with heavy weights to be discarded. I have seen young men on board ocean-going steamers throwing heavy bags of sand to one another as a pastime. This, though excellent practice, hardly equals our ancient athletic feats with the bow or the heavy weight. Western sports have been introduced into some mission and other schools in China, but I much doubt if they will ever be really popular among my people. They are too violent, and, from the oriental standpoint, lacking in dignity. Yet, when Chinese residing abroad do take up Western athletic sports they prove themselves the equals of all competitors, as witness their success in the Manila Olympiad, and the name the baseball players from the Hawaiian Islands Chinese University made for themselves when they visited America. Nevertheless, were the average Chinese told that many people buy the daily paper in the West simply to see the result of some game, and that a sporting journalism flourishes there, i.e., papers devoted entirely to sport, they would regard the statement as itself a pleasant sport. Personally, I think we might learn much from the West in regard to sports. They certainly increase the physical and mental faculties, and for this reason, if for no other, deserve to be warmly supported. China suffers because her youths have never been trained to team-work. We should be a more united people if as boys and young men we learned to take part in games which took the form of a contest, in which, while each contestant does his best for his own side, the winning or losing of the game is not considered so important as the pleasure of the exercise. I think a great deal of the manliness which I have admired in the West must be attributed to the natural love of healthy sport for sport's sake. Games honestly and fairly played inculcate the virtues of honor, candidness, and chivalry, of which America has produced many worthy specimens. When one side is defeated the winner does not exult over his defeated opponents but attributes his victory to an accident; I have seen the defeated crew in a boat race applauding their winning opponents. It is a noble example for the defeated contestants to give credit to and to applaud the winner, an example which I hope will be followed by my countrymen.

• Carlisle was paid $2000 for the game (Gerald Gems, For Pride, Profit and Patriarchy: Football and the Incorporation of American Cultural Values [2000], pp. 119-120)
• Michigan had trouble with Carlisle's "move over" play, "in which the entire team is shifted to one side of center, thus confusing and weakening the enemy" (LINK)
• Redden, Michigan's left end, "was knocked breathless, but was ready and snxious to play ten minutes after the injury." (LINK)
• One of Carlisle's best players, Louis Leroy, didn't play in the game because he deserted the team on the day of the game, something that he did four times while at Carlisle (Jeffrey P. Powers-Beck, The American Indian Integration of Baseball [2004], pp. 105-106)