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The
Bronze Turkey |
| (The following was compiled from
information from the Monmouth College history book "A Thousand
Hearts Devotion," articles by former sports information director
Rick Partin, various newspaper articles and personal accounts.) |
ESPN named it as one of "the five
weirdest trophies in sports."
It's been kidnapped. It's been broken.
In its life span, it's suffered more indignities than should be
expected.
It's the Bronze Turkey, and it's the
beloved symbol of the sixth-longest college football rivalry in the
nation.
The exact date of the first game may have
been forgotten, but the rivalry between Monmouth and Knox Colleges that
began on a football field in 1888 is etched in the collective memory of
the two schools.
Knox can lay claim to the inception of
today's symbol of football supremacy by virtue of former player Bill
Collins, who in 1928 persuaded the Galesburg Register Mail and the
Monmouth Review Atlas to donate $40 each toward a trophy to be
presented to the winner of the annual contest. Symbolizing the fact that
the annual game was then held on Thanksgiving Day, the trophy was topped
by a large bronze turkey on an ebony base. Each year, the Bronze Turkey
was formally presented at the home basketball game of the victor, that
is, when the bird could be found.
The first in a long line of bird-knappings
occurred in the early 1940s, when the trophy went missing for five years.
Eventually, Monmouth officials were tipped off that the bird might be
found buried under the dirt track in the basement of the gymnasium.
In 1965, the bird was stolen again, this
time in an elaborate plot to liberate the bird from the Monmouth College
trophy case. A Knox student posing as a Monmouth student newspaper
reporter convinced the student center director to take the trophy outdoors
for a promotional photograph. Once outside, the director was called to the
phone and when he returned the bird and the "reporter" had vanished.
In retaliation for the theft, Monmouth
students responded in a military propaganda-style attack, using an
airplane to drop fake issues of the Knox student newspaper over the
Galesburg campus warning of the agony that would befall them in the Bronze
Turkey game.
The following year, two Monmouth students
set out to uncover the whereabouts of the missing turkey. The pair
concocted a spin-off of the previous year's heist by infiltrating the Knox
hierarchy posing as reporters from the SIU Egyptian newspaper,
explaining that SIU was exploring the possibility of a similar rivalry
with Bowling Green.
The "reporters" spent over an hour
establishing themselves as legitimate reporters which spurred one Knox
student to inform their athletic director that the pair was "not Monmouth
students trying our trick from last year." The pair was then escorted to a
safe where the bird was stored and allowed to photograph the "missing"
trophy.
The following week, the Oracle,
Monmouth's student newspaper, broke the story of the discovery
of the wayward bird.
The bird heist in 1984 did not require as
much planning - thieves simply broke the glass of the trophy case and
absconded with the bird. The bird went AWOL for nearly 10 years before it
was returned in "James Bond" fashion.
During a reunion gathering in 1993 just
weeks before the annual Monmouth-Knox game, the bird reappeared. With the
Class of 1983 inside, a car pulled up in front of the Filling Station III
restaurant and a mysterious box was handed to an unsuspecting bystander,
who in turn, delivered the package to English professor Gary Willhardt.
Professor Willhardt, not knowing what was inside the package, tore open
the box to find the wayward bird and a note which read, "The last hostage
is home," along with a derogatory remark concerning Monmouth's arch rival.
During the nearly decade-long absence,
the Galesburg Register Mail had a replacement bird made and
although not as ornate as the original, the "body double" turkey is as
much revered.
The original turkey is worse for the
wear. Purchased through Steinfeldt Jewelers in Galesburg, the ready-made
bronze turkey found at a Chicago wholesale house featured an ebony base
inscribed with the scores of each game. The base has long been lost,
perhaps the result of the 1940s turkey caper, the wings have been broken
and soldered, and the turkey itself leans forward with the breast resting
on the replacement base.
With a rivalry so intense, played for a
trophy so prized, the battles encompass more than the actual participants.
In the 1930s it was not uncommon for the
winning team's fans to tear down the goal posts. Such was the case when
Knox won the contest in 1938 - at least that's how it started.
Knox had come out on top 14-7 and their
fans immediately began lowering the north goal post. Monmouth freshman
Bobby Dunlap, who would later earn the Congressional Medal of Honor for
his heroics at the Battle of Iwo Jima in WW II, and Ray Cook raced to the
south end zone to defend that goal post. The pair was successful in
rallying the Monmouth fans to defend their turf and the south goal post
was spared.
Throughout the years, students from both
schools have pulled many pranks on their rivals in the week leading up
to the actual game. In 1955, while seeking revenge for a stolen
scoreboard, a band of Monmouth students made the 15-mile trek to the
east to paint "Beat Knox" on the Galesburgers' campus.
One carload mistook the Knox County
Courthouse, adjacent to the Knox campus, for a Knox building and set fire
to a statue. The statue happened to be that of Civil War nurse "Mother
Bickerdyke." The students were quickly apprehended and suspended from
school for 21 days due to the gaff.
The series was in favor of Knox until
1989 when the two teams tangled in what was at the time thought to be the
100th meeting between the two teams. Monmouth won that game
14-0 and produced the first series tie in the century old rivalry.
It was not until the turn of the 21st
century did officials at Monmouth uncover a missing game which meant the
actual 100th game had been played one year earlier. Not to
worry - Monmouth won that game 45-6.
The Fighting Scots' current 10-game win
streak in the series ties the record
for consecutive years without relinquishing the turkey. Monmouth's first
10-year grip ran from 1966 to 1975. The Scots nearly lost claim to
the bird when the teams tied in 1973.
For now, the "body double" turkey is
awarded to the winning school at their home basketball game while the
original Bronze Turkey is safely tucked away at an undisclosed location.
Additional Scots History:
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