Friday Funnies

This is a lengthy Friday Funnies, but what's not-so-funny is that the story is absolutely true. Not only did it fool various media 85 years ago, but it's connected to my NJ hometown.

A newspaper story about the college and its star halfback

That's because, in 1941, one of the oddest sports hoaxes of all time was about a football team based in Plainfield, NJ. I learned of this notoriety several weeks ago through a small book, The Book of the Bizarre, Freaky Facts & Strange Stories a small 300-page treasure trove of unusual, stranger-than-fiction stories, usually limited to a page or less. 

One of these titled Don't Believe Everything You Read told the story of Plainfield teachers College football tea, that in 1941, had both a winning season and a star quarterback with its wins published in major newspapers. The problem was that the college and its team were the creation on a prankster NY stockbroker.

The story remains a legendary example of early 20th-century sports journalism, highlighting how easily made-up info could be accepted as truth. Somehow, it seems not dissimilar to current day AI.

While the book provided highlights, I wanted to learn more about how a NYC stockbroker fooled well-established newspapers and other media into printing the winning scores of a bogus football team. The school's star player, a fictional Chinese-American halfback, was described as a touchdown-scoring machine.

For 3 weeks, New York and regional Philadelphia newspapers published fabricated, winning game reports about this non-existent NJ team and its star player reporting the college's dominance in football games. Surprisingly, the reports were widely believed.

Who Started the Fantasy Football Team?

Morris Newburger, circa 1926

That distinction belongs to Morris Newburger and his business friends and co-conspirators, Lew Krupnick and Alexander Dannenbaum Jr.

Newburger was a senior partner at the family's Wall Street investment firm of Newburger, Loeb & Company and a 1926 graduate of Harvard University. The company dated to the 1860s when his grandfather (Morris Newburger) started a wholesale clothing business which transitioned into the securities business and continued until its 1974 bankruptcy.

Two of his passions were sports and pranks. Krupnick ran the mail room at the company. Dannenbaum, a friend of Newburger’s, was in the broadcast business in Philadelphia.

On Sundays, Newburger, read college football scores in NYC papers including those for small colleges like Slippery Rock State Teachers College in PA. He wondered if such colleges really existed or if a sports editor had invented them and printed game scores to fill up space. (Slippery Rock is an actual college founded as the Slippery Rock State Normal School in 1889, renamed Slippery Rock State Teachers College in 1926, and is now Slippery Rock University located in western  PA.)

Newburger soon realized that there was no way that reporters from any of the major NYC papers could attend any of these obscure games and that they depended on a school representative calling in game results every Saturday night.

That fact gave him an idea to phone in a score for a fictional school. He wanted to find out if it would get printed. So, on an Saturday in the fall of 1941, he called the sports desks of The New York Herald Tribune and told the reporter who answered that he was reporting a small-college football score: Plainfield Teachers College, 27 vs. Winona College, 3.

The call didn't arouse undue suspicion as it wasn't uncommon for smaller schools to phone in scores because of the lack of telegraph facilities. (Back then, New Jersey had actual teacher colleges in Jersey City, Newark, Paterson, Montclair, Glassboro and Trenton; none had a football team.) 

To Newburger's amusement, the score for Plainfield vs. Winona appeared in major papers the next day. The New York Times had the Plainfield-Winona score, on the first page of the sports section, near accounts of wins by Fordham, Army, Notre Dame and Dartmouth listed in alphabetical order. Plainfield-Winona was listed below Penn State.

Newburger set the teacher's college in Plainfield as it was hometown to his secretary. Another part of the prank was that teachers colleges back then were predominantly female, which made it unusual for one to have a powerhouse football team. 

The easy success of the hoax made Newburger believe that Plainfield Teachers College should continue its football season against nine also fictional teams. For the next few weeks, he called the sports desks of the papers every Saturday and, sure enough, scores for "Plainfield T." would appear in papers the next day. Plainfield was always victorious, crushing opponents in lopsided wins.

Based on these positive responses, Newburger soon recruited the help of Dannenbaum, who lived in Philadelphia, to phone scores in to the Philadelphia Record. At first, the they didn't coordinate about what team Plainfield had played. Sometimes, it had played a different opponent in Philadelphia than in New York so early reports in Philadelphia and New York papers had conflicting scores. Soon, they coordinated their reports and the reports matched.

The Team Gathered Strength

Newburger's ambitions for the Plainfield Teachers grew bigger as it now had a PR spokesperson, Jerry Croyden, actually Newburger. who installed a special phone line in his office to communicate with the papers about the team. The fictional Croyden was named after the Croyden Hotel in Manhattan.

As Croyden, Newburger sent news releases on newly-created Plainfield Teachers College stationery thanks to help from his mail room friend, Lew Krupnick. The team was named the Lions. Its coach was Ralph “Hurry Up” Hoblitzel who had once been a star player for another seemingly fictitious school, Spearfish Normal. This was actually a real school. Located in Spearfish, SD, it was renamed Black Hills Teachers College in 1941, became Black Hills State College in 1964, and was renamed Black Hills State University in 1989.

In the releases, Croyden went into detail about the team, noting its team colors (mauve and puce) and adding biographical information. He wrote that coach Hoblitzel had a unique offensive strategy, the "W" formation, in which when Plainfield players lined up with the ball in their possession, the two ends would face their own backfield so that they could "see immediately who has the ball." (I know zero about football and have no idea how this could work, but suspect it's a made-up play.)

Croyden/Newburger detailed games that Plainfield Teachers College had played earlier in the season, revealing that the team was unbeaten and untied. He created a made-up schedule of games for the 1941 playing season, including those before the first called-in win.

Sep 27: Plainfield vs. Benson Institute, 20-0

Oct 4: Plainfield vs. Scott, 12-0

Oct 11: Plainfield vs. Chesterton, 24-0

Oct 18: Plainfield vs. Fox (no known score)

Oct 25. Plainfield vs. Winona, 27-3

Nov 1: Plainfield vs. Randolph Tech (Away), 35-0

Nov 8: Plainfield vs. Ingersoll, 13-0

Nov 15: Plainfield vs. Appalachian Normal (no known score)

Nov 20: Plainfield vs. Harmony Teachers (Homecoming)

After decided to share his prank, Newburger asked fellow stockbrokers to come up with names for the players. The tall pass receiver was named "Boarding House Smithers" and the right tackle was  "Morris Newburger" who would prove critical to the team’s incredible success and ultimate downfall.

Johnny Chung cartoon

But, the most interestingly named player was sophomore star halfback, Johnny Chung, a 6-foot-3, 212-pound full-blooded half-Chinese, half-Hawaiian halfback called The Celestial Comet, who averaged an astounding (and record-breaking) 9.3 yards per carry. Chung reportedly ate rice at halftime to boost his strength and seemed destined for a future as an All-American. By today's standards this would be considered a racial stereotype. It was the last name of someone Newburger knew, a dry cleaner.

One of Croyden's fake press releases was passed to New York Post reporter Herbert Allan, who wrote glowing lines about Chung in aNovember 8, 1941 Saturday College Grapevine column: John Chung, Plainfield Teachers' Chinese sophomore halfback, has accounted for 57 of the 98 points scored by his unbeaten and untied team in four starts.

Press interest was growing steadily about this small town college football team with speculation that Plainfield might secure a bid to a small-college bowl game. This wasn’t a problem.Newburger was ready and planned for the team to play in the non-existent Blackboard Bowl in Atlantic City, NJ, at the end of the season.

Newburger managed to get Plainfield's scores into papers for several consecutive weeks. After defeating Winona, it continued its undefeated season on November 1 by crushing Randolph Tech 35-0 and followed this up with a November 8 win against Ingersoll 13-0.

The Whistle Was Blown — Who Did It?

Newspapers published the fabricated scores without fail for weeks as the team's popularity grew. By now, Newburger had started believing his own fantasy, and was talking freely with friends as though the college was a reality. Others also heard about what was going on.

But that popularity brought doubt as well and that started investigations into the school's legitimacy. It’s unclear exactly how the hoax was exposed or who was responsible.

One story is that a disgruntled Wall Street broker called The Herald Tribune and said: I'll give you a tip. There ain't no such college as Plainfield Teachers. Bunch of fellows down on Wall Street are kidding you.

Another is that Time magazine learned of the hoax, but as a weekly publication, its Sports Page Error story didn't appear until Monday, November 17, 1941, three days after it broke in the newspapers.

Meanwhile, Irving Marsh, assistant sports editor at The Herald Tribune, had called the Board of Education in Plainfield, NJ, and learned it had no such college. Reporter Caswell Adams, wrote about the hoax on Friday, November 14. His article, Brokers Find Phantom School Easy to Sell in Football, included the words: Perfect record made on paper. Hail to thee, our ghostly college, product of a dream!

That same week United Press sent the following cryptic message to client newspapers: Plainfield (NJ) Teachers College has abandoned football. They not only are unbeaten and untied. They are unreal.

After its unveiling, the hoax was surprisingly well received and several papers that had reported on the fictional school published tributes. After the hoax was traced to Newburger, he reportedly asked The New York Times to allow Plainfield Teachers to finish the season and play in the Blackboard Bowl. He said that Plainfield was set to face Appalachian Tech that week followed by Harmony Teachers for the Homecoming game on Thanksgiving Day after its undefeated season.

However the paper refused to play along and its November 17 issue had a statement: For three weeks running, the sports page of the New York Times has dutifully recorded the football victories of Plainfield (NJ) Teachers College. The Philadelphia Record and other papers also took notice of unbeaten Plainfield Teachers. The only error in all the reports was that Plainfield and its opponents were nonexistent.

In response, Newburger, as Croyden, wrote a final press release describing how the team had to forfeit its remaining games since so many players had failed their midterm exams, including Johnny Chung, adding that the team would not appear in the Blackboard Bowl.

That release was never printed, but The Philadelphia Record, which also had bought into the hoax, took a seemingly disappointed attitude that Plainfield Teachers College was gone. In an unsigned item titled Football Casualty was the wording that the newspaper regretted the passing (of Plainfield Teachers). We don’t see why exposure of the gag should have to end the team’s career. It should keep playing the rest of the season. We want to know how it made out with the now-cancelled games and if the Celestial Comet could have made All-American.

Perhaps, the hoax had provided some needed levity as it ended a few weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Newburger and Dannenbaum both served in WW II as officers with the Army Air Corps and Signal Corps. No information was available on Lew Krupnick.

And now myself and all of you know the rest of the story. Plainfield Teachers College will always be remembered as having been unbeaten, untied and definitely unreal.

Enjoy Your Weekend, Everyone

It's a rainy start in Nashua, NH, with summer heat returning next week