One of the projects the Sickos Committee on Substack will explore during this off-season is one where we will do a dive into the internet archives to find out the seemingly lost history of College Football teams who we used to have playing on Saturdays in the fall. We will explore universities and colleges who used to have football but then decided, for whatever reason, to end their football program. Then we will highlight their Best Season of All Time in our however many part series called the Best Season of All Time for Schools Who Stopped Having A Football Team also known as the BSOATFSWSHAFT (right on). 

I’ll give you some background on the program if I can find it. Give you some basic history about the team: when they started playing, when/why they stopped playing, and, of course, their best season, in my opinion. Also, I’ll see if I can find a football helmet with the logo or other cool stuff to show it to you here.

Now for the next team I wish to explore in this series.

The Pepperdine Waves

Why did I choose this team?

I said in my last blog I would do Pepperdine next and I am a man of my word. Hope that is a good enough reason. 

History of the team

Pepperdine University wasn’t founded until 1937. Then that pretty big event of World War II happened a few years later. However, one year after the war ended in 1946, the Pepperdine Football team began. Pepperdine was independent for the majority of the time but they were in the California Collegiate Athletic Association from 1950 to 1953. Their best finish in conference was 3rd. On other note, the University was based in Los Angeles before they moved to their current home in Malibu, CA, in 1972. 

I don't want to minimize what occurred between Pepperdine and the city of Los Angeles, but this is a post about college football, and I am not skilled enough to discuss this in detail with the appropriate tact. Let's just say the history between Pepperdine University and the city of Los Angeles had a very difficult period before the move to Malibu. You can read about it yourself if you’d like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepperdine_University

This program achieved the highest highs right away. In their first year of playing, they made and won their only bowl game, the only edition of the Will Rogers Bowl. They defeated Nebraska Wesleyan 38–13.

Don’t worry, I don’t consider that their best team of all time. (Spoiler alert, it’s the 1947 team)

The program didn’t last long and ended in 1961. 

They had six head coaches in the program’s history. Only two of the coaches were above-.500 record-wise, and one of those two was 9-8. 

The program had trouble finding a stadium throughout its entire existence. Pepperdine was a bit of a football nomad. It was rare if they played two seasons in a row at the same stadium, and the longest they occupied a stadium was seven years in a row. 

• From 1946 to 1947, the Waves played at Sentinel Field in Inglewood, California.

• In 1948, they played at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, a baseball stadium and the home of the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League.

• In 1949, they returned to Sentinel Field. 

• In 1950, Pepperdine moved to Gilmore Stadium for a season, but that facility's imminent demolition required yet another change. 

  • There is nothing like playing in a stadium that is primed for demolition. 

The Endzones are giving off CFL Vibes and I love it.

• From 1951 to 1958, Pepperdine played at El Camino Stadium in Torrance, California. Their longest consecutive time in the same stadium. 

• In 1959–1961, they returned to Sentinel Field for the final years of the program.

Robert "Tink" Hultz with a one handed grab below.

The Program finished with a 64–79–2 (.448) record. Only 5 of their 15 seasons were above .500. 

The program if it existed today would be around these teams in historical winning percentage. 

Why did the football team get shut down?

Pepperdine went 1-9 in 1960 and 1961. In December of 1961, the Pepperdine College Board of Trustees conducted a detailed study on the feasibility of the football program moving forward. They found the heavy cost of continuing to field a competitive team was too great. As a result, the decision was made to discontinue all involvement in the sport. (Source: The History of Pepperdine Football)

They stated “The decision was not a reflection of the football team's performance or popularity, nor did it serve as any indication of a lack of interest in intercollegiate sports.” But they kept having to move stadiums and their last winning season was in 1956. 

“It was learned later that the Board of Trustees had tried to "re-emphasize" the sport in late fall of 1959 by attempting to increase its value to the institution through the expenditure of additional funds ... apparently to no avail.” I don’t know what they tried to do to reemphasize football but it didn’t work as they went 1-9 the next two seasons and then they decided to shut the program down. 

The 1947 Pepperdine Waves 

Now, I understand the 1946 team went to their only bowl game and will go down as the only Will Rogers Bowl Champions, but they lost a game to Arizona State. The 1947 Waves went undefeated, and they claimed a National Title, (The History of Pepperdine Football). They were named the National Small College Champion in only their second year of existence. 

Love this football program: show up out of nowhere, win a bowl game in the first year, win a national championship in the second year, and come nowhere near close to that for the rest of their 13-year history, then close up shop. Perfect, no notes.  

Warren Gaer as the school's first head football coach. This was Gaer's first position on the college level after coaching 10 different high school football teams. 

Gaer played at Drake University from 1932 to 35, captaining the team his senior year. His coaching resume began in Missouri Valley, Iowa, in 1935 and concluded 10 years later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before getting his first collegiate job at Pepperdine in 1946. He left Pepperdine with a 21-6 record after the 1948 season when Drake came calling for him to be their Head Coach in 1949. He led Drake to the Sun Bowl in 1957. 

When creating the team, Gaer and the Athletic Director Al Duer assembled 50 men to form Pepperdine College's first intercollegiate football team. "We had about 80 men interested in reporting for football when we definitely decided to enter collegiate competition in September," Gaer said, "but we had to limit the squad to 50 because that was all the good uniforms we could buy on short notice."

Below: Coach Gaer and his star Darwin Horn.

Back to the best team of all time. The Pepperdine eleven returned to the gridiron after a breakout first season to face a more challenging schedule. 

I was unable to find the yearbook as I tried to create an account but I was unable to access it. However, I found this Pepperdine Football Throughout the Years which interviewed many of the players on the 1947 team. I am going to sprinkle their quotes in here because they are awesome. 

“Utilizing a devastating single wing attack, the Waves were a force to be reckoned with.” I am in love with this team already. 

Pepperdine was the only undefeated and untied team on the Pacific Coast in 1947 and the nation’s top-scoring team with 350 points (beating Michigan by just five points) and the nation’s best defensive team allowing only 26 points total, both occurring in 1947.

Their first game they traveled to play Arizona State-Flagstaff aka Northern Arizona University. They crushed the Lumberjacks 60-7 

The next week they returned home to face Redlands and had a nice relaxing victory. 

The main news was Redland had someone named HAM Lloyd on their team. 

Last year they had a one-point loss to Arizona State in Tempe, their only loss as a program to this point.

Let’s see what Keith Kenworthy had to say about the loss. “We lost 13-12 in Tempe. We missed both extra points. Not only that, the referees let them kick their extra points three different times. They called us offsides and we weren’t offsides. We were playing on their field.” So we had some extra point shenanigans??? 

Pepperdine got their revenge 27-6 thanks to SEVEN Arizona State Fumbles. 

I wonder what Keith had to say about the win. “When we played Arizona State again, we beat them 27-6. They had some guy named Whizzer White. I remember after he scored a touchdown he ran by the stands and was giving everyone the finger. He was a jerk. I remember tackling him and he yelled, ‘who the hell was supposed to block that guy?’ Their coach thought they were going to be undefeated. That was fun.” Thank you Keith. 

Bruce Murdock also had a fun story. “I remember playing against Arizona State. My name “Moose” had caught on and on occasion I got to play in the game in the fourth quarter. I didn’t play much that year. We were bound and determined to beat them humbly. They had beaten us the year before. It was safe to send “Moose” in the fourth quarter since we had the game won. Darwin Horn had snuck over to the Arizona State band and 16 asked them to play ‘Happy Birthday’ for me. But it wasn’t my birthday. And the band played ‘Happy Birthday’. My birthday is every day. I will never forget that.”

Next week they welcomed the Moiliili Bears from Hawaii and they breezed by 34-7. 

“The Waves really turned it on during a midseason four-game stretch, outscoring their opponents 198-0. Convincing wins over Whittier College (49-0), Cal Poly (47-0), Humboldt State (56-0) and Cal Tech (46-0) set the tone for a special season.”

Their final game was against Loyola (CA). “A hard-fought game in hostile territory in front of 8,500 ended with Loyola being shut down and the Pep gridders taking the victory 13-0. The highlight of the game was Terry Bell's 72-yard punt return for a touchdown. Darwin Horn scored a touchdown, bringing his season total to 115 points. The punishing fullback tied Chuck Schoenherr of Wheaton (Ill.) College for the national college football scoring title.”

We go to Keith for comment. “The officials remarked that they saw more hard-hitting in that game with us than the Notre Dame game they had officiated earlier in the season.” (Notre Dame was the National Champion in 1947).

The Waves received a number of postseason bowl invites, including the Salad Bowl in Phoenix, Ariz., but Pepperdine athletic officials "failed to find one which would supply a forward step from the Waves' New Year's Day triumph over Nebraska Wesleyan last year."

Following their undefeated season in 1974, Pepperdine's offensive backfield posed for this photo evoking the famous "Four Horsemen of Notre Dame" from 1924. From left to right: Elmer Noonan, Terry Bell, Darwin Horn, and Chuck Gibbon.

A Special Keith Kenworthy Quotes Section

I loved what he had to say on everything in this link Pepperdine Football Throughout the Years

On Playing Whittier College in 1946:

“I lost 13 pounds in that game. Let me tell you why. Coach Gaer was nuts. He would not let us have any water on the field. So we would suck water out of the towels when we came out.”

On the Great 1947 Team:

“If I remember this correctly, some of the teams we played had minus yardage. They actually lost more yardage than they made. When we played the single-wing, we were unstoppable. Terry Bell made the yards, Darwin scored the touchdowns.”

Why he Chose Pepperdine:

“I went to Pepperdine to play football.”

On the Will Rogers Bowl:

“I was co-captain for the game. We were losing at halftime. Terry Bell comes in late at halftime and he has lipstick on his lips. I said, ‘we are losing and 12 you are out there screwing around’. He said back to me, ‘you could have been there too.’ He was kissing the homecoming queen! Good second half after that.” (They scored 38 points in the second half to win 38-13.)

Any Chance the Program Returns?

According to this article Location, Money and Conference Play, the three things they need to resolve are those to bring back football.

The University is now in Malibu, and property isn’t cheap there, and it was stated they don’t have room on campus. They also stated that it would take around $10 Million or more to try to bring it back. Then conference play would be a question at any level from Division I to Division III. They are currently in the West Coast Conference (WCC), which doesn’t have any football.

I don’t see the program coming back to Pepperdine, but maybe some rich executive sponsors the program and donates a ton of money and land in their will to bring back football.