by Paul R. Spitzzeri
On the 30th, the 16th-ranked football team of the University of Southern California plays in the Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio against Texas Christian University as the 9-3 Trojans, which lost to three Top 25 teams in Illinois, Notre Dame and Oregon, hope to successfully close out its season against the 8-4 Horned Frogs.
What has garnered increasing attention in football is the prevalence of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) in athletes, as well as those participating in boxing and soccer, as more is understood about how traumatic brain injuries lead to damage that is much like that experienced in Alzheimer’s disease. It may be that players being much bigger, faster and stronger that in the past leads to a heightened risk because of the sheer physics involved in often very intense contact on the gridiron.
Bearing on this topic, this post takes us back nearly a century and highlights a recent acquisition to the Homestead’s collection, a 1928 press photograph of Johnny Hawkins (1901-1939) in the Los Angeles City Jail as he awaited arraignment on burglary charges. Hawkins was born in Coal Hill, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains northwest of the capital of Little Rock and where his father Daniel worked in the mines for which the town was named. In the 1910s, the family migrated west and settled in Fullerton, where Daniel secured a job as a gardener at the city’s high school and the family resided across the street from the campus.
Hawkins became a sports star at Fullerton High, gaining local renown for his prowess on the baseball diamond, as well as on the football field, not to mention the basketball and tennis courts and on the track, while his older brother Archie was also a star quarterback and went to play semi-pro ball. He was also athletic editor for school publications and was student body president in his senior year.
As just one example of the siblings’ skills, Fullerton trounced Santa Ana High 41-0 in the opening contest of the 1919 season, with Archie scampering 98 yards for a touchdown and the Orange County Plain Dealer of 20 October adding “John Hawkins scored three times on passes from his brother Arch.”
The Anaheim Gazette of 20 October included suggestions for Orange County and other greater Los Angeles gridiron stars for consideration for the all-Southern California team and it was opined that “no fair minded person can conceive an all-southern selection without Arch Hawkins in the backfield.” The unidentified writer remarked that,
For a field general John Hawkins of Fullerton has no peer. He had demonstrated time and again that he knows more football than any other player in Southern California. He is a sure pass snagger and many times with three men watching him he has caught a pass and eluded all three opponents. His punts were the prettiest offered this year, long beautiful spirals averaging 45 to 50 yards. Also within the 40 yard line he is a dangerous drop or place kicker. In goals from touchdown he has kicked 39 out of 40.
This last selection has been made realizing the fact that other good signal callers have appeared this year. But looking at it from a standpoint of field generalship, ability handling the ball and on the defensive [side], all give place to him.
Hawkins then went on to U.S.C. (where Archie also played) and played guard, securing All-Pacific Coast honors in the 1923 season, before convincing Coach Elmer (Gus) Henderson to move him to quarterback. He was the captain in his senior year at U.S.C. in a 1924 campaign in which the Trojans went 9-2, losing back-to-back games against the University of California and St. Mary’s and scored 269 points while allowing just 44, almost half of those in those two defeats. The team hosted the first and only Los Angeles Christmas Festival game, played on the Yuletide holiday, with the Trojans defeating the University of Missouri, 20-7.
The loss to Cal at Berkeley solidified rising criticism against Hawkins, who bore the nickname of “Czar,” for being too conservative and erratic in his play-calling and fans and sportswriters openly called for his replacement at quarterback and return to a guard position. The Los Angeles Express of 3 November ran a feature that included the subheading of “Johnny Hawkins Failed” and which asserted,
It is too bad to say that Johnny Hawkins failed as a quarterback. But it is the truth. California’s ends gave him no opportunity whatever to run back punts, but Hawkins himself called the signals. Once inside scoring territory and [sic] he did not function as a quarterback should.
Hawkins is perhaps the smartest football player at U.S.C. On the line he could “smell” plays. Perhaps experience and time would change things, but right now Johnny would be better off at guard.
The following weekend at the Los Angeles Coliseum (which opened in 1923), the Trojans had a 10-7 lead at the end of the first half against St. Mary’s, but the Saints scored in the third quarter in what turned out to be the final points of the 14-10 game. It was late in the quarter when Hawkins was kicked in the head, above the left eye, apparently during a punt return, which was among his duties in a day when such multi-position playing was very common.
He was knocked unconscious and carried off the field with the 9 November edition of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News reporting that “John (Czar) Hawkins lay injured in the dressing-room—a spent body and bejumbled mind trying to re-enact the tragedy which was going on outside. The Czar was badly hit throughout the game and finally succumbed to a blow on the head. At a late hour last night he was unconscious.” An accompanying photo showed the quarterback being carried off the field and he was clearly knocked out.
A remarkable reflection on the injury to Hawkins was provided by the unidentified sports editor of the Los Angeles Record in an article on the 10th titled “A Grid Story—And A Moral,” in which he told readers,
For those who make a practice of throwing bricks at football players, the writer has a story to tell.
It happened at the Coliseum Saturday afternoon. Our party left during the fourth quarter to avoid the after-the-game congestion. As we emerged from the tunnel we came upon two women who were standing outside the players’ dressing quarters. One, a refined-looking, matronly woman, was peering through the glass. Grief and fear were on her features. The other, a pretty girl, was more composed, but her eyes, too, were filled with tears.
In the bowl 25,000 persons were cheering the players.
Outside, the mother and sister of Johnny Hawkins, captain of the U.S.C. team, were waiting alone for news of his condition . . . He was inside the training quarters now and doctors were working hard to revive him. He was still in a state of coma.
Touched by their suffering we tried to offer a word of encouragement as we passed. He would be all right. Such injuries were common in football and were rarely serious.
In fact, Hawkins emerged with a large bump and indentation in his forehead that should have been a rather obvious indication of a serious brain injury and it bears noting that the protection at that time for the head was a leather helmet, far less material than the modern versions. Obviously, there are concussion protocols, scans and other testing today that did not exist in the late 1920s.
While he was kept out of the following week’s game against Whittier College, Hawkins returned to action and finished out the season. A photo in the Express and its Christmas Day 1924 edition shows a smiling Hawkins shaking hands with Coach Henderson (whose six-year tenure, including a 45-7 record but marred by the inability to defeat Cal, soon ended when his contact was bought out by the school—he went on to coach 11 seasons at the University of Tulsa, as well as for the pro Los Angeles Bulldogs, the Detroit Lions of the NFL and at Occidental College) as they wishes the paper’s readers the Season’s Greeting, but it can be discerned if there were visible injuries on the quarterback’s forehead.
When the season ended, sports columnist Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times wrote that “all in all the Trojan 1924 season should be marked down as an outstanding success” as he believed that the squad that defeated Missouri “was the best team we’ve ever seen under the Cardinal and Gold” and led to “the best record they have ever had.”
As for losses to California and St. Mary’s, the first was “far from a disgrace” and the second “one of those unfortunate things that happen when you’re facing a strong, determined adversary and the breaks go against you.” Yet, the sportswriter asserted,
Johnny Hawkins at quarterback was never as good as some critics claimed he was after a good day nor nearly as bad as the same critics said he was after bad day. As a backfield man, strictly aside from his signal-calling ability, he was above the average . . .
The chief fault with Hawkins as a quarterback was slowness and hesitancy in calling signals—in other words he lacked the drive, and when a quarterback lacks it the team lacks it.
Married to Thelma Alexander, with whom he resided in Alhambra, and without children, the former gridiron star then went on to work in real estate, while playing and coaching semi-pro football with a team he established called the Hollywood Generals, and baseball, but it was a shock when the news was announced in mid-June 1928 that he was arrested on suspicion of multiple burglaries involving tens of thousands of dollars of loot.
The Times covered his detention in its number of the 17th under the headline of “Football Hero Seized As Thief,” noting that Hawkins, who gave his name as “John Henry,” was in the Wilshire Station jail and confessed to more than two-dozen burglaries over two months, in that area as well as Hollywood and Santa Monica.
When captured, Hawkins was in the residence of well-known bandleader Earl Burtnett, whose orchestra was the house band at the still-operating Biltmore Hotel and which recorded for the Columbia and Brunswick record labels. A servant found Hawkins in the house and called police, who located a pearl necklace and two rings on the suspect. His confession led officers to the attic of the Fullerton home of Hawkins’ parents where he’d stashed his ill-gotten gains.
The Times continued by noting that the “haggard and troubled shadow of the former Trojan football flash” stated to the media that he was hounded by financial problems as his Hollywood football enterprise floundered, real estate sales work lagged and his wife needed a major surgery, which was not elucidated.
When she went two months earlier to join her parents in Vancouver preparatory for her operation, that’s when Hawkins began his crime spree. While Thelma was in Canada, he stayed at his parents’ house and it was learned he waited until they went to bed each night before he sneaked into the attic to hide the loot.
The paper observed that “the once jaunty gridiron star, who often was mentioned as all-American material, was anything but a debonair figure in his cell at the Wilshire station yesterday.” That is certainly reflected in the photo the Museum just obtained for its collection, with Hawkins shown wearing a three-piece suit and seated on the thin fold-down bed in his cell while he has his head resting on his right hand and that arm against his right leg. Clearly standing out is the large bump and long indentation on his forehead, graphic evidence of the serious injury he suffered nearly four years prior. The photo will be featured in part two of this post.
Meanwhile, in its coverage, the Express, of the 18th, reported that police officer “added a sensational angle to the case when they declared a brother of the prisoner, Jimmy Hawkins, was arrested and later released one week ago” after he was accused of the theft of rings valued at $1,500.
It was noted that Johnny came to the defense of his younger sibling and “made an impassioned plea . . . and succeeded in having him freed after the youth had returned the stolen jewelry.” Detectives were sure they had an open-and-shut case, but the District Attorney’s office chose not to file grand larceny charges and Jimmy was permitted to return the rings and walk away scot-free.
The Express went on that “now Johnny, who time and time again led his football team to victory with the cheers of thousands of friends ringing in his ears” sat in jail. It added that his first claim when arrested was that he engaged in his brief criminal career “merely for the excitement attendant upon his asserted house-breaking,” but he then “declared he was attempting to raise funds for a major operation upon his wife.”
His parents hired attorney Joseph Ryan, who later was reported to have been a U.S.C. classmate of Hawkins, to represent him and the lawyer “told police he believed his client to be mentally ill and added he would probably ask to have Hawkins examined by mental experts.” Ryan also conveyed a somewhat typical message from his client, “I ask my friends to withhold judgment until are the facts are known.”
The Record seemed to have already made a judgement when it declared, in its arrest coverage, also from the 18th, and based on purported statements from the suspect’s friends that,
From football hero to real estate salesman was too much of a letdown in thrills for Johnny Hawkins, former U.S.C. football star, so he turned burglar to take up the slack in his prosaic life.
Remarkably, the paper commented that, when police officers entered the Burtnett residence, they found Hawkins, unarmed and wearing white gloves so as not to leave fingerprints, listening to the bandleader’s radio. He was also quoted as telling officials, “I used an ice pick in getting in. It was easy to slip through the screen and unfasten the hook. Generally I went right through the house, loaded up a suitcase and went out the front door direct to the home of my parents in Fullerton. I hid the stuff in the attic but they never knew anything about it.”
Ryan, it was added, “believes that his schoolmate is suffering from a mental kink which led him into prowling” and informed the press “of an operation performed on Hawkins’ skull after an injury which brought only temporary relief,” this apparently taking place after the St. Mary’s game.
The Record remarked that Thelma and Hawkins’ parents supported him “and declared that he would be subjected to a mental examination.” It also recorded the amount of the stolen goods to be around $75,000, though it was commented that he made no effort to sell any of the loot, which included some $6,500 in items from the Santa Monica house of sportsman Jack Doyle and a few other victims were identified.
With this, we’ll halt here and return for part two, following the legal process and some notable twists and turns through the rest of 1928 and beyond, so be sure to check back for that.