‘The Upset of the Century’ turns 100: Centre celebrates ‘moment that still defines us’

It was 1987 when a pair of Centre College graduates found themselves jogging across the campus of Harvard University.

John David Dyche was studying at Harvard Law. Brian Gardner was in Massachusetts to visit his friend.

As they ran by Harvard Stadium, a wild idea took form. The duo would enter the stadium where the most significant sports moment from the life of their college alma mater had taken place — one of the epic plays in Kentucky sports history — and replicate it.

That’s how two Colonels alums found themselves imitating Bo McMillin’s famous 31-yard, cut-back touchdown run that supplied the winning margin in Centre’s stunning 6-0 football upset of Harvard in 1921 on the field where it happened.

“We re-enacted it as faithfully as we could,” Dyche says. “Even these many years later, that’s the kind of meaning “C6H0” has to Centre people.”

On Friday, it will be exactly 100 years since Centre’s stirring football upset of Harvard on Oct. 29, 1921.

It was a victory of such magnitude that, on its 50th anniversary in 1971, The New York Times proclaimed it college football’s “Upset of the Century.”

“Harvard was The Team,” says Tom Thurman, the documentary filmmaker whose 2010 film “The Wonder Team” told the story of Centre College’s stint (roughly 1917-24) as a national college football power. “I don’t think you could find a better example of an underdog than Centre playing Harvard for what was, essentially, the national championship in college football.”

‘A very shrewd plan’

One hundred years ago, the geographic balance of power in college football was very different than it is now. What Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State are to the present, Harvard, Yale and Princeton were to 1921.

The optics of a small school from Kentucky going up against the mighty football machine that was then Harvard were irresistible.

Centre’s star, Alvin Nugent “Bo” McMillin, had “grown up rough” in Fort Worth, Texas, only to be “reformed” through sports. At Centre, it is said McMillin supported himself through college with his earnings from shooting Craps.

The 1921 Colonels’ second-most-prominent player, James Madison “Red” Roberts, was himself a colorful figure. A two-way end, Roberts refused to wear a football helmet in games. Instead, he wrapped a flowing silk scarf around his head when he played.

That an upstart football program in Kentucky managed to land a spot on the Harvard schedule was not an accident.

During a four-game 1918 season abbreviated by World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Centre football brain trust of Coach Charles “Uncle Charley” Moran and de facto athletics director Robert “The Chief” Myers realized they had a team capable of playing with the nation’s best.

They launched a scheduling plan that would earn the Colonels a chance to prove that.

As the final part of their design, Centre scoured the schedules of Harvard, Princeton and Yale to find teams that “the Big Three” were playing.

Centre scheduled West Virginia in 1919 because Princeton was playing WVU. It set up a game with Virginia because Harvard was playing UVa.

West Virginia beat Princeton 25-0, then Centre beat West Virginia 14-6 the next week.

Harvard hung 47 on Virginia in a shutout win, then Centre put 49 points on the Cavaliers the following week in a 49-7 blowout.

A sportswriter, Howard Reynolds of the Boston Post, became intrigued with Centre’s scores. He began promoting the Colonels in his column.

“Sportswriters had a lot of influence (then), and (Reynolds) was the catalyst that got the public interested in Centre,” says Robert W. Robertson Jr., author of the book “The Wonder Team: The Story of the Centre College Praying Colonels and Their Rise To The Top of the Football World.” “So Centre getting on the Harvard schedule did not happen accidentally. It was a very shrewd plan by Centre.”

The Upset of the Century

On Oct. 23, 1920, Centre got its first crack at Harvard. McMillin was brilliant vs. the Crimson, running for 151 yards and passing for 131.

Centre took a 14-7 lead, was tied 14-14 at the half, but was worn down by superior Harvard depth in half two in what became a 31-14 loss.

Given another shot at Harvard the following season, Centre came up with a radically different game plan.

“(Centre) realized in 1920, they had given away their whole game plan in the first half,” Robertson says. “Harvard, with all its coaches, had devised a plan to shut Centre down in the second half.”

For the 1921 game, Centre decided it would play a vanilla first half. The idea was to keep the game close until the second half, when Centre would then unveil the plays it thought could score.

“So when (Centre) went in 0-0 at the end of the first half, they actually felt they had won the game,” Robertson says.

The game’s decisive play came in the first minute of the third quarter. From his quarterback position, McMillin swept right end.

“Bo saw an opening, he cut absolutely horizontally toward the left sideline,” Robertson said. “He was not touched until he got to about the 10-yard line. Two guys tried to hit him, but (instead) kind of knocked him forward. (McMillin) landed on the ground in the end zone.”

The 31-yard scamper only 48 seconds into the third quarter was the only touchdown of the game.

It became Harvard’s first loss in three seasons.

According to legend, by the time the Centre players returned to Danville, C6H0 had been painted on walls all over town.

One hundred years

To commemorate the 100th birthday of one of Kentucky’s signature sports moments, Centre has featured an on-campus display of memorabilia and photos from the upset of Harvard.

“C6H0 is something every Centre alum, whether you graduated in the 1940s or this year, you know,” says Brad Fields, the Centre athletics director. “I think the reason it is shared over and over, it is a sense of pride over our school being able to do what some considered impossible It is a moment that still defines us.”

On Friday at 7 p.m., a five-person panel that will include Robertson and Jeremy Swick, a curator from the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, will discuss the historical meaning of the game.

At Centre’s 2021 football home finale Saturday against Rhodes, descendants of members of the 1921 team will be recognized.

It will be the final game Centre plays in Ferris Stadium, which is being replaced as part of a $50 million investment in enhanced on-campus athletics and wellness facilities.

Though it would have been impossibly cool had Centre and Harvard played again on the 100th anniversary of the great upset, Fields says there was no attempt made to schedule such a game.

“I know there was (such an attempt) back on the 75th anniversary, and it was declined (by Harvard),” he said. “So I don’t think it was in the cards (for the 100th).”

Even 100 years later, the significance of “The Upset of the Century” has not dulled for those whose allegiance belongs to Centre.

“That game symbolized what Centre is about,” says Gardner, a former Centre offensive lineman and now a Lexington attorney. “A small school that can do big things.”