Illinois Turns Down Bid To Ride To Coast With USC
By: The News-Gazette
Sunday, December 22, 1946
LAFAYETTE, LA., Dec. 21 -- Illinois football forces arrived here at 3:15 p.m. Saturday aboard the Southern Pacific's Sunset Limited bound for Pasadena, Cal., with stops scheduled for Lake Charles, La., Beaumont and Houston, Tex., preceding a night-time ride through the nation's largest state.
In New Orleans, the Illinois party toured the city's famous French quarter beginning at Carrollton avenue, down past an exclusive residential section on St. Charles street, thence to historic spots including the French restaurants Arnauds and Antoines, and the French Market, Pointabla, Cablido, Jackson Square, and St. Louis cathedral.
Illini Coach Ray Eliot turned down an invitation extended by Coach Jeff Cravath that the Illinois group remain in New Orleans for the Southern Cal-Tulane game Saturday and hook Illini pullmans onto the Trojan's special train scheduled to leave New Orleans Saturday night.
Although the Illini might have staged a workout in the Sugar Bowl Saturday, Eliot decided it best go proceed to Pasadena and get in a practice Monday. The Trojan special was not scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles until Monday night.
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The Illini Rose bowl party had only one of its announced personnel missing when players, coaches, alumni, newspapermen and other guests boarded the Panama Limited at Champaign. Bernie Krueger, freshman quarterback from Hammond, Ind., decided to forego the trip at the last minute in favor of spending Christmas with his wife Norma and son Sandy.
Krueger suffered a broken leg in the season's finale with Northwestern and was offered the trip in reward for topnotch service during the regular campaign.
Having left cold and snow in Champaign the Illini were greeted in New Orleans by warm sunshine and a 20-degree increase in temperature.
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FOOTBALL NOTES
First greeting for the Illini en route to New Orleans came at Centralia where Mrs. Cora Kohl came to the station to visit briefly with her daughter, Mrs. Burt Ingwersen. She was accompanied by Mrs. Schubert Fox and Nancy Hager.
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Proper diet is an important item when a football team is traveling. When the Illini boarded the train after a hard workout football players were greeted by a man's sized meal -- soup, sirloin steak, creamed potatoes, buttered peas, green salad, ice cream, cookies and milk or coffee -- but as the trip progresses menus grow more sparing.
"We don't plan to leave our team condition on the train as result of overeating," Coach Ray Eliot told his squad.
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Albert (Ab) Duncan, the robust Illini fan from Alton, joined the party at Carbondale, having come down on the St. Louis section of the Panama.
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Inevitable conversation in the press car turned to comparative strength of teams in the Big Nine in which Illinois copped the championship.
Writers generally agreed that Michigan in its final game with Ohio State was well nigh a perfect football team. No one, however, took credit from Coach Ray Eliot's eleven. As Waddy Spoelstra of the Detroit News put it, "Indomitable is word for the Illinois team. It just wouldn't be licked and that's the story of the Illinois championship."
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Oyster bars attracted attention of several in the Illini party during the New Orleans stopover. Wilfrid Smith, Max Roos, Bud Lyon and Chuck Flynn consumed 100 on the half shell.
Coaches Ray Eliot and Burt Ingwersen spent the two-hour period in New Orleans with Trojan coach Jeff Cravath and undoubtedly conversation turned to UCLA, a team which beat Southern Cal, 13-7, to win the Pacific Coast championship. Cravath and Eliot are close friends, having served together as assistants on the College All-Star staff in 1945.