High School Sports
1921 national championship capped amazing Everett run

Everett coach Enoch Bagshaw lost to only one high-school team from 1911 to 1920.

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The game: Football, Everett vs. Cleveland Tech, Jan. 1, 1921, in Everett.

The significance: Two unbeaten football teams met in a game billed as the national high-school championship.

The stars: Everett coach Enoch Bagshaw, later a legendary coach at Washington; Everett's George "Wildcat" Wilson, a halfback who became the Huskies' first consensus All-American.

The memories: Bellevue's victory over De La Salle on Sept. 4 has been called the biggest football game in state high-school history. Yet a case could be made that a contest played on a muddy field in Everett more than 83 years ago was more important.

The game featured two future Huskies legends, Bagshaw and Wilson, and was played before a crowd of 11,000 in Everett. Bagshaw had built Everett into perhaps the most dominant team in state history after he was hired by his alma mater in 1909, two years after he became the first of the UW's two five-year lettermen. Bagshaw lost to just one high-school team during an astonishing run from 1911 to 1920.

Everett jumped ahead early and held off Cleveland Tech 16-7. One of the most dramatic moments occurred when a gray Seagull flew over the field in a figure-eight pattern as fans cheered. Legend has it that the flight was considered good luck and led to Everett changing its nickname to the Seagulls.

It was Bagshaw's final prep game. He became Washington's coach the next fall and took seven Everett players with him to Montlake, where he played in two Rose Bowls and compiled a 63-22-6 record.

After being fired as Huskies coach in 1929, he became the state supervisor of transportation and died of a heart attack in 1930 in the Capitol building.

Wilson, who was named the outstanding Huskies player of the first 50 years, won an NFL title in 1928 with the Providence Steamrollers. He died of a heart attack in 1963.

— Don Shelton

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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