My full 1917 Ohio State vs Camp Sherman, Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1917 ticket.
Beautiful front and back with an interesting “X” marked across the front – oddly enough the X appeared at the hands of Lynn St. John who also used the reverse of the ticket as a form of a post-it-note… where he wrote “Lt. Art V. Wortman, Kelly Field, San Antonio, TX” on the back. The history buffs in here may recall my previous article titled “The Case of Cadet Charles W. Harley” where Lt. Wortman was mentioned:
Chic had an issue with his superior officer, Lt Wortman, and he was subsequently court martialed on May 24, 1919 and found guilty of “smiling in a sneering manner while being reprimanded and contemptuously saying “can you do it?” or words to that effect” and of “appearing at the orderly room of his organization with his shirt not buttoned” - I have this original document as well if anyone is interested.
My sense is that SAINT, Lynn St. John, had this ticket in the drawer of his desk and he received news regarding the trouble that his star running back was in and he quickly made the note – curious about the connection = look at Lynn St. John’s handwriting and you will quickly see the connection not to mention SAINT’s efforts to get the star running back free from the brig. By mid-to-late June Chic Harley was released from Kelly Field and was being processed out of the service at Camp Grant in Illinois.
Additional Note:
The 1917 Ohio State Buckeyes football team represented Ohio State University in the 1917 college football season. The Buckeyes compiled an 8–0–1 record and became Big Ten Conference champion for the second straight year with a 4–0 record in conference play. Ohio State outscored opponents 292–6.
In my humble opinion – THE 1917 Ohio State Buckeye season should be formally declared as our 2nd National Championship season following the 1916 season which is clearly a National Championship season… if Alabama can claim 12 mysterious NC’s based on internal theories created by a writer at Alabama… these two (1916 and 1917) could / should be counted by The OSU.
