THE WANDERING WEEVILS

Mad Genius ...

... or "Damn Fool," Stewart Ferguson and the Arkansas A&M "Wandering Weevils" may be the most compelling story in college football history.

In 1934, Ferguson applied for and accepted the coaching job at Arkansas A&M and was immediately caught up in the turmoil surrounding A&M President Frank Horsfall, who was about to be forced from office after 25 years.  Taking over the remnants of a program in tatters, Ferguson's 1934 squad went 0-7 and was outscored 161 to 13.  When Horsfall left in early 1935, new President Hugh Critz succumbed to local pressure and relieved Ferguson of his coaching duties, retaining his services as athletic director, dean of men and instructor of medieval history, psychology, and biology.

Ferguson's replacement, Eugene "Bo" Sherman, had been fired from Henderson State the previous year for using ineligible players and didn't share Ferguson's philosophy that football players should also be students.  The Depression had created itinerant athletes who moved from college to college looking for room and board.  In exchange, they played football or basketball with little thought to attending class, even if they knew what classes they were supposed to attend.  These were the players Sherman brought to campus, a group Ferguson referred to as "football thugs" and "tramp football players."

Sherman's win-at-all-costs attitude produced four wins in thee years, and following the 1937 season, he was fired by new President Marvin Bankston.

With the football program in disarray and sentiment growing to drop the sport altogether, Bankston turned to Ferguson to right a sinking ship.  At first Ferguson refused.  He had already verbally accepted a coaching job in Alexandria, Louisiana when Bankston sent his business manager, C.C. Smith, to Baton Rouge to talk Ferguson into returning.  Smith offered Ferguson a $50 a month raise and a contract unique in the annals of coaching.  Written on the back of an envelope, the contract said Ferguson would be paid for teaching and administrative work, but not for coaching.  He was only asked to "help out the football team when needed," did not have to win any games for three years, and could do anything he pleased in the athletic program.

Ferguson accepted, then realized he'd been suckered.  "What was the difference in helping out the boys and actually coaching?" he later asked.

In 1938, Ferguson and his Boll Weevils played conventional football and were shellacked, losing all nine games by a combined score of 238-26.

By 1939, Ferguson decided to toss convention to the wind and set about on a new approach to football.  The game would be played strictly for fun.  To keep the sport from being dropped because it was too expensive, Ferguson eliminated football scholarships and cancelled games with in-state rivals.  Instead, he scheduled games with teams in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Texas and Louisiana, games that would provide financial guarantees and keep the football team in the black.  Ferguson envisioned an athletic program where players "played football for fun," where football players would be regular students who received no scholarships or other concessions not available to all students.  Weevil games would become spectacles featuring rainbow uniforms and unorthodox formations.

From these unconventional ideas, the Wandering Weevils were born.

Ferguson's team quickly became a national sensation, gathering headlines from coast to coast.  They were featured in newspapers and magazines, including Collier's, Newsweek, and the Saturday Evening Post.  They were called screwballs, clowns, slaphappy, a circus without fleas, and the Marx Brothers of football.

For the next three seasons, the Wandering Weevils established an unmatched record for ineptitude, losing 30 of 33 games, but had a rip-roaring good time in the process.

Ferguson did little coaching on the sidelines during a game.  His players were allowed to take any position on the field they chose, or substitute whenever they felt like it.  Substitutions often shuttled back and forth from the huddle by bicycle.  One player, Bix Stellwell, was an accomplished drummer and occasionally left the field to jam with the opposing team's band.

The Weevils wore an odd assortment of uniforms and at halftime frequently changed into jerseys the same color as the opposition.  Lawrence, The Stork" Lavender, a 6-foot-7 inch receiver, occasionally came out of the locker room clad in a long coat, starched white shirt front, top hat and white silk gloves over his uniform.

On the field, the Wandering Weevils were masters of the unexpected.  They would drive to an opponent's goal line. then punt backwards.  Or score by having an acrobat-halfback walk on his hands while carrying the ball between his legs.  The Weevils once drove to an opponent's three yard line, made up a play in the huddle that involved 19 laterals, and ended up back on their own 10.

"We'll trade a laugh for a touchdown anytime," Ferguson once said.

Ferguson's philosophy of football for fun was also an educational experience for his players.  During their travels on the school's battered green bus, Ferguson held daily classes and often received permission for his players to attend class at colleges along the way.  The Weevils audited courses at Notre Dame, Southern Cal, Hofstra and Yale.

Ferguson's players were country boys.  Most had never been as far as Little Rock, much less visited another state.  Now they were seeing sites and enjoying cultural events they'd only read about in books.  In 1940, Ferguson planned a schedule with games within a mile of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  The Weevils traveled over 10,000 miles, visiting 17 states and over 100 colleges.  They had their photograph taken with Postmaster General James A. Farley, had lunch with actress Constance Bennett and the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, met with Philadelphia Eagles star Davey O'Brien, and attended the New York's World's Fair.  They toured Washington, D.C., walked over Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields, and saw the homes of Washington, Lee, Lincoln and Jefferson.  They saw the Grand Canyon and Boulder Dam, visited Las Vegas and Hollywood, met Arkansas-born radio and movie star Bob Burns along with Roy Rogers, Betty Grable and Jeannette McDonald.

The 1939 team won one game and lost nine.  The lone victory, a 26-6 upset of previously unbeaten Northwest Mississippi Junior College in the season's only home game, only served to anger many of the local fans, who wagered - and lost - a considerable sum of money on the outcome.

It was during the '39 season that the Weevils began to perfect their comedy act.  In a rain-soaked contest at Missouri State Teachers (now Southwest Missouri State), the team waddled onto the field flapping their arms and quacking like ducks.  They quacked signals for the snap, flapped through the plays and performed duck pantomimes between plays.

In 1940, the Weevils somehow managed to win twice while losing nine in the most lopsided fashion.  In a 26-7 victory over the South Dakota School of Mines, J.P. Leveritt caught a long pass, outran the pursuing defenders, then stopped short of the goal line.  As startled players, officials and fans looked on, Leveritt turned handsprings over the goal.  The stunned crowd roared its approval, prompting Ferguson to guide Leveritt in front of the grandstand, where he performed flips and handsprings.

Collier's called the Wandering Weevils one of the "best attractions in college football."

Ferguson finally achieved a "perfect" season in 1941 as his boys lost all 12 games by a combined 513-25.  Against North Texas, the Weevils captured the head cheerleader and her boyfriend, dressed him in an A&M jersey and made him kick off.  The cheerleader served as coach until she started hugging the players as they left the field and made it nearly impossible to keep the team interested in playing.  Ferguson left the game at halftime to go into town for a hamburger and coffee.  When he returned in the middle of the third quarter, the Weevil bench was empty.  The players who were not on the field were in the stands talking to coeds.

The Wandering Weevil era came to an close on November 27, 1941 when A&M lost only home game of the season to Magnolia A&M, 25-7.  Ten days later, the young men who had traveled the country playing football as a lark, were thrust into the real world when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

Stewart Ferguson left Arkansas A&M in 1942 and joined the Navy.  Most of his players either joined, or were drafted into military service.  In 1944, Ferguson returned to South Dakota and spent the rest of his life coaching high school football in Deadwood.  His teams had winning seasons each year before he died of a heart attack on December 29, 1955.  He was 55 years old.

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Besides creating a football revolution, Ferguson did something else in 1939.  He hired a 19-year old coed from Hot Springs, South Dakota, Edna McAdam, as his student secretary.  A year later, they were married, causing something of a stir among the locals.  "The romance of Stewart and Edna Ferguson was quite controversial and scandalous."  She was 20 years younger than he was.  That's one of the great things about the story of Stewart Ferguson and the Wandering Weevils.  It's not just about football.  It's a love story.  And it's a story about someone who made a difference in people's lives.

The story of Stewart Ferguson and the Wandering Weevils may, or may not make the silver screen, but perhaps their legacy can best be summed up in Ferguson's own words:

"I want to be remembered by my players as a sort of fireside fool when they tell their children about the places they've been, the states they played in, and the things they learned when they played football for Arkansas A&M.  I want them to say, 'That Coach Ferguson was sort of a damn fool - didn't care much whether we won or lost.  But, boy! - the times we had and the things we saw."