Accidental MVP

When the tides are turned against you, what matters most is how you respond. These two tales show the curious difference between success and failure.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
Coach Bible studied the crowd as his players emerged from
the locker room. A sea of students in maroon and
white erupted into wild applause. Their cheers could easily be
heard across the field. He chewed his lip and wiped
at his forehead with a damn towwel. It wasn't the
Texas sun or even the bright stadium lights that were

(00:57):
making him sweat. No, it was the Center College players,
more specifically their offensive line. The nineteen twenty two Dixie Classic,
what would become known as the Cotton Bowl college football game,
was won for the books. Kentucky's Center College was undefeated.
Texas A and M. Bible's team, Eh, not so much.

(01:17):
But what the team lacked in athletic prowess, they more
than made up for in enthusiasm. Coach Bible held his
breath while his players lined up on the field for
the kickoff. A referee blew the starting whistle, and two
dozen athletes rushed towards one another with all their might.
At first, things seemed to be going Bible's way. A
and M received and returned the kickoff for forty five yards,

(01:40):
which brought the team an early advantage that they weren't
keen to lose. On the next play, A and M's
running back and team captain Heinee Weir silently communicated his
plan as an aside in reference to his name. I
feel like heine should have been a tight end rather
than a running back. No ifs ands or butts about it. Yeah, anyway.

(02:01):
When the next whistle sounded, heine Weir dashed the thirty
yard line. Every eye in the crowd watched A and
M's quarterback throw the ball in a perfect arc that
headed straight for Weir's waiting arms and slipped through his fingers.
Weir had been brutally tackled to the ground, and by
the look of him, he wouldn't be getting back up
anytime soon. From there, things fell apart fast. By halftime,

(02:24):
they were a sorry looking bunch. A and M's team
was down four defensive players, a punter, and their captain.
It would be enough to discourage any coach, and unfortunately
for Bible, it was also enough to force a forfeit.
You see, the rules of college football at that time
dictated that a team have a certain amount of reserve
players on the bench to substitute in case of an injury.

(02:46):
Most of Bible's reserve players were already on the field,
and the injured athletes wouldn't be playing anytime soon. It
was the most important game of their season, and A
and M was staring down the threat of disqualification. Luckily,
coach Bible was a man who believed desperate times called
for desperate measures, and so he turned to the stands.

(03:08):
In the press box, a student named e King Gil
was helping reporters identify players from the field when he
saw coach Bible waving him down. Gil, a sophomore basketball
player who was studying medicine, was very confused. He and
the coach were by no means close. In fact, Gil
had tried out for the team and been assigned to
the bench for a few weeks, and then he moved

(03:30):
on to basketball. A few weeks later, a sport that
he was much better suited for. So why, in the
middle of the biggest game of their season was Coach
Bible asking for him. We're in a bad spot, gil,
Bible explained, we have no one left. I need another player.
Gill looked toward the center college players, terrifying in strength
and already smiling victoriously. He didn't like where this was going.

(03:54):
Coach Bible went on to explain that the team was
all out of extra uniforms, as if that weren't enough,
though locker rooms were closed until the end of the game. Instead,
Captain Weir was waiting under the stadium bleachers to give
Gil his sweaty, blood soaked uniform and take Gil's civilian
clothes until the end of the game. Coach Bible put
a hand on Gil's shoulder and looked him straight in

(04:16):
the eye. This is still your team, and right now
your team needs you. Pride flared in Gill's chest, and
he agreed. He emerged moments later to wild cheers from
the student section and a very appreciative football team. Gil
never did get called onto the field that day, though,
Instead he stood on the sideline ready to step in

(04:36):
at a moment's notice to play, to bleed and maybe
even lose for a team that he'd walked away from
weeks before. He was the last line of defense against
Center College and against Forfeit. Today, Texas A and M
celebrates Gill's legacy in their own special way. Nearly everyone
in the student section bears the number twelve on their

(04:56):
person in some form, be it a necklace, attack, temporary tattoo,
a baseball cap, or the more traditional jersey, and during
football season, the entire student section stands for the duration
of every game. The act sends a clear message at
Texas A and M. The bench doesn't end at the sidelines,
it starts in the front row. Some events in history

(05:34):
seem predetermined. One small event leads to another, snowballing until
major fallout occurs. It would take a genius to spot
all the small things that led to the big ones
and change the course of history before it happens. Zar
Nicholas the Second of Russia must have felt this acutely.
His entire reign was a series of unfortunate events that

(05:55):
led to his demise, and it began on his coronation
day with a free give way gone horribly wrong. In
eighteen ninety six, Nicholas inherited a Russia on the brink
of class warfare. For centuries, the country had failed to modernize.
Along with the rest of Europe. Thirty eight percent of
the country still lived as serfs, indentured workers with no

(06:17):
more rights than an enslaved person. While Nicholas worked to
abolish serfdom, it was often seen as too little, too late.
The impoverished serfs flocked to the cities where the industrial
revolution awaited them. They met with terrible conditions, operating dangerous
machinery that often maimed or killed them. So that's one
historical movement that was already working against the czar. He

(06:41):
attempted to show the serfs a sign of goodwill by
presenting them with gifts at the festivities on his coronation day.
Tents were set up with small crates filled with pretzels, beer, bread, sausage, gingerbread, nuts,
and sweets. These gift packages also included an enameled cup
with the crown and coat of arms detailed on it.

(07:01):
The tents were set up in a field that was
typically used for training exercises by the military. It was
filled with holes and ditches from these exercises. Furthermore, when
people started to line up for their gifts, it soon
became clear that there were far more people than expected.
They had expected about two hundred thousand people. Instead, there
were half a million. Rumors rippled across the crowd that

(07:24):
the gifts had been poorly planned. There couldn't possibly be
enough for everyone in the crowd. People began to push
their way to the front, trying to make sure that
they got their gift. On top of that, there were
only eighteen hundred guards to try and corral half a
million people. This wasn't going to end well. There's actually
a science to how crowd crushes work. When that many

(07:45):
people begin pushing on one another, the force effectively combines
them into one large muscle that becomes impossible for anyone
to resist. The force of the crush sent thousands toppling
into the holes and ditches in the field. They fell
on top of one another, suffocating. Eventually, though, the crush
dissipated and most people were able to flee to safety,

(08:06):
but somewhere between thirteen hundred and two thousand people were killed.
The onlooking French ambassador felt that poor planning and a
lack of medical facilities were to blame for the deaths.
Nicholas arrived on the scene well after the bodies had
been cleared away, and to him it didn't seem like
such a big deal. Meanwhile, France and Russia had recently

(08:27):
joined in a new alliance, and Nicholas had to ensure
that the French knew that it was genuine. The French
had planned a massive ball for that evening to celebrate
his coronation. His brother in law and even a visiting
Chinese ambassador all commented that it was not a good
idea to attend after the tragedy, but Nicholas felt that
he had no choice unless he wanted to risk the alliance.

(08:49):
So that's a second historical movement that was working against him.
The sight of the Czar at the ball that night,
smiling and dancing with all his rich friends in curiated
the public. The newspapers called him Bloody Nicholas. Author Leo Tolstoy,
maybe the most renowned figure in Russian history, wrote a
short story about the horrors of the tragedy. Nicholas visited

(09:13):
the surviving victims in the hospital and donated money and
further gifts to each of the families of the victims,
but further disorganization meant that it took weeks to sort
through all of the bodies and return them to their
loved ones, to the serfs. It was all very emblematic
of how little the nobles actually cared about them. By
nineteen oh three, the country's labor party grew into the

(09:35):
Bolshevik faction that would eventually rebel in nineteen seventeen, a
third and final movement that spelled doom for the czar.
A year later, the Bolsheviks killed Nicholas and his entire family.
They say that hindsight is twenty twenty. Looking back, Nicholas
might have wished that he had planned that giveaway a
little better, or perhaps not gone to the party after

(09:57):
the tragedy, or maybe done more to stuf serfdom itself
and curb the exploitation of the Industrial Revolution. It's a
curious thing to imagine, but he might have been doomed
either way. Losing his alliance with the French or angering
the rest of the nobility by completely abolishing serfdom might
also have gotten him killed. Ultimately, he'll be remembered as

(10:18):
the indifferent monarch who barely noticed when thousands of peasants
died at his own party, the cups that were meant
as gifts became known as the Cups of Sorrows. Curiously,
many of those cups are still around today, and you
can buy one online for about a thousand dollars funds
that might buy you a lot of beer and pretzels.

(10:43):
I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
more about the show and the people who make it
over at Grim and Slash Curiosities. You'll also find a

(11:03):
link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available
in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook.
And if you're looking for an ad free option, consider
joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
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sign up over at patreon dot com, Slash, Grimandmild, and

(11:24):
until next time, stay curious.