Brick Muller

Football Player

• Born: June 12, 1901
• Birthplace: Dunsmuir, California
• Died: May 17, 1962
• Place of death: Berkeley, California

Sport: Football

Early Life

Harold “Brick” Muller was born in Dunsmuir, a small town in Northern California, but he spent most of his childhood at the other end of the state, in San Diego, where he attended public schools. His father was the principal at his grade school. Brick began his involvement in sports at San Diego High School, for which he participated in football, baseball, and track and field. His thick thatch of red hair and rugged, determined style of play in football earned him the nickname “Brick,” which stuck with him through the rest of his life.

The Road to Excellence

Brick stood out in both football and track. In 1916, during his freshman season on his high school’s football team, he played right end, and his team won the Southern California High School Championship. He was also a versatile star on the school track team, competing in the shot put, javelin, high jump, long jump, and high hurdles. During his junior year, in 1918, he was both Southern California and state champion in the high jump.

Before Brick finished high school, his family moved back to Northern California, and he spent his senior year at Oakland Technical High School. During that year, he won state titles in both the high jump and the long jump (then called the “broad jump”) and placed third in the high hurdles.

The Emerging Champion

After graduating from high school in Oakland, Brick entered the University of California in nearby Berkeley. There he starred on both the football and the track teams. So impressive were his performances in track that his coach, Walter Christie, encouraged him to compete for a position on the 1920 U.S. Olympic team. Brick took that advice and succeeded. At the age of only nineteen, he won a silver medal in the high jump at the Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium. His jump of 6 feet 3 inches may not seem impressive by twenty-first century standards, but it was less than 2 inches below the Olympic-record mark of gold medalist Richmond London and only 4 inches below the world record at that time.

Continuing the Story

Brick won his greatest fame not on the track but on the football field. Standing 6 feet 2 1/2 inches tall and weighing 210 pounds, he was a large man for the college game of his era. When he was still in high school, he could reportedly throw a football more than 60 yards with a 12-foot trajectory. If that were true, the feat was amazing: The balls of his era were bigger, heavier, and more nearly spherical than modern balls—all of which made them harder to throw far and to spiral. Brick also had immense hands; he could wrap the fingers of one hand around a ball and became noted for his spectacular one-handed catches.

Brick had the good fortune to play football for the University of California during the first three seasons of the school’s greatest football era. From 1920 through 1924, Cal was undefeated under Coach Andy Smith and was the top-ranked team in the country. A wealth of football talent came together on that team, but Brick stood out as the greatest of them all. Cal’s best and most memorable season was 1920. That team won all nine of its games and outscored its opponents 492 to 14. Brick Morse, a popular sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle, dubbed the California Bears a “Wonder Team” after five games, and the nickname stuck.

An excellent receiver and defender, Brick played right end on both offense and defense for the Bears. He was also an outstanding passer and superb blocker. In those days when players were on the field for almost every kind of play and there was no such thing as a “fair catch,” Brick used his exceptional speed and bruising tackles to stop punt returners before they could advance a single yard. His energy and leadership also contributed to the greatness of his team.

At the end of the 1920 regular season, Brick’s team was invited to play a heavily favored Ohio State University team in the 1921 Rose Bowl. At that time, most sportswriters worked in the eastern parts of the United States and paid little attention to western teams such as Cal. They were in for a startling surprise. Cal beat Ohio State 28-0. Brick’s performance in that game ranks as one of the greatest ever in college football: He caught 5 passes, threw 3 completed passes, recovered 3 fumbles, and intercepted 2 Ohio State passes. The number of tackles he made in that game was not recorded, but thanks to his sensational punt coverage, Ohio State did not gain a single yard on punt returns. Brick’s blazing speed and bruising tackles contributed to demoralizing Ohio State players.

Despite those amazing statistics, what is most remembered about Brick’s performance that day was a trick play called the “Dead Man’s Play.” From a spot about 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage, Brick received a lateral pass and completed a pass that eyewitnesses later said traveled 70 yards through the air to left end Brodie Stephens. Never imagining that anyone could throw a ball that far, Ohio State left Stephens uncovered, and he walked into the end zone for a touchdown. Believed to be the longest throw ever completed in football, Brick’s pass was featured in the syndicated newspaper column “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” More critical analysis later determined that Brick’s throw had been closer to 53 yards, a distance that was still unheard of at the time. Meanwhile, the final tally for Brick’s 1920 team was 10 wins, no losses, and 510 points to the opponents’ 14.

After the 1920 season, Brick’s final two seasons on the Cal Wonder Teams may have seemed merely ordinary. During his three years at Cal, his teams had 27 wins, 1 tie, and no losses and outscored their opponents 1,220 to 80—for an average game score of 45-3.

After completing his college football career, Brick turned down offers to play in the fledgling NFL to pursue a medical career. An outstanding student, Brick had graduated second in his Cal class of more than one thousand students. Afterward, he earned his medical degree at the University of California’s San Francisco campus. In those days, the school’s first-year students studied basic science on the Berkeley campus. Despite his demanding schedule as a medical student, Brick was a volunteer assistant football coach at Cal from 1923 to 1925.

Meanwhile, Brick managed to play a little more football. After not playing football for his first two years at medical school, he was the star performer on the winning West team in the first East-West All-Star Game in San Francisco. The following year, he was lured into playing for the NFL’s new Los Angeles Buccaneers. He played ten games for the team, which folded after its first season, despite posting a 9-6 record. Brick then returned to finish medical school. His playing days were finally over, but he went on to a rewarding career in medicine and later became a charter member of the National Football Foundation’s College Football Hall of Fame.

Summary

Brick Muller was an outstanding all-around athlete whose legacy has many facets. His Olympic medal assured him sports immortality, but those who still celebrate his memory revere him mostly as the greatest football player in the history of the University of California, a school with a long and proud history in the sport. Brick eventually became a successful orthopedic surgeon and practiced in Oakland and Berkeley, where he is venerated for giving back to his alma mater and community. For many years, he was the team physician for Cal football and other sports. In 1956, he served as head physician for the U.S. Olympic team that went to Melbourne, Australia.

Bibliography

Brodie, S. Dan. Sixty-six Years on the California Gridiron, 1882-1948: The History of Football at the University of California. Oakland, Calif.: Olympic, 1949.

Hibner, John Charles. The Rose Bowl, 1902-1929: A Game-by-Game History of Collegiate Football’s Foremost Event, from Its Advent Through Its Golden Era. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1993.

Kaese, Harold. Famous American Athletes of Today. 6th ed. Boston: L. C. Page, 1938.

Wallechinsky, David, and Jaime Loucky. The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition. London: Aurum Press, 2008.