Rice given no chance in 1938 Cotton Bowl

by Bartee Hailie

With the possible exception of their mothers, no one gave the Owls of Rice Institute much of a chance against the unbeaten Colorado Buffaloes and All-American “Whizzer” White in the second Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day 1938. In Jimmy Kitts, the “Harvard of the South” got two coaches for the price of one. While still in his twenties, the former Southern Methodist star had won a pair of national high school basketball championships at Athens, Texas. Since he also knew a thing or two about the pigskin pastime, Rice hired him in 1931 to coach the freshman football team in addition to varsity basketball.

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