Dietz legend lives on

He opened holes for teammate Jim Thorpe. He was the only coach to lead Washington State to a Rose Bowl victory. He is the reason Washington D.C.’s professional football team is called the Redskins.

Now William “Lone Star” Dietz also has a biography.

The book is called “Keep A-goin’,” and is by Pennsylvania author Tom Benjey, who thought a character this much larger than life deserved his own volume.

“Dietz was like a rock star,” Benjey said during a recent interview in Spokane while on a book tour. Dietz was involved in the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. He was friends with people like Knute Rockne and Walt Disney. He was an actor in silent movies and was also a noted artist.

“He was a Forrest Gump-like sort of character,” Benjey said. “He rubbed shoulders with lots of famous people.”

The title of the book “Keep A-goin”’ was derived from a well-known poem about perseverance in the face of adversity that Dietz was said to be reading at the time of his death.

Washington State University fans may only know Dietz from photographs of him in full Indian regalia that were used to promote the 1916 Rose Bowl. He spent only three seasons in Pullman but they were memorable.

He coached the 1915 team to a 7-0 record and a 14-0 upset over Brown in the 1916 Rose Bowl. That was the game that established the New Year’s Day tradition for football bowls. It also gave Western football a much needed shot of respectability against the Eastern powers, and is considered the first modern Rose Bowl.

While in California, Dietz also got himself and his players hired as extras for the silent film “Tom Brown of Harvard,” for which they were paid $100 each.

When the team returned to Pullman they were met with cheers of “Lone Star! Lone Star! Yip Yip You! How we love you, oh you Sioux!”

The Cougars have yet to win another Rose Bowl.

Dietz’ 1916 team went 4-2 and his 1917 team was 6-0-1 before World War I interrupted college football. He coached a football team of Marines from the Mare Island base during the war, posting a 20-3 record. The 1918 Mare Island team, made up largely of former WSU players, played in the Rose Bowl.

Dietz later coached at Purdue, Louisiana Tech, Wyoming, Haskell Indian Institute and Albright College, compiling a 96-62-7 record as a college coach.

Prior to coaching, Dietz played tackle at the legendary Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania starting in 1909. He was a teammate of Thorpe, and it was here he began a long association with pioneering coach Glenn “Pop” Warner.

Dietz was born in 1884 in Wisconsin and raised by two white parents. His Indian origins are a bit hazy, but he recalled as a teenager hearing his parents talk about his Indian blood and was told his real mother lived far away.

Dietz became convinced he had Sioux blood, adopted the Indian name Lone Star, enrolled in Indian schools and dressed in Indian clothing.

He went to Carlisle in 1907 to study as an artist, and he met and married Indian artist Angel DeCora.

After his playing days were over, Dietz became an assistant coach under Warner at Carlisle.

Washington State, which hadn’t had a winning season since 1909, was looking for a coach to turn the program around. They hired Dietz in 1915, after getting a reference letter from Warner.

Dietz was a dandy at Pullman, dressing in formal wear and bringing so many clothes his belongings had to be stored in the gym.

He led the Cougars to 17 wins, two losses and one tie over three years, an .875 winning percentage. The Cougars scored 497 points and surrendered just 38.

Many newspapers carried photos of Lone Star “strolling the sideline in full tuxedo, stove pipe hat, and cane,” according to Bernie McCarty of the Professional Football Researchers Association.

But all was not good for Dietz in Washington.

During World War I, enemies had him brought up on trumped-up draft evasion charges before the Spokane County draft board. He eventually pleaded no contest because he did not have the money to defend himself. The widely followed case heavily damaged his image and coaching career, and ended his tenure at Washington State.

Lone Star remained a presence in the Cougar football program long after his departure. Former coach Mike Price kept a copy of the 1915 team picture in his office as a reminder of unfinished business.

The rest of Dietz’ coaching career was mostly spent at lower-tier schools, where he specialized in producing winning programs.

Dietz became head coach of the Boston Braves of the National Football League for two seasons in 1933 and 1934. He so impressed owner George Preston Marshall that the team was renamed the Redskins in his honor, a name which stuck after the move to Washington, D.C.

Whenever critics demand the team change its racially inflammatory name, supporters contend it is actually an honor that was bestowed on Dietz, Benjey said. As a result, researchers in court cases over the name have tried to disprove Dietz’ Indian heritage.

Dietz died broke in Reading, Pa., in 1964.