100 years ago in Spokane: Gonzaga football fans were going to get play-by-plays via radio

Gonzaga football fans were about to get something new – a radio play-by-play of an away game.

Father J.J. Prange, professor of radio at Gonzaga University – yes, such a position had been newly created – arranged for KFCB, a station in San Diego, to broadcast the play-by-play reports of the game. This was a bowl game, of sorts – the East-West Christmas Classic, versus the University of West Virginia, at a San Diego stadium.

Prange had a receiving set at Gonzaga that was capable of picking up the KFCB broadcasts. The local radio store in Spokane was loaning an amplifier so that the broadcast could be heard by a crowd of fans gathered at Gonzaga.

The play-by-play was to be provided by the manager of the Gonzaga team.

From the trial beat: A Fort George Wright soldier dropped a “bomb shell” on the defense at the Maurice Codd perjury trial.

The defense called Pvt. Cooley J. (Blackie) Quillen as a witness, and expected him to say that Beatrice Sant told him that his fellow soldier, Frank Brinton, “fell” over the railing at the Granite Building to his death. The word “fell” was significant, since it implied that Codd did not throw Brinton over the railing.

Yet Quillen’s testimony did not go according to the defense script.

“Beatrice Sant did not tell me that she saw Brinton fall over the railing,” an exasperated Quillen said on the stand. “I’m telling the truth now and I can’t see why you don’t let me alone.”

The defense attorney was clearly taken aback. He said he was “surprised” by that answer.