Harry Mehre was born September 18, 1901 in Huntington, Indiana.
From 1918-1921 he played on the offensive line at center for Coach Knute Rockne at the University
of Notre Dame, including undefeated seasons in 1919 and 1920.
Ironically,
Mehre did not go to Notre Dame on a football scholarship. He was an outstanding
football and basketball player. When he was a senior in 1918, Huntington High suspended football due to
the death of a player, so Mehre received a basketball scholarship to Notre Dame.
Rockne noticed Mehre playing basketball and invited him to come out for the football team, employing him at fullback before shifting him to center. He was an All-American center his senior season.
After majoring in journalism and graduating in 1922, Mehre went on to coach St. Thomas College
in 1923 and doubled as a Sunday coach and player for the independent pro football team, the Minneapolis Marines. He also assisted with a prep team in the area.
In 1924, Coach George “Kid” Woodruff hired Mehre as an assistant coach at the University of
Georgia. As a former Notre Dame player for Rockne, Mehre was in demand as a college football coach, as were other players under Rockne. The deal was sealed for Mehre in Coach Woodruff’s mind after Notre
Dame defeated Georgia Tech, 35-7, using the “Notre Dame Box,” a variation of former Georgia coach Pop
Warner’s single-wing formation to open up the game for passing. Following Mehre’s hire in 1924 came Jim
Crowley, one of the famous Four Horsemen.
When Coach Woodruff left football in 1927 to re-enter the business world, Coach Mehre, having
served four years as a Georgia assistant coach by then, assumed the head coaching position per Coach
Woodruff’s recommendation.
Mehre, Dr. Sanford and the alumni were waiting until the next year for the new stadium to be
completed. While Dr. Sanford was building the “Showplace of the Southland,” Mehre was building a team
worthy of dedicating the new stadium.
Coach Mehre married Hallie Kilpatrick, an Athens girl, on June 12, 1928 in Clarke County. Hallie’s
brother, Martin (Buster) Kilpatrick, played halfback at Georgia from 1923-1925 and then went on to head
one of the South’s most prominent law firms in Atlanta, Kilpatrick Cody.
Coach Mehre and Hallie had two children, Harry, Jr. and Mary Ann.
Coach Mehre led the Georgia team for a decade, including the inaugural game at Sanford Stadium
on October 12, 1929 versus the Yale Bulldogs. This game was later coined as “one of the greatest football
spectacles ever in the South.” Amid much celebration, Georgia defeated Yale, 15-0.
In fact, October 12, 1929 arguably remains the most memorable day in Georgia’s proud football
history. Mehre would later write in his sports column, “Christopher Columbus discovered America
on October 12, 1492. On October 12, 1929, 437 years later, Yale University came to Athens, Georgia
and discovered Sanford Stadium.”
Coach Mehre was off to a good start in carrying out his 1929 mandate, as delivered by Dr.
Steadman V. Sanford, Faculty Moderator of Athletics, later to become President and Chancellor of
the University, which read:
“The Georgia ideal is to play the best teams of the land, even those out of our class, to spread
the fame and glory of alma mater to the hinterland of New England and the Pacific Coast by presenting
Georgia boys who will play with the dash and gallantry typical of our youth, despite the inevitability of
defeat. The ideal will be reached when all major colleges in the Southern Conference have such schedules
and the squads are of such well-balanced strength that no one else can hope or expect to have a clean slate.”
The Bulldogs became a nationally known and ranked football team during Coach Mehre’s ten year
tenure at UGA. His winning record was 59-34-6, and only two losing seasons: 1928, his first, and 1932. His
teams beat Yale five times in a row and upset Fordham in 1936 when Fordham was favored to play in the
Rose Bowl. Georgia Tech, who had won three out of four of the post-World War I series, was beaten three
straight years.
Not just a football coach, Coach Mehre stepped in for Georgia’s basketball coach, Herman
Stegeman, in 1932, and was behind the 25-16 Bulldog victory over revered University of Kentucky Coach
Adolph Rupp’s team, his first loss as a Wildcat.
Coach Mehre left Georgia in 1928 to take the head coaching position at the University of Mississippi.
In his first game as coach, the Ole Miss Rebels beat the LSU Tigers, 20-7, in Baton Rouge. During his eight
year tenure in Oxford, his teams won four years in a row over LSU, a first for a Mississippi football team.
In 1946, Mehre retired from coaching, moved to Atlanta and entered the business world.
ENJOY THE READINGS OF THE LEGEND: COACH HARRY MEHRE!!
