Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1984
- Class:
- 1928
E. Thurston Towle '28
Sport:Â Football
Year Inducted:Â 1984
E. Thurston Towle '28 was an end on one of the University's greatest football teams, the Brown Iron Men of 1926. This was a swashbuckling group of athletes who asked no quarter and gave none. The record book shows that the Iron Men were 9-0-1, with only a tie in the Thanksgiving Day battle with Colgate to mar an otherwise perfect slate. But the record book doesn't tell the entire story. Perhaps it never can be told. Thurt Towle was an end on this team, which got its name when the eleven starters played the full sixty minutes against Yale and Dartmouth on successive weekends. Coach Tuss McLaughry once recalled his two star ends. "On one side we had our captain, Hal Broda. He was tall, rangy, a sprinter, fine pass receiver, great down field under punts. On the other side was Thurt Towle, a man who didn't have Broda's grace but who was one of the toughest wingmen ever to put on a Brown uniform. Thurt never shied away from the rough and tumble. In fact, he relished it. He could block with the best of them, and any back took his life into his own hands when he tried running Thurt's end. No man was better at scattering the interference." Thurt Towle, however, did have his lighter moments. In the 10-0 victory over Dartmouth at Hanover in 1926, Towle, Paul Hodge, and Orland Smith went over to the Big Green's prima donna quarterback, Eddie Dooley, who was stretched out on the field, joined hands in daisy-chain fashion, and danced around the fallen Indian star, all the time singing a strictly improvised version of that song hit of the day, "Oh Mr Dooly-ooly-ooly." The referee was so impressed with this performance that he gave the Bruins an "A" for the music and 15 yards for the lyrics. After graduation, Thurt Towle stayed on with Coach McLaughry for eight years as varsity end coach. He died in October 1960.
