The Cal 100: No. 11 -- Brick Muller
We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.
No. 11: Brick Muller
Cal Sports Connection: Muller was a star player on Cal’s undefeated football teams of 1920, 1921 and 1922, and was a standout in several events on the Cal track and field team. Harold Muller was nicknamed Brick because of his red hair.
Claim to Fame: Muller was the first player from the West Coast to be a consensus first-team All-American, earning that honor twice. He was named to an alltime best 11-man college football team more than 25 years after he played. He was a silver medalist in the high jump in the 1920 Olympics. Muller won a national collegiate high jump title in 1921, and placed in the top four in three events at the 1922 NCAA championships. He became an orthopaedic surgeon and was the team physician for the 1956 U.S. Olympic team.
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Harold “Brick” Muller is often considered Cal’s best collegiate football player ever. But despite all his football honors, his Olympic silver medal and his status as a respected orthopaedic surgeon, Muller is best remembered for one play in the 1921 Rose Bowl, a play titled “Dead Man’s Play.”
Muller, then a sophomore end, had already dominated that game against heavily favored Ohio State, forcing two fumbles with big hits and catching a pass that led to the Bears’ first touchdown in what was to become a stunning 28-0 Cal victory. Then head coach Andy Smith called for his favorite trick play.
It started with Cal’s Archie Nisbet faking an injury and hobbling toward the sidelines. But when Nisbet got to where the ball was lying, he picked it up and quickly lateraled to Pesky Sprott, who headed toward the left sidelines. Ohio State’s defense was positioned to stop Sprott, who tossed the ball across the field to Muller, who was far behind the line of scrimmage, which was at about his own 45-yard line.
Muller, who was reputed to have huge hands, then threw the ball higher and farther than anyone had thrown a football at that time. No Ohio State defender was positioned that far back, allowing Cal’s Brodie Stephens to catch it at the goal-line for a touchdown.
Teams seldom passed in those days, partly because the ball was rounder than it is now, making short passes difficult and long passes nearly impossible. You could hear the oohs from the crowd as Muller’s pass went skyward. Officially it was a 53-yard pass, but witnesses insist the ball traveled at least 70 yards.
The pass was the subject of newspaper headlines, and Ripley's Believe it Or Not featured it in one of its popular newspaper serials. Not surprisingly Muller was the MVP of that Rose Bowl.
A Brick Muller pass, but this was a short one. Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
Muller never lost a football game at Cal, which went 27-0-1 in Muller’s three seasons, and the Bears were named national champs in 1920 and 1922. Muller was a third-team All-America selection by Walter Camp as a sophomore in 2020, and a consensus first-team All-America pick in 1921 and 1922, becoming the first player from west of the Rocky Mountains to earn consensus first-team All-America honors.
In the late 1940s, more than 25 years after he graduated from Cal, Collier’s magazine named Muller to its All-Time All-America eleven. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951.
However, Muller was already famous before becoming a football star. Following his freshman year at Cal, at the age of 19, Muller won a silver medal in the high jump in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Belgium, clearing a height of 6-2 3/4.
Photo courtesy of Cal athletics
As a Cal sophomore, Muller finished in a tie for first place in the high jump at the 1921 ICAAAA track and field meet, which, at the time, served as the national collegiate championship for track and field. Cal won the ICAAAA (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) team championship in 1920, 1921 and 1922. Then, in 1922, in the second NCAA track and field championship, Muller placed second in the long jump, third in the high jump and fourth in the discus to lead Cal to the national team championship.
Muller attended medical school after graduating, but to earn extra money he also served as a Cal assistant football coach from 1923 to 1925. The next year, he played in the first East-West Shrine game, and before that game he caught a pass launched from atop the Pacific Telephone Building in San Francisco, a drop 320 feet. From there he became a player-coach for the Los Angeles Buccaneers, a traveling NFL team that went 6-3-1 under Muller in 1926, its only year of existence.
He became an orthopaedic surgeon and was a major at the Army Medical School during World War II,.
Muller was the head team physician for the 1956 U.S. Olympic team.
He died in Berkeley in 1962 at the age of 60.
The Cal 100: No. 12 -- Natalie Coughlin
Cover photo of Brick Muller courtesy of Cal Athletics
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