UC’s resurgence began to draw attention from talent in the state, including a three-sport athlete from Sandusky named London Gant. Gant was unstoppable on the football field. Even before he’d graduated from high school, he was a local legend, and his athletic ability was the stuff of modern myth. His 53 career touchdowns still stand as a Sandusky record.

In February 1933, despite overtures from the local University of Toledo, Gant announced he’d be attending Cincinnati. He graduated from Sandusky High School in 1933 after becoming the first athlete in state history to earn 12 varsity letters––in football, basketball, and track.

Once Gant became eligible for varsity sports at Cincinnati as a sophomore, he quickly became one of the era’s most dominant athletes, perhaps the best Clifton had seen since Jimmy. Just the second Black player in program history, he bolstered the rushing attack as a fullback while serving on special teams as the conference’s premier punter.

Gant faced discrimination early in his sophomore year. UC secured marquee non-conference games against Kentucky and Vanderbilt in 1934, but the southern opponents refused to face a Black player. At their opponents’ request, the Bearcats sidelined Gant and lost 27-0 and 32-0 in consecutive weeks without him.

Gant returned to the field by Buckeye play, and the Bearcats tore through the competition, closing the season 3-0-1, outscoring opponents 41-6, and earning an outright conference title. His impact can be felt in his absence, as the team struggled in games without its star. After a 7-2 season in 1935, Gant dealt with nagging injuries throughout his senior year in 1936. Finally, in the first quarter of a November matchup with Ohio Wesleyan, Gant tore ligaments in his knee. The team finished 0-1-2 without him, scoring just six points to finish 1-5-3. It marked the end of the playing career of the defining athlete of the decade.

Gant’s talent changed the Bearcats football program, even while the program failed him. The first half of the 1930s saw the most sustained success in team history. From 1930-35, Cincinnati went

37-16-1. The program was piping hot, attendance was improving, and––most importantly––public money was available through FDR’s Works Progress Administration.

The university’s C Club Stadium Committee, with the unanimous approval of the alumni association, presented a plan to renovate the 11-year-old stadium. “There is no denying the fact that the UC stadium, as it now stands, is an impractical, freakish structure,” quipped the Cincinnati Post. “At Nippert Stadium, you could call it a good five-minute walk from the lower edge of the stands to the sideline. The gridiron appears like a postage stamp in the center of a giant horseshoe.” (The grassy area spanned so vast between the concrete stands that, for a brief time, the baseball program played there. Home plate was situated in the northwest corner of the field, with the batters aiming for what now serves as the student section.)

The fans’ opinion on the proposed expansion was just as clear: “We now have good coaching, we have a good football team,” wrote one season ticket holder in a letter to the Cincinnati Post, “But the stadium remains a high school stadium.”

The university’s board of directors didn’t feel a renovation was necessary, but the C-Club argued the WPA funding created a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. “The C Club Committee seems to believe that it is now or not for a long time,” reported the Cincinnati Post. The athletics supporters won, the board of directors approved the project on November 4, 1935, and Nippert went under the knife again, supported by a budget consisting of funding almost entirely from the WPA.

The university installed several improvements ahead of the 1936 football season. Chief among them was the lowering of the field, which was dug out 12 feet, facilitating the addition of seats to bring capacity from about 12,000 to roughly 25,000 thanks to 21 new rows and a pair of additional sections, one on each end of the horseshoe. Raised wooden bleachers were also installed across the bowl, eliminating the need to sit directly on the concrete. The final tally: 60,000 cubic yards of excavated earth, 80,000 feet of lumber for wooden bleachers, and five men working two weeks to paint the new seat numbers.

The lighting system also saw its first significant upgrade since 1923, with two new towers contributing to the doubling of the candlepower of the previous setup. Before 8,000 yards of sod were laid for the new playing surface, UC installed “11,000 feet of farm tile below the topsoil” to improve drainage and end the days when the field would “resemble a lake” after heavy rain storms.

UC re-dedicated the stadium on September 26, 1936, in a 40-6 defeat against a superior West Virginia team. Yet, the highlight of that autumn was a visit from the man perhaps most responsible for the stadium’s increased capacity, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

FDR was seeking reelection, and the country was in the throes of the Great Depression. He came to Cincinnati as part of his campaign tour (and to check out the stadium his WPA helped fund). An estimated 15,000 fans braved terrible weather to see his appearance on Carson Field. “What’s a little rain between friends?” he joked to open the address. “I am very glad to come to Cincinnati. I am very glad this morning to have seen some of the work with which the federal government has been able to help, first that slum clearance project and then the bridge and now this stadium.”

The Bearcats, again, had re-secured their footing in the college athletics landscape. Yet, again, the stability would prove to be fleeting. The six-season hot streak cratered to a 1-5-3 record in the renovated stadium’s first season. Things got worse in 1937 with a 0-10 mark. It was the most losses in a season in program history and the first winless campaign since 1917.

UC bolted from the Buckeye Conference following the disastrous campaign, citing gripes about the encroaching presence of Ohio and Dayton, the desire for a fresh start for the program, and the need for financial and scheduling freedom. Things marginally improved as the football team closed the decade with a pair of four-win seasons. Nonetheless, the Bearcats were again an athletic department wandering in the wilderness as the 1940s loomed, bringing more change that would shape not just football in Cincinnati, but the world as a whole.