Centre College proved to be fertile ground for cultivating champions from the start when it fielded its first football team in 1891. In its first two seasons, the team went undefeated: 4-0 in 1891 and 6-0 in 1892. The following year they extended the streak by winning their first four before finally losing one. It would take a lot of research to verify, but I doubt very much that any other college in the initial years of its football program won the first fourteen games it scheduled.
The game was different then with the field being 110 yards long with no end zones: in scoring you only received four points for a touchdown, two points for the kick after a touchdown, and five points for a field goal, which was often drop-kicked. Passing was illegal, although the lateral and two-hand passing were allowed as long as the ball did not go forward. The punting game was an ersatz version of a passing game because if you punted, your own players could recover the ball as long as they were "onside," that is, behind the punter, when he kicked it. If you scored a touchdown, the opposing team had to kick off to you. A loose ball that squirted out of bounds was still recoverable, but you may have had to knock over spectators to get to it. Spectators frequently ran on the field to protest calls by the referees, to embrace the heroes on their teams, or, on occasion, assault the players on the opposing team. In the late 19th century, football was a new-born colt trying to rise and gain its balance.
Convention holds that the first game of football played by Centre College was in 1880, but closer inspection shows that was not really the forerunner of the game that later developed. A column in the Lexington Daily Transcript on April 11, 1880 describes what was deemed the first football game played in the South between Centre College and Kentucky University, which was later re-named Transylvania University. Quoting from the column:
13 and 3/4 to 0
The above is the result of the match game of foot ball played yesterday afternoon at City Park between the Centre College and Kentucky University teams. As the Danville boys had the reputation of being a splendid club, our boys expected to be beaten. The visiting club was composed of tall, athletic men, while the University Club was made of mostly short, muscular boys whose style of physique is considered best for such a game.
A large crowd of ladies and gentlemen, estimated at 500, witnessed the game. The ladies seem to take especial interest in the fun and it was pronounced that foot-ball has decidedly the advantage as base-ball as a means of amusement to spectators. The collision between players at various times were almost equal to the coming together of two Spanish bulls, and provoked much laughter. The game lasted two hours, commencing at 4 and ending at 6 o'clock. It was played according to the Princeton rules.
The last sentence suggests a problem. What is recognized to be the first football game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869 was played by the "Princeton rules." Those rules created a game with 25 players on each side and did not allow players to carry the ball, only kick it in place after catching it. To move the ball you had to dribble it with your feet. It was bastardized version of soccer, a cross between a soccer game and a mass wrestling match with fifty participants. It's original name in the 19th century was "association football," because it was derived from the European version of football which we in the U. S. now call "soccer." You could collide with or "tackle" opposing players to try and take the ball from them, but that was the only part of the game that resembles what football became only 11 years later in 1891 when Centre fielded its first team to play an Americanized form of rugby. Unless Centre and Kentucky U. were cognizant of the rule changes that had been adopted by what we now call the Ivy League in 1876, the game was not remotely similar to the game we currently play.
The form of rugby named football as we now know it developed in the latter half of the 1870s when eastern colleges like Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Penn and Columbia eschewed association soccer and fielded rugby-like teams with rules that differed substantially from the "Princeton rules." The first seminal game in that regard was between Harvard and McGill University in 1874 when two games were played in Cambridge, one according to Harvard's Boston Rules (their version of the Princeton rules) and the other under McGill's more rugby-like rules. Because some McGill players had missed their train, the teams played with 11 men, which introduced the concept of 11 man football (later championed by Walter Camp of Yale in 1880) that a few years later became the standard and endures to this day. Before that, eastern teams played with 15 men per side. The Harvard players on that day in 1874 decided they liked the rugby-like game better than the one played by their rules. I believe that the Harvard/McGill game was the first American football game played in the United States. After being introduced to it by Harvard, other Eastern teams like Yale and Princeton also took to the new form of football and began playing Canadian rugby.
In 1876 an association of colleges, including Princeton, Columbia, Harvard and, soon after, Yale was formed to standardize and add additional rules to the traditional rugby rules. They added 61 rules and requirements, which began to distinguish American rugby from the British/Canadian original. In succeeding years over several decades, this rugby-like game with many more rule changes spread across the country to every state in the Union, of which there were 48 in 1912, the year when accrued rule changes resulted in a close approximation of the game we play today. This was the game with which Americans fell in love and the one at which Centre College would frequently excel over the next eleven decades.
The first inkling that this form of rugby-football was being played at Centre came from an item in the Kentucky Advocate of February 11,1890 (and on other days in other state newspapers as well) a year and eight months before the first game was actually played:
The young gentlemen of the Centre College foot-ball team are trying to arrange a game for Saturday, Feb'y 22 with the Central University team. Should the date be secured there will no doubt be many Danville and Richmond people in Lexington at that time as the game will in all probability be played in Lexington.
And then there was this item three days later:
Seventeen years after the Harvard-McGill matchup, and 22 months after the game was initially proposed, Centre played its first scheduled "foot-ball" contest against Central University of Richmond, Kentucky in a rugby-like game on November 25, 1891 in Nicholasville, Ky. The game was enthusiastically covered in a report in the Louisville Courier-Journal
This town was packed with college boys from Centre College and Central University to-day to see their respective foot-ball elevens meet. The crowd was furnished with a a very interesting game.
The report then recorded play-by-play action mentioning two players who scored for Centre: W. D. Berry, the quarterback and captain, and Douglas, an end. Berry, a faculty member and "Physical Director" at Centre at the time, created the Centre College Athletic Association with several of his teammates elected to serve as officers of the club. A new gym called the Boyle-Humphrey Gymnasium opened that year on Centre's campus.
While he was akin to an Athletic Director in those years, Berry was also Centre's first quarterback during the 1891 and 1892 seasons. He was Centre's first captain, which meant that he was the player who called the signals and oversaw the team and its affairs. There were few if any professional coaches in those days although the East Coast teams were beginning to hire them from the ranks of former players, usually players from Yale, Harvard and Princeton who had been playing full schedules against each other as well as other teams for more than a decade. The need for full-time coaches and coaching staffs was was yet to be recognized by either the participants or the sponsoring schools until a few years later when the passions of the game as well as its complexity and profitability grew exponentially. Within a decade, coaching became a professional occupation and the best schools hired capable coaches to direct their teams. College boys were, after all, post-adolescents and prone to rowdiness. Eventually all the colleges realized the players needed adult supervision, especially when they began to travel long distances to play away games and when the dangers of the game began to mount in the form of injuries and even an occasional death.
In the meantime, football veterans of Eastern and Ivy League institutions who grew up in distant reaches of the country and who had been intensely trained at places like Yale and Princeton were returning to their home states like Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana to coach and often play for local football clubs and college teams. (Eligibility requirements did not exist then in any coherent form.) Their experience and knowledge gained in the spotlight of eastern college football proved invaluable to the colleges and universities with new football programs in the middle of America and on the west coast. Walter Camp of Yale, often referred to as the Father of American Football, traveled in 1894 to Palo Alto, California to teach the Stanford team the game as it was practiced at his university where he had firm control of the program, its rules and finances.
In the Louisville Courier-Journal of Dec 2, 1891, the aforementioned Mr. Douglas was described this way:
They have a good coacher in Douglas, a Yale man, and, as the team has been in constant training for six weeks, they will very likely beat the [Louisville] Athletic Club team.
That "Yale man" was Francis Breckinridge Douglas. I could find no documentation that Douglas played at Yale or even attended, so it may have been the description of him as a "Yale man" relates to his advocacy of the Yale system of football, which was sweeping the country at this time. It was also being taught by Walter Berry. Or, given his middle name, he may have grown up in Kentucky and gone to Yale for a short period and then returned to Kentucky with experience on a class team playing intramural football. His name suggests he was a resident Kentuckian. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Centre in 1893 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Law Department in 1895. He is later identified in the football team photo of 1895 as the "manager," which was a position similar to entertainment manager who arranges playing dates and negotiates contracts for artists. He is also mentioned in later newspaper reports as a referee in games played in the state of Kentucky.
Two more Yale men, Eugene Messler and Richard Lowndes captained, coached and played for the Centre team in 1894 and 1895 respectively. Centre always seemed to find a way to enlist talented "coachers" in its earliest years as a football power. Walter Berry and Francis Douglas were only the first two. In 1896, a Princeton man named H. McC. Anderson was hired to coach and play for the team. He was also very successful.
Here is the "foot-ball" team's record in their first season as compiled in the Centre College archives:
| 1891 (4-0) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | Central University (Richmond, Ky.) | 6 | Nicholasville, KY | November 25 |
| 14 | Louisville Athletic Club | 0 | Louisville | December 5 |
| 10 | University of Kentucky | 0 | Lexington | December 19 |
A month before Centre's first scheduled intercollegiate football game, this item under CENTRE COLLEGE NOTES was published in the Kentucky Advocate:
Foot ball is becoming very popular among the students. They assemble in the campus every afternoon around four o'clock and engage in a practice game. Prof. Berry says there is excellent material among the students and that a fine club will probably be the result of a reasonable amount of practice.
The first intercollegiate game was played on Nov. 25, 1891 against Central University of Richmond was described this way in the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Nicholasville, Ky., Nov. 25. --(Special) -- . . . Centre College won the toss and took the ball. Centre's eleven rushed the playing from the start, Halfbacks Hardin and Hudson gaining ground and making the first touchdown, scored by Hudson, from which a goal was kicked by Capt. Berry. . . A run later on by Cook, of Centre College, carried the ball within five yards of Central University's goal. Douglas, of Centre College, carried it over, for the second touchdown . . .
Centre won the game by a score of 22-6. Two weeks later, in an article meant to publicize an upcoming game in Louisville, the Courier-Journal of Dec. 2, 1891 described the excitement aroused by the second game for Centre scheduled for Dec. 5 against the Louisville Athletic Club this way:
The game will be the greatest ever played in Louisville, and the grounds give promise of being crowded. Many parties of young people will be made up to attend and the grandstand will hold much of the beauty of Louisville and the state as parties will come from Lexington, Richmond and other points.
The college team is one of the heaviest in the country, averaging 165 pounds. . . The Club eleven is a strong one individually and the men are in fair trim, but not having the time to play together they will lack team work which will count against them. The Captains of the two teams are W. D. Berry for the Centre team and Bob Watts for the Athletic Club.
The game would draw 1200 spectators. An adjoining column on Dec. 2 described festivities the night after the game. Exhibitions of other sports and a dance were scheduled at the Athletic Club, although the Centre team was scheduled to leave by train a couple of hours after the game. Of interest in this column was the description of Walter Berry, the Centre captain and quarterback, who is arguably the first champion in a long line of Centre football champions:
The team is being trained by Captain Berry who is Physical Director of Centre College, an athlete of reputation and a strict disciplinarian. He is not only an expert football player, but has seen service on the diamond. He was shortstop on [Amos Alonzo] Stagg's celebrated baseball team of Yale and last summer coached the crew of the Training College on the Connecticut at Springfield, Mass. He was graduated from the Training College in June of '91, taking first rank in gymnastics and receiving a diploma in The Society for First Aid to Injured. He was Physical Director of Fitchburgh YMCA and is thoroughly acquainted with everything in the athletic line. Captain Berry is twenty-one years of age, of medium height, well built, active and never gets rattled in a tight place.
What the writer calls the "Training College on the Connecticut" was actually the International YMCA Training School which was formed to train young men to become directors and instructors at YMCA facilities across the country. James Naismith invented basketball there at the same time Centre started playing intercollegiate football under Berry. Amos Alonzo Stagg, one of the most famous, successful and long-serving coaches in the history of college football was coaching football and baseball there when Berry attended, and in fact, all three, Berry, Stagg and Naismith appear in a photo of the senior class at the Training School in 1891. From the Springfield College Archives:
We can deduce that Berry was the shortstop on Training School baseball team that Stagg coached and not the Yale team on which Stagg had previously played, winning all-American honors as a pitcher and end while playing there from 1885-1888. Stagg had graduated from Yale and then enrolled at the divinity school there but then decided he could serve the Christian gospel better as an athletic coach. As head of the Yale YMCA, he was invited to attend the YMCA Training School in Springfield as both a coach and a student. In 1892 he was hired by William Rainey Harper to be Director of Physical Culture and coach of the football team at the newly reconstituted University of Chicago. He coached there for forty years.
The YMCA Training School was a ferment of athletic creativity at that time. Naismith invented basketball there and in the following year, William G. Morgan enrolled and became friends with Naismith and Stagg. In 1895, at the Holyoke YMCA where he had been hired as Director of Physical Education, Morgan, in an attempt to invent a game that was less stressful for older members of the Y, invented the game of "Mintonette" which we now know as the sport of volleyball. A year later, the first public exhibition of the game was played at the YMCA Training School in Springfield.
Centre's second game against the Louisville Athletic Club game was one of the first in Louisville. The sportswriting about the game, like the game itself, was in its infancy. Coverage of the game played on Dec. 5, 1891 was detailed, elegant and more than two full columns long containing roughly 2500 words. The writer described every play-- not unlike the audio coverage we hear today on television or radio. Photography was not yet in use in city newspapers. All illustrations were line drawings by artists employed by the newspapers. A drawing of Walter Berry accompanied the text of the play by play in the Courier-Journal:
Here is a short sample of the play-by-play in the Courier-Journal's report, which represents roughly a mere one-tenth of the column space used in the entire report:
***********
Centre's championship football tradition started with Walter D. Berry in 1891, although there were often conflicting claims as to who actually was the Kentucky State Champion, a purely rhetorical designation as there were no formal rules by which to determine who actually deserved it. In his first two seasons, he guided the team to two consecutive unbeaten seasons. Centre was 4-0 in 1891 and 6-0 in 1892 —ten straight victories. They won four more in a row in 1893, but then lost the last game to Central University of Richmond to finish with a 4-1 record. They had won 14 games in a row over three seasons before their first loss. As an early football "coacher," Berry was a prodigy.
He was held in such high regard that after Centre beat the University of Cincinnati twice in 1892 by the scores of 12-4 and 34-0 and beat them again in 1893 by a score of 18-0, he was invited to coach that University team in 1894. He went there to study medicine, which allowed him to play for the team because he was officially a student, albeit one in graduate school. He led them for two years, going 3-3 in each season for a total record of 6-6, which suggests he had better talent in Danville than in Cincinnati. Eventually he returned to his birthplace in New England and practiced medicine there until late in life. He died in 1953.
The Missing Victory
In the Centre Digital Archives on line there is a file that lists all the football records of every Centre football team up until 2013. I have copied and pasted the one for 1891 above and will do the same for each successsive season including 1900. In its heading it claims the team's record in its first season was 4-0. And yet, only three games are listed with their scores. The story of the missing game is worth the telling.
A game was scheduled with Vanderbilt in Nashville for Saturday, November 21, 1891, which would have made it Centre's first game ever. (Vanderbilt had played its first game on Thanksgiving, 1890.) On Friday, the Centre yellow and white, (the mascot name "Colonels" had yet to be adopted) dutifully traveled 200 miles by train to Nashville, checked into their hotel and prepared to play the following day at 3 PM. The game was heavily advertised in Nashville in order to sell tickets at a cost of .35 and .50 cents. Centre was guaranteed two-thirds of the gate proceeds.
It rained that Saturday. According to the Vanderbilt captain, a call was made to the Centre team at their hotel at 1:45 PM to inform them Vanderbilt did not want to play the game in the rain and that the game was cancelled. The Centre team had already departed for the field and arrived to find no ticket vendors, the goal posts not erected, and only one Vanderbilt player in uniform with others in their street clothes ready to go home. One referee was present.
In a story headlined "The Baby Act," the following day, the Nashville Daily American excoriated the Vanderbilt team:
Probably for the first time in the history of sport, a match game of football was not played on account of rain. It happened in this city yesterday and Vanderbilt was the cause of it. . . . All of which looks very much like the baby act. The old gold and blacks may claim they were sore from the St. Louis game [Washington University of St. Louis beat them the week before 24-6] . . . But surely, surely, they should not have refused to play because their opponents looked big or the rain was falling.
This elicited a response from Vanderbilt's captain, Elliott Jones, which was printed the following day. In a letter to the editor, he protested the paper's insults directed at the team and its leaders. He explained the cancellation and denied it was a forfeit (the paper had claimed the referee forfeited the game to Centre by a score of 100-0), but he was far from convincing. He stated that an "Executive Committee" had voted to cancel the game in the early afternoon when the rain, which had stopped for a while, began to fall again. He also averred that because he as captain had left the field of play before the game was scheduled to start, the referee could not by the rules declare a forfeit.
Centre sources said the referee declared the game a forfeit and awarded Centre a 6-0 victory. Captain Jones said there was no forfeit, simply a cancellation and all was copacetic; that Centre had agreed to cancel the game; that Centre Captain Berry had discussed re-scheduling the game and that Vandy paid the hotel bill and cost of train tickets back to Kentucky, plus $45 in cash. All this might have been true, but in response to the captain's attack on his newspaper, the editor of the paper appended this short rejoinder at the bottom of Jones' letter: The report of the event was mainly based upon information received from members of the Centre College eleven. In other words, Captain Berry, who was trying to negotiate a settlement and acting diplomatically to get some measure of compensation, may have been polite, but the team was outraged.
The Centre version of events is best captured in this item in the Jessamine Journal of Nicholasville:
Vanderbilt did not acquit itself well in this incident.
Centre's first football team in 1891. Captain Walter Berry holds the ball. In the front row, left to right, are Martin Hardin, Francis Douglas and a young Arthur "Dickie" Van Winkle, who was elected to the Centre College Hall of Fame in 1992. Sitting behind Van Winkle is Eugene Cook, father of E. Wilbur Cook, longtime professor of biology and noted photographer at Centre during the 20th century.
The 1892 Season
In 1892, Centre footballers repeated the success of the undefeated 1891 season. The team achieved it's best won-lost record of the decade with six wins and no losses. The accounts of the games in newspapers are similar to those of 1891 with the papers celebrating this new and exciting sport in Kentucky and reveling in the excitement it had generated among students and townspeople. Centre beat the University of Cincinnati twice, once by a score of 34-0, but then had a close game with Louisville Athletic Club winning 8-4. The last game of the season versus Transylvania was also close with the score 6-4.
Here from the Centre Archives is a summary of the 1892 season:
| 1892 (6-0) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | University of Cincinnati | 4 | Danville | November 15 |
| 8 | Louisville Athletic Club | 4 | Louisville | November 12 |
| 34 | University of Cincinnati | 0 | Cincinnati | November 24 |
| 12 | Miami University (Ohio) | 6 | Danville | December 2 |
| 24 | Central University (Richmond, Ky.) | 8 | Lexington | December 22 |
| 6 | Transylvania University | 4 | Lexington | |
| No site or date information for Transylvania University game | ||||
| The pivotal game for the State Championship against Central University was played on December 22 on the State College field that had to be plowed of snow before the game. The cold did not dampen the enthusiasm for the game which drew 2,000 excitable spectators who often overran the ropes and flooded the field when a touchdown was scored. The gambling on the game was hot because it was in Kentucky where gambling on graceful, speedy thoroughbreds was a celebrated art form. From the Lexington Herald-Leader: |
|---|
| Lawson Tarleton, the well-known horseman, put up $1500 [roughly $55,000 today] to $1000, taking the Danville end of the ticket. The Richmond end went to the Richmond crowd who raised the money after a great deal of hustling. |
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| Central U. started the scoring by pushing over a touchdown early in the game. From the Louisville Courier-Journal: |
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| The scene after the touchdown beggars description. The crowd rushed into the grounds and hugged the players. It was some minutes before the game could be started. |
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| The kick was missed. Centre regained their composure and drove in for a touchdown, Woodard making the final push. Berry kicked the points after and it was 6-4. The teams traded alternating unsuccessful drives and the half ended. |
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| When the second half started, Centre scored a touchdown within five minutes. Berry kicked for two and the score was 12-4. According to the Courier-Journal, "This raised Danville spirits to 200 proof, while Richmond's hops went below zero." (The Bluegrass was and is bourbon whiskey country, after all.) Centre made two more touchdowns with points-after while Central only made one and missed their kick. Final score: Centre 24, Central 8. |
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There were items in newspapers that captured just how important the sport had become to the Centre players and their faithful. The first described a banquet held in tribute to the team at the home of William Woodard Jr, a fullback on the undefeated team who was a resident of Lexington from a well-to-do family. On the evening of December 22 after the team dominated Central University of Richmond by a score of 24-8, Woodard's family hosted the entire team and related guests at their home for a banquet that had been planned for months. It was covered by the Lexington Herald-Leader in a column that describes both the elegance and exuberance of the evening:
Arrangements for a costly bridal could hardly have been more beautiful or elaborate than those Mrs. Woodard affected in honor of her young son's friends.
The handsome family residence was decked every where, "upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber," almost. Yellow and white, the Centre College colors, were the predominant tones. Holly was used in excess throughout every department . . . Here and there appeared tall jars of yellow and white chrysanthemums.
Mrs Woodard received her guests in a rich gown of black faille garnitured in jet and gold. She wore a cluster of yellow and white chrysanthemums. . .
The college men came in body around 7 o'clock in a most jubilant manner, bearing aloft their triumphant banner in white satin and gold, surmounted by the foot-ball of their late opponents. . . . it did one's heart good to see such buoyancy and enthusiasm. . .
The dinner was served in eight courses. Among the good things were blue points, quail on toast, sweet bread, pates, chicken salad, champignons, orange ice, ices in shapes, fruit, cake, bon bons, chocolate, coffee, etc, etc. Appollinaire water flowed instead of wine. The silver, china and napery used was of the most exquisite of quality.
All during the repast, and indeed throughout the evening, Treat's orchestra made constant and beautiful music.
The game with Central was not without incident. Berry was kicked in the back and nine days later there was this report in the Dec. 31st Louisville Courier-Journal below the headline, Who Kicked Captain Berry?
. . . the question has been agitating the minds of the citizens of Danville and Richmond since the recent foot-ball game between Central University and Centre College. Captain Berry . . . was brutally kicked in the back, the imprint of a heel being plainly left, and he has, in consequence been laid up ever since the game.
In some manner the report has been circulated that Prof. R. L. Pulliam, a member of the faculty of Central University, who played in the game, had been guilty of the act of deliberately kicking Berry while he was on his face on the ground. The report having reached Prof. Pulliam, he came immediately to Danville with his war paint on. He is still here looking for the man who originated the report, which he pronounces maliciously false. If he fixes the blame on the proper person there is promise of some fun to follow.
In the Centre Digital Archives there is a cartoon by Martin Hardin, who after being punched in the mouth by Professor Pulliam during the game, apparently decided to rub in Centre's decisive victory by demonstrating he had not only athletic talent but artistic talent as well:
Centre played one more game that year against Transylvania (Kentucky University) but the date and location of that game are unknown. The score was reported to be 6-4 in favor of Centre.
There was one more small item published in the Jessamine Journal on Dec. 30, 1892 that was literally worth its weight in gold:
That would be worth roughly $25,000 today. What could be called "the amateur ethic" was only beginning to be celebrated in the 1890s as football began to explode on the national scene-- partly because baseball, first described as the "national pastime" in 1856 and played regularly within armies of the North and South during the Civil War, was falling into ill-repute on the professional level. Drunkenness cheating, gambling, violence, and rigging of games were becoming problematic in the grand old game. In the East, college and club football was beginning to show similar signs of corruption in the 1890s, but football in the midwest and the south was relatively pristine compared to the skullduggery going on in the East or so the people of the South thought. Some might view the gift to Captain Berry as improper, but it was not really that. It was simply one of genuine and innocent appreciation for the expertise, notoriety and success he had brought to a little town in the geographic center of the state of Kentucky at a time when rules and regulations were ill-defined.
There were two kinds of reputed "amateur" football teams in those days: the clubs and the colleges. The Clubs had no rules but their own and were not subject to pious College faculties who were trying to keep their campuses morally and intellectually pure. Many professors were unhappy with the rowdy nature of the new sport. Centre was run by devout Presbyterians, but even they could see the advantages the sport might bring to the colleges. President William C. Young of Centre certainly did as will become evident later.
Captain Walter Durant Berry got caught in the middle of the debate on who should be eligible to play college football. He was the very definition of a professional, but roughly the same age as the students who were his teammates. He had to face the the unique dilemma of the sport in his time which was the reality of two distinct types of organizations who were playing the same game: colleges and clubs or other non-collegiate entities like YMCAs and athletic associations. How do you regulate one and all if they are distinctly different? In the end he resolved his personal situation by leaving Centre and enrolling in the U of Cincinnati as a medical student. That meant he could play and coach without controversy. Here he is at the U of Cincinnati circa 1895:
The colleges with football programs in Kentucky were only beginning to insist on rules that would keep the sport solely for amateurs and not allow professionalism to infect the academic atmosphere. The situation was complicated because many of the available teams were not colleges, but athletic clubs or YMCA's. In the 1892, an association of Kentucky colleges would begin to meet and decide who was eligible to play, and how to keep professionalism out of the sport. Captain Berry, who kept in regular contact with that association but never agreed to join it, would fall victim to that attempt to set rules and regulations.
In 1891, there were four colleges in Kentucky with newly-minted football programs: Centre, Central University of Richmond, State College in Lexington (later to become the University of Kentucky), and Kentucky University (Later to become Transylvania.) Georgetown was warming up to it. By contrast, in Ohio, seven colleges had been playing or in the process of organizing before 1892. The first game in Ohio was in 1888 when Miami of Ohio played the University of Cincinnati to a scoreless tie.
The Centre College-Central University rivalry had a historical basis with religious roots dating back to the Civil War when Southern Presbyterians broke with the Northern Presbyterians, who controlled Centre, and created a new university in Richmond. As the names suggest, the Northern Presbyterians sided with the Union in the War and the Southern with the Confederacy. We can only speculate how that translated to the football field 30-plus years later, but evidence suggests it was still an issue. The chasms between families and friends created by the war were often long-lasting or without end.
Then, in 1901, in a move that must have shocked diehard Centre fans (short for "fanatic") and alumni, Centre College merged with Central to form a new university called Central University of Kentucky. This was an attempt by church elders to heal the divisions within the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky. Centre retained its identity as the undergraduate college of arts and sciences within Central University, but the football team, until 1918, would compete as Central University using Centre's students as players. In that year, Centre re-established its independent corporate identity through an act by the Kentucky legislature that revised its charter. Shortly thereafter, circa 1919, an illiterative name for the college mascot was coined--"the Centre College Colonels."
The new name is credited to George Joplin Jr., class of 1920, a Danville correspondent for the Louisville Courier-Journal. He felt a team of Centre’s caliber needed a compelling figure as a mascot; calling the team "the yellow (or gold) and white" was insufficient. He later said the rank of Colonel “commands respect, it is indicative of a gentleman, yet one who will fight if he has to.” Soon after, the 1920 yearbook described the team as, "the praying-fighting Colonels," and two years later in the yearbook it was shortened to the "Praying Colonels."
Indiana had early on moved ahead of Kentucky in embracing football. Butler played DePauw in May of 1884 marking the first college football game in Indiana. Later that year Butler was defeated by Wabash in the second game to be played in that state. By the end of the decade, Indiana University, Hanover College, and Franklin College had also established teams. By 1891, eight teams in Indiana had played college football games, but a few of them-- Hanover, Franklin and Notre Dame, did not field a team that year.
In Kentucky, there was the Louisville Athletic Club which was not a college at all but a group of young professionals seeking to compete whenever they could find a worthy foe. The urge to fill up the schedule with games that would excite fans, provide suitable competition and generate income through ticket sales was strong. Gordon Granger in the Lexington Herald-Leader of October 23, 1892, reported that Centre had scheduled two games in Virginia against Washington and Lee and the University of Virginia on successive days, November 25th and 26th. This give you some idea how desperate Captain Berry and his cohorts in the Centre College Athletic Association were to fill up the schedule. Yale, for example, played 13 games in 1892 (and went undefeated.) Berry had difficulty arranging six. (The Virginia trip did not happen for reasons that have not to my knowledge been explained.)
Berry was alternately feuding and negotiating with the other three Kentucky colleges who had formed the Kentucky State Intercollegiate Football Association [KSIFBA] and were demanding that Centre join and observe their rules if it wanted to be known as Kentucky College Champion ever again. The problem was the Association had a poison pill rule that appeared to specifically target Berry:
Article XI: No professional athlete, paid trainer in athletics, gymnasium instructor, or any one other than a bona fide student in the competing colleges shall take part in any contest of this league.
Because there was a dearth of teams in Kentucky compared to the situation in the East (or even in Indiana), college teams here and in the rest of the South consented to play YMCA teams and athletic clubs in the 1890s. Here is a list of non-college teams Centre played in the years 1891 to 1905: Louisville AC, Frankfort YMCA, Catlettsburg AC, Newcastle AC, Louisville YMCA, Pleasureville AC, and Avondale AC. They even played against Kentucky Military Institute, a preparatory school.
The last game played against a non-collegiate opponent was in 1905. By that time Centre had been able to schedule college teams like Vanderbilt, Ohio State, West Virginia University, the University of Alabama and the University of Tennessee, although most of their games were played against Kentucky colleges including Georgetown, Berea, Bethel, State College, Central University and Kentucky University.
The 1893 Season
Centre continued its winning streak in the 1893 season by beating the University of Cincinnati and the Louisville Athletic Club by the respective scores of 18-0 and 30-16 in its first two games. Kentucky State College was scheduled next. Berry had been assured in writing that he would be allowed to play in the game but when State College showed up in Danville on the day of the game they threatened to go home if Centre's signal caller and "coacher" was in the lineup. Centre agreed to play the game without Berry but were sorely impaired by having to substitute Merrill, an inexperienced quarterback and signal-caller who, because of the surprise disqualification, had no time to prepare.
In the game, Centre staged a ferocious comeback in the last few minutes of the second half to overcome a 4-0 deficit that resulted when SC scored a touchdown in the first half. When it came time for Hardin to kick the two-pointer after touchdown, State College claimed the umpire had called an offside penalty and that the touchdown didn't count. The umpire denied the claim and gave State College players two minutes to clear the field of their fans (who had invaded the grounds) and resume play. When they refused, he awarded the two points to Centre, thus giving Centre a victory by a score of 6-4 which caused raucous celebration in Centre's rooting section. The Kentucky Advocate in its report claimed that, "The play of the Centre eleven in the last ten minutes of the game was the grandest ever seen."
But the game infuriated many people on both sides and most notably Walter Berry, who received a letter from Henry H. Hill, President of the State College Athletic Association, requesting a re-match and proposing it be played on Thanksgiving. Berry, after consulting with the Centre faculty and College Athletic Association, refused the request in a statesman-like letter. The letter is published in the Centre Digital Archives. Among others, it includes these two paragraphs:
First, the bitter feeling already engendered between the two colleges, as evidenced by certain occurrences at the recent game in Danville, and by published articles since the game, make it highly undesirable to bring the two colleges again in competition this season. Athletics must be subordinated always and strictly to the higher interests of education and good fellowship between sister institutions; but a new contest of the kind suggested would almost certainly tend to unhealthful excitement and distraction of attention during the intervening weeks of anticipation and preparation, and would very likely to result finally in further embitterment of feeling and possibly in still more serious trouble. It is hardly conceivable that the effect of such a game upon college life and intercollegiate relations could in any way be beneficial.
Secondly, the foot-ball team of this college will not be allowed to play with any other team that accepts the issue of a game in the spirit exhibited by those defeated in the late contest, and that continues to make or to countenance public charges against us of trickery and unfair dealing. It cannot be forgotten that the progress of the game last week was forcibly interfered with by those who wished to withstand a decision that was not to their fancy; nor can we forget that it has been freely charged that the gentlemen who acted as umpire was "rung into" the game by a subterfuge on our part, an insinuation as baseless as it is offensive; nor can we forget that the candor and honor of the gentleman in question have been assailed in the persistent representations that he favored the home team, when as matter of fact he leaned in his strict impartiality if anything to the other side. Were there no other considerations involved, self respect alone would compel us to decline the challenge now submitted to us.
Berry was a product of the physical culture movement of the late 19th century that was trying to combat what were called "diseases of affluence." The International YMCA Training School was the home of the Christian component of that movement. In some quarters, it was referred to as "Muscular Christianity." In Berry's letter you see both muscle and Christian values.
On November 19th, 1893, another unfortunate incident occurred between Central U and Centre College. In a very close game, Central U of Richmond won by the score of 20-18, thus meting out Centre's first loss after 14 straight victories since the inception of the program in 1891 and the first in the 135-year history of football at Centre College. Eventually, it had to happen.
The game was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of 2000 people in Lexington. Berry had removed himself from the lineup before the game, but there was a dispute over whether Crawley and Cook of Centre were eligible to play. Centre had signed affidavits attesting that Crawley and Cook were matriculates at the college but C. U. still contested their presence in the lineup. This delayed the start by 30 minutes. Finally Central U agreed to play under protest and the game began in earnest. The scoring went back and forth and was tied 12-12 shortly before the half when an unseemly incident occurred. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Trainer Berry, of Centre College, was taken from the grounds by Police Officer Smitha on order of the referee, because during the game when, he thought, Douglas was injured, he went within the lines. This excited the indignation of the Richmond players and they, in what seems a very ungentlemanly way, drove him out of the lines, one of them striking him with his fist . . . such circumstances hardly justified such cowardly conduct and the Richmond boys should be severely criticized for such misbehavior.
It was claimed by some that he entered the grounds in order to coach; but this, in this particular case, could hardly have been true.
It was obvious Berry entered "within the lines" in his role as a specialist and a graduate of The Society for First Aid to Injured. One of his duties was that of what we now call a "trainer," i.e one who treats the injured. The Central U players had it in for him because he had called signals and engineered victories against them in the previous two seasons, so they attacked him. "Ungentlemanly," was a euphemism in this case; "thuggish" would have been more accurate.
It should also be noted that the colleges in the KSIFBA that were badgering Centre were not exactly paragons of ethical, amateur virtue in their pursuit of victory. That same year this appeared in the Kentucky Advocate of October 20, 1893:
A month later, Mr. Boatman played for Central U against Centre and helped them secure Centre's first defeat.
The Kentucky Advocate had another view of the incident with Prof. Berry, the Danville view, that was perhaps apocryphal, but should be included in this narrative:
. . . the game was marred by a single unpleasant incident. This was when Prof. Berry, the Centre College Trainor, was taken from the grounds by a burly Lexington policeman. . . One of the Centre College men, (Douglas) was injured and fell prostrate. Prof. Berry, with what was considered a trainor's privilege and duty, hastened to the injured man's side to see if his injuries were serious. Two of the Richmond men (Lucas and Taylor) Attacked Berry [emphasis in the original] and were shoving him off the field when the policeman ran from the opposite side of the grounds, caught Berry by the arm and took him to the gate. Mr. Berry told the officer he had done nothing wrong, and the officer replied, "Well, I'll take you before Professor Miller," (of State College), at the same time bravely drawing his pistol and saying, "you make a move and I'll put a hole through you." We have reason to believe the officer was following specific instructions and that his conduct toward Prof. Berry was a piece of spite work emanating from one not connected to the Richmond team in any way. The policeman, for drawing his pistol, should be promoted for heroic bravery and the Richmond players who insulted Prof. Berry should take a few lessons in gentlemanly conduct.
Although it's not clear, I suspect the policeman was threatening someone who was threatening Berry which is why he was commended in the column. The question that is not answered is who was the "one who was not connected to the Richmond team in any way." Venturing a guess, I would choose the State College hosts, who were still smarting from its loss three weeks before. There were unbridled passions on both sides and reckless accusations were in the air.
To further add to the chaos and lack of organization of the 1893 season, Central U of Richmond played the Louisville Athletic Club on Nov. 30 and lost 16-12 which moved the LAC to claim they were the champions of the state of Kentucky. (After losing to LAC, C. U. traveled down to Nashville and was defeated by Vanderbilt 12-0. The Bourbon News of Paris Ky, reported that "The Richmond team had several players crippled at Nashville and Louisville."
The victory by LAC over Central U. and their subsequent claim they were now champions of Kentucky, provoked a predictable reaction from Captain Berry who released this statement to the Louisville Times (quoted by the Bourbon News):
The Centre College football team denies the right of the Louisville Athletic Club to claim the championship of the State, as she has never defeated the Centre team, and Capt. Berry authorizes the Times correspondent to announce that he hereby challenges the Louisville team for another game within the next fifteen days, either at Danville or Louisville.
He had a point: Centre defeated the LAC twice in 1893 by scores of 30-16 and 12-8, as the results of the 1893 schedule show:
| 1893 (4-1) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | University of Cincinnati | 0 | Danville | October 14 |
| 30 | Louisville Athletic Club | 16 | Louisville | October 21 |
| 6 | University of Kentucky | 4 | Danville | October 28 |
| 12 | Louisville Athletic Club | 8 | Louisville | November 11 |
| 18 | Central University (Richmond, Ky.) | 20 | Richmond, KY | November 19 |
The saga of the disputed championship ended with this item in the Louisville Courier-Journal of December 10th, 1893:
Capt. Berry of the Centre College foot-ball team still insists on playing the L. A. C. for the championship of Kentucky. He wrote a letter to Dr. Logan, challenging the local team to a decisive contest and offering a guarantee of $100 for a game at Danville. An answer was prepared stating that, as the L. A. C. had gained their glory in defeating Centre's conqueror after a season's campaign, it did not intend to depart with it cheaply. A proposition was made to Capt, Berry, however, to play on neutral ground at Lexington, under a guarantee of a $1000. It is not thought, however, that this proposition will be accepted by Centre.
Here we see an example of gaslighting in the Gaslight Era by one Dr. Logan of the L. A. C.
The accounts of the first four years of Centre football games, 1891-94, are adversely impacted in this narrative by the absence of bound, issues of the Cento, which, coincidentally, began publishing in 1891 around the time of Centre's first football game. The bound issues of 1891 through 1894 are all missing. The earliest one I found in the archives of Grace Dougherty Library was only a single monthly edition as opposed to a bound yearly compilation of issues. It was from early in 1894. Bound volumes of all issues for the years 1895-1900 are preserved in archives of the library and provided me with extra insight and commentary from students on games played during those years.
In the single existing issue of the Cento from 1894, the nameless writer in the section of the periodical named Athletics, laments the acrimonious situation between Centre and other institutions in the Kentucky Interstate Foot Ball Association and suggests Centre should cease all activity within it:
The CENTO desires to enter its protest against the continuation of any relations whatever with the other colleges of the State. Centre College has had to contend the whole session with an offensive and defensive alliance of all other colleges against her. Differences amongst themselves have been laid aside whenever there was a chance to "down Centre." They seem to be of the opinion that the humiliation of the most illustrious member of the league--athletic and oratorical-- that they will raise themselves in the estimation of the people of the State, forgetting that the spirit which draws angels from the skies will ne'er raise a mortal up. In the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Centre has seen her men ruled out, her protests disregarded, her suggestions sneered at, and her representatives mocked . .
This contentiousness between Centre and competing Kentucky colleges would go on for years without resolution. In 1894, Centre only played State College (now UK) and did not play Kentucky U (now Transylvania) or Central University of Richmond (now extinct and replaced by Eastern Kentucky U.) They would not play Central again until 1898.
1894 season
In mid-September a crowd gathered at the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway Station in Danville, (a route created after construction of the High Bridge in 1877) and cheered the arrival of a sturdy young man named Eugene Messler. Here is Grok's entry for him:
Messler played tackle for Yale’s teams from 1891 to 1893. Those squads were recognized as national champions each year, finishing with a combined 36–1 record and outscoring opponents 1,247–12. He played under Walter Camp (including on the undefeated 1892 team) and was part of the 1893 squad as well. He also competed on the Yale crew, served as class president for two years, and graduated in 1894 from the Sheffield Scientific School with a degree in mechanical engineering . . .
In 1894 (his only season as a college head coach), Messler coached Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. He arrived in mid-September and was met at the depot by cheering students. He introduced systematic daily training and led the team to a 3–1 record. . . . The sole loss came against a strong Vanderbilt team (7–1 that year).
After Yale and Centre, Messler played for the early professional Duquesne Country and Athletic Club (1895–1897), which won the Western Pennsylvania Independent Football championship in 1895. He then built a successful career in the steel industry, including roles at Carnegie Steel and as general superintendent of Jones & Laughlin Steel’s Pittsburgh coke ovens and blast furnaces (roughly 1899–1911). He also served as president of the Eureka Fire Brick Company (starting 1907) and held other business and board positions. During World War I he served as an Army engineer (reaching major, later retiring as a colonel in the reserves) and participated in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. . . He was a friend of General John J. Pershing.
He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and died in Pittsburgh at age 76.
Yale at the time was the king of college football, largely because of Walter Camp, who played on the 1876-81 teams, captained them as a junior and a senior and then appointed himself their coach and manager. He would remain affiliated with the team until his death in 1925. He was the most influential figure in the creation and growth of college football in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Apart from playing and coaching, Camp was instrumental in conceiving and introducing many of the rules that allowed the game to survive when it was under attack from various quarters. From 1876, Camp served on influential rules committees that were at first comprised of students and later employees of the universities. These committees slowly shaped and reformed the game, often under intense pressure and loud criticism in the press over increasing violence on the field and sidelines. Camp conceived of the end zone, the lining the field with five-yard markings (thus the origin of the term "gridiron"), three downs to achieve five yards (later changed to four downs to achieve ten), refining point totals in scoring, limiting teams to 11 players, and allowing "interference" (now known as blocking) as well as other rules and regulations that departed from the status quo of rugby and created the game as we know it.
The Intercollegiate Football Association, organized in 1876 between Harvard, Columbia and Princeton with consultation from Yale, began compiling and issuing rules for football on a nearly annual basis. At first the representatives at the meetings were undergraduate students because it was they who were playing the game and best understood it. Some of the rules written in that first decade are still to be found in the national or state rule books for high schools, colleges (the NCAA) and the NFL. Most are not and viewing them a hundred and fifty years later causes the reader to frequently wonder, "What on earth are they talking about!!?" They were trying to micro-manage chaos and barely succeeding. In their defense, the game had to be widely and repeatedly played before they could figure out what was wrong with it.
The Yale-East Coast influence on Centre in the 1890s was considerable and not unique, since many Yale, Princeton and Harvard players--not to mention Cornell, Columbia and U. Penn-- when their college careers ended, used the notoriety and wealth of their experience to find employment as "coachers" in distant regions of the country where many may have lived before coming east. Berry obviously fell under the sway of Stagg at the YMCA Training School. Stage was pure Yale, an All-American in two sports and a protege of Walter Camp. Douglas may have gone there and played undergraduate intramurals, which were very competitive. Both were great football players; Berry as a leader and strategist and Douglas as an elusive end and halfback who scored numerous touchdowns. Messler's hiring came about because of the recruiting efforts of Centre's president, William C. Young who understood that, in the 1890s, Yale was the sun in the solar system of college football.
Under the headline Old Centre's Prospects, and the sub-headline "Dr. Young Returns and Talks Enthusiastically--Messler Will Train the Football Team" in the Kentucky Advocate of August 22, 1894, there is this:
Dr. W. C. Young, the indefatigable President of Centre College, returned home last night from the East, where he had been taking a short vacation and at the same time putting in some good work for Old Centre. . . .
After a short discussion of the composition of the faculty the reporter writes:
Dr. Young brought joyful news for the football cranks. He has engaged Eugene Messler of East Pittsburg[h], Pa., to train the foot-ball team. Messler is one of the best known athletes in the East. He has been a member of the Yale boat crew the last three years and one of the best "tackles" on the Yale foot-ball ground for some time. He will be here the second week in September. . .
Whether Messler was "one of the best known athletes in the East" is doubtful, but he was intimately involved in Yale's football program in his three years there. He was referred to President Young by Walter Berry, who was leaving Centre for the U. of Cincinnati (In 1895, after Messler had returned to Pittsburgh and become a founding member of the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club, a game between Berry's U. of Cincinnati team was scheduled with the Duquesne club. Since Berry had before then only scheduled teams in Ohio and Kentucky, it's likely his association with Messler led to the scheduling of that game.)
Messler immediately set up shop his way as evidenced by this want ad in the Kentucky Advocate of September 26:
Wanted: bids for furnishing training table for Centre College foot ball team. Fifteen men. Address W. R. Cubbins.
Cubbins was a member of the team.
The day after in the Louisville Courier-Journal, following a short discussion of Messler's athletic exploits as a freshman at Yale, there is this questionable appraisal of his athletic endeavors in the two years he was an upperclassman:
In his second year, he played football again and was again first substitute tackle. In the spring he gained a seat on the varsity boat and was considered one of the most powerful men of that victorious eight. It was thought that his senior year would be the crowning one to his career as an athlete. . . . Messler was put down as a sure man to fill the [tackle] vacancies. His continued training, while developing him wonderfully, made him muscle-bound, and he became very slow on his feet. After hammering at him for six weeks, the coachers gave him up and a freshman took his place. Last spring he rowed again but was so hampered by being muscle-bound that he lost his place in the boat. . . . On account of his close connection to the Yale team, he knows football perfectly, and there is no doubt that the Centre College team, under his coaching, will be a cracking good one.
Apart from the dubious physiological analysis of muscle-boundness, the column is very flattering. He is described as a "very high standard man" who "belongs to a prominent family of Pittsburgh, they being iron manufacturers." He is listed as 5'- 10" and 180 lbs, which was above average for football players at the time. I suspect at Yale, if the account of his losing his position is true, he was outperformed at tackle by some enormous and agile freshman. A spot on the Yale Varsity was a coveted position with many aspirants. Yale was the premier football power in the country and had the pick of most of the star school-boy players in the country.
In the same Courier-Journal column, there is an informative paragraph on the state of football, "coachers" and the demand for experienced players from the East after they complete their college careers:
There is a great demand for football coachers all over the country and the big colleges in the East are not graduating them fast enough to fill this demand. . . .The position of such is a very lucrative one, a good coach receiving as high as $500 per month for his services during the football season. Last fall Yale, herself was badly in need of coachers . . .
The Presidents and faculties of the small Western colleges [read Centre, among others] have recognized what an advertisement athletics were for the colleges, so the demand for football coachers will probably be even greater this fall. Mr. Avery, the Coach of the Central University [of Richmond] team, is a Yale man, he having graduated a year ago last June . . .
Centre's first game under Messler against Vanderbilt on Oct. 20 resulted in defeat. Vanderbilt was no longer the milquetoast team of '92 that refused to play in the rain. They had a new coach and ended the season with a 7-1 record. Their only loss was by a score of 10-8 to the Louisville Athletic Club which lost a week later to Centre by a score of 24-5. Here is an excerpt of from The Tennessean of Oct. 21, describing Vanderbilt's 1894 game with Centre:
The Vanderbilt college yell was plainly in evidence on the streets last night and the heart of the student was happy within him. Their first football game of the season on local grounds had been played and the Old Gold And Black had been carried to another victory. The Center [sic] College team was the opposing eleven and not until the hardest fought football game ever seen in Nashville did the Vanderbilts win by a score of 6-0.
One thousand people saw the game, the beautiful weather bringing out many of the fair sex, and the scene on the ground was a charming picture. The terrace west of the gridiron was packed with gay admirers of the teams while the space to the east of the field contained many fashionable equipages from which the gold and black colors fluttered gracefully.
. . . Centre seemed unable to go through her opponent's lines, making long runs around the ends; but on the other hand, Vanderbilt sent her men through the visitors' centre like a flash but couldn't make any end plays, her backs slow getting off. . .
Van Winkle, Hardin, Douglas and Cook distinguished themselves for the visitors. . .
Messler was taken ill during the game and replaced by Walsh while Douglas gave way to Waller . . .
A short account in the Courier-Journal reported that Messler and Hardin, a talented half-back, were "considerably bruised during the game."
The Kentucky Advocate of Oct 22, in a partisan report written almost certainly by Walter Berry (signed, "W. B."), now the coach at U. of Cincinnati, had some amusing insights into the game. Under the headline Centre Defeated there is an amusing sub-headline:
BUT IT TOOK THE BEST WORK EV-
-ER SEEN IN THE SOUTH
TO DO IT, YOU BET
Berry contended the lone Vanderbilt touchdown resulted from an umpire imposing a 25-yard penalty "for what he alone described as a 'foul tackle.'"
After praising the play of individual Centre players, Berry reported this:
Captain Keller, of Vanderbilt, is a grand stand player from the word "go." Every time there happened to be a down in his vicinity he would have to lay off for three minutes when it was perfectly evident he was trying to get his wind. In fact, Centre could only make two or three downs before some Vanderbilt man would call time and take the full three minutes for his wind. Messler says this is one of the University of Pennsylvania old tricks which Thomason, the coach, has taught them.
Berry also noted that:
Bethel College of Russellville Ky, was represented by about fifty boys who wore our colors and gave our yells.
The following day Centre's eleven would show a distinct lack of appreciation when it played the newly formed Bethel College football team and beat them 110-0. That is not a misprint. 110-0.
Centre played the Louisville Athletic Club next. The game was notable for a brawl that broke out near the end of the game when Messler punched one of his tacklers and the man punched him back. This set off a melee in the crowd when a Centre backer told a supposedly injured LAC player, who was sitting with spectators and screaming at Messler, to "get the hell off the grounds." The player attacked the man and punched him repeatedly while the Centre backer hit the player with his cane, breaking it. The Courier-Journal showed concern for the ladies by writing "All the young women at the park were in the midst of this crowd and there were a large number of them there." The fighting broke through the ropes and onto the field which delayed the game for several minutes while the police on duty established order.
During the negotiations before the game, there was a dispute over how long the game should last. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader:
But when it came time to deciding the length of time they should play, there was a disagreement. Messler wanting to play the full 35 minute halves but McDonald insisting on 20 and 25 minute halves respectively. As LAC would agree to nothing else, Messler agreed to the 20 and 25 minute halves.
The game ended with an easy win for Centre by a score of 24-5. Messler scored two touchdowns and probably would have scored more if the game had been played the full 70 minutes, as stated in the rule from the IFA back East, and not merely 45 minutes. It's a testament to the perceived superior conditioning of Centre's players by LAC that it was not played to regulation length.
An entertaining treatment of the game was found, as usual, in the Kentucky Advocate:
It is so easy to get the wrong idea of things. When the Louisville Athletic Club foot ball team defeated Vanderbilt a week ago its members took up the notion that they knew a whole lot about the game. They harbored this intoxicating belief in their breasts until Saturday afternoon, when they went up against Centre. As they began to recover from the shock, they were not certain if they had been run over by a freight train or encountered a herd of stampeded buffalo. They were positive, however, that they don't know as much about football as the Messlerites do.
The game took place at the old Louisville baseball park and was witnessed by fully one thousand persons, about one thousand of them from Danville. It was purely a one-sided affair and the score, instead of being 24-5, should have been 44-5. L.A.C. escaped a coating of whitewash by a miracle, McDonald scoring five points on a drop kick from the thirty-five yard line. He would not accomplish such a feat again in a hundred games. . .
Too much cannot be said of Messler's work. Time and again he took the ball and went around or through L. A. C. like a bullet, throwing off and dodging the tackles as if they were children. His playing was a revelation to the spectators . . .
So much for Messler's reputed debilitating muscle-boundness.
Also in the Lexington Herald-Leader that day there was a report on a game between the University of Cincinnati and Kentucky University (now Transylvania.) Walter Berry, formerly Centre's captain/coacher and currently the new coacher/captain for. U. C. played in that game shortly after he apparently wrote the column cited above about the Centre game with Vanderbilt. He was a very busy man in those days and obviously retained a fondness for the program he initiated at Centre. U. of Cincinnati beat K. U. convincingly on that day, 34-4.
In the same issue of the Lexington Herald-Leader quoted above, the paper excitedly reported an agreement between State College and Centre to play a game although the date had not yet been fixed. The column states:
. . .[the game] will likely be played on State College ground. This will be the game of the season. Centre has played two games this season, one with Vanderbilt University and the other with L. A. C. In the former she was defeated by a score of 6-0 and she was victorious in the latter by a score of 24-5, while S. C. has played three, winning all of them. The first with Georgetown, the second with Miami University, and the third with Jeffersonville Athletic Club. Both teams are training hard and are confident of victory. Danville will have a large following as usual and the Lexington people ought to go out and cheer for State College.
That game was played on November 17th and shocked the locals of Lexington. From the Courier-Journal of November 18, 1864:
Everyone who went to the game expected to see a close and exciting one. They were disappointed, for Centre played a game remarkable for its teamwork, brilliant individual play and determined offensive tactics. The heavy backs of the Danville team hurled themselves with resistless force against the line of the Lexington boys which melted before their attacks like snow before the warm breezes of spring.
Man after man of the State College aggregation went down before their rushes, temporarily disabled, to come pluckily up when time was called. Although borne steadily down the field they fought gamely to the end, when they left the field bruised in body and broken in spirit. . .
From the start of the game, the great work of E. Cook, Messler, Van Winkle and Douglas stood out. Cook and Messler were like battering rams and were never called on that they did not make from five to forty yards.
All told, Centre made eleven touchdowns, a field goal, eight two-points after touchdown and a safety. The final score was 67-0. They were magnificent.
Centre's 1894 team. Messler in the back row with ball and Douglas to Messler's left. Arch Cook front row, left. Dudley, lying in front. Arthur "Dickie" Van Winkle far right, front row.
The 1894 season as recorded in the Centre Archives:
| 0 | Vanderbilt University | 6 | Nashville | October 20 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 110 | Bethel College (Ky.) | 0 | unknown | October 22 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 24 | Louisville Athletic Club | 5 | Louisville | November 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 67 | University of Kentucky | 0 | Lexington | November 17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Games with Indiana University and Hanover College cancelled The Kentucky Advocate had yet another entertaining report on the game with State College: The Kentucky Intercollegiate Association football teams are not in the same class with the Centre eleven. Some people thought so--until Saturday afternoon at five o'clock. Then they changed their minds. When Centre defeated State College by the decisive score of sixty-seven to nothing, the question of State supremacy was settled, beyond all doubt or debate. . . But the gallant S. C, boys have the consolation of knowing they played a good strong, and gentlemanly and remarkably clean game of ball and that their defeat was due less to inferior work on their part than to superior playing by Centre, which on this occasion, everything considered, had the finest football team that was every put upon a southern field. Men who had seen many great games between famous elevens, said so. Regarding the note at the bottom of the 1894 season results that says "Games with Indiana University and Hanover cancelled": the talented but unnamed writer for the Kentucky Advocate in covering football games often had an adjoining column of 15 to 20 amusing observations and asides culled from the contest he covered. He called them "DROP KICKS." On this particular day he included this one in the list: Centre had a date with Hanover. Saturday evening at 7:26 a telegram was received from Hanover. "Boys will not play." The C. C. -- S. C. game closed at 4:50. See? It would not surprise me to learn that Hanover had eyes at the Centre/State College game and the eyes could not believe what they were seeing; that the eyes reported back saying, "Cancel game. Now." On November 21, 1894 in the Kentucky Advocate, this item appeared: Mr. Messler left for his home in Pittsburgh this morning. After witnessing some of the big games in the East, he will begin his profession as mechanical engineer at the Bethlehem Steel works. He is very much taken with the people of Danville and says he might be induced to return next fall. Mr. Messler was not only the best football player that was ever in Danville, but a courteous gentleman, as well. He would not return, except as a groomsman for a wedding at a later date.
1895 Season The "indefatigable" President Young was at it again, this time with the likely help of Eugene Messler. He retained the services of Richard T. Lowndes, another graduate of Yale The Lexington Herald-Leader carried this item under the headline, Centre's Ball Trainer and the subheadline, A Yale College Coacher Engaged For Next Season. Negotiations have closed with Mr. Richard T. Lowndes, late of Yale College, to coach the Centre College foot ball team next season. . . Mr. Lowndes comes highly recommended as an athlete and as a gentleman and he will no doubt fulfill all expectations. He is 23 years of age, six one and one-half inches tall and weighs 178 pounds in foot ball uniform. . . In his freshman year at Yale he played on his class team a as guard next to Mr. Messler, who played tackle, and in the same year was taken to New York as a sub in the Yale-Princeton game. The next year at Yale he was captain of the Sophomore team, which won the college championship. He resigned the captaincy of the class team the following year and played on the "Yale Consolidated" team, of which his brother was the captain. His brother took him from the line and played hm at quarterback, which position he has played for the past two years. The brother mentioned above was Richard's twin brother Lloyd. When Richard was arrested for attending an illegal boxing match while at Yale, he and his brother conspired to outfox the authorities by forcing the arresting officer to admit he could not identify which brother he had arrested. The charge was nolled. The "Yale Consolidated" football team was another football team in a very competitive intramural program. The brothers Lowndes were the sons of Maryland politician Lloyd Lowndes who was at that time in 1895 running for Governor of the state, a campaign that ended successfully with his election to office. In fact, it was reported that Richard took a short trip back from Danville to Maryland for election day to cast "his maiden vote." Although hired in July for a ten-week session, he was not in the lineup against State College (University of Kentucky) in the first game. After enduring a loss of 67-0 in the final game of the 1894 season, State College inexplicably beat Centre 6-0 in the first game of the 1895 season. They lost the game because, according to the October 20, Courier-Journal, "The Centre team was demoralized by the coach having been left out of the game and a new man placed in the Captain's position." The paper also said "Centre lost the game through a series of the most costly fumbles ever made." They fumbled the ball twice on the 7 yard line. The Kentucky Advocate dripped sarcasm when it opined: The State College Team, . . . defeated Centre College on the football field Saturday by a score of six to nothing without any good reason for having done so. The game was lost by a succession of the most disastrous fumbles ever seen on this field. . . . The team, in large measure, was demoralized by the absence of Lowndes. It had been the understanding all along that he was to play in every game, and there was no plausible reason for him not having played in this game, as nothing to that effect was mentioned in the contract.. . . Centre can beat the State College team nine times out of ten and will beat it this Thanksgiving. The last proved an accurate prediction. A short item in The Bourbon News said this: State College beat Centre 6 to 0 Saturday at Danville. Last year Centre beat State College 62 [sic] to 0. Lowndes, the Yale coach of Centre, feels very blue over the result. The 6 points surrendered to State College would be the last given up by Centre in the 1895 season. The next game would be the second in the history of Centre-Transylvania football competitions, although Transy was named Kentucky University at the time. Centre beat them soundly, 28-0. The Courier-Journal had a short column covering Centre's victory over KU. Lowndes played brilliantly, according to the Courier-Journal and . . . the Centre men not only made fine gains through the line and around the end, but put up a fine defensive game, having improved very much since last Saturday. That unfortunately, mischaracterized the State College game because State College only scored one touchdown with two points after when Centre fumbled close to its goal line. For the rest of the game SC could hardly move the ball. The Kentucky Advocate again had the best and most descriptive coverage of the game. They noted that nobody thought K. U. would win the game but they thought they might score: . . . especially after the lineup showed such well-known players as Boatman and Lucas on the team. Boatman played center under the name of Young. He is a student in the Bible College at Lexington and did not want the faculty to know he was playing football. Mr. Boatman was a peripatetic football player. The Advocate praised the play of Centre's Hudson, who was substituting for the injured Colvin (the backup quarterback behind Lowndes and also a halfback) and Arch Cook, who is granted first name status to distinguish him from his brother Eugene, a stalwart on the '93 and '94 teams. Hudson scored three touchdowns and Cook two. The paper praised Lowndes: Lowndes work at quarterback was perfect and his interference [blocking] was the finest ever seen on the Centre field. There was no fumbling with the ball in his hands. And then added this: The next game to be played by Centre is at Nashville Saturday of this week with Vanderbilt. They will play only one game on the trip, Manager Douglass having been unable to secure another one, as expected. Schedule-building was difficult work given the reputation of Centre's program. The game against Vanderbilt on November 2 was closely fought even though Centre gave away ten pounds per man according to the Advocate. It ended in a scoreless tie, but Centre spent most of the time in Vanderbilt territory and got down to the two yard line once, only to have a referee claim a runner had stepped out of bounds. The Advocate sub-headline gave Centre the benefit of the doubt: The Score Nothing to Nothing in Our Favor-- a Great Game of Football at Nashville Saturday Some extracurricular activity occurred at the end of the Vanderbilt game as described by The Tennessean of Nashville: . . . the feature of the game was the long run by Colvin and Boogher in the second half. Connell punted and Colvin got the ball. Colvin made a beeline for Vanderbilt's goal, outdistancing all pursuers except Boogher, of sprinter fame, who came to the rescue, and down the field the two went for a seventy yard run amid the breathless excitement of the onlookers. When within three yards of the goal line, Boogher made a long spring into the air, tackled Colvin around the neck and down the two came in a heap. The crowd surged over the ropes and thronged upon the field. But the umpire and referee settled the matter by deciding that Colvin had run out of the line and consequently the ball was brought back to the starting point of the chase. When the game was finished the the score stood 0 to 0, Centre claimed the ball as a forfeit. The crowd then witnessed a more exciting scene than a football game, a rough and tumble scuffle for possession of the sheepskin. For five minutes or more a pile of humanity rolled and tumbled on the ground, the friendly contest finally to be terminated by Vanderbilt coming off the victor. The view from the Kentucky Advocate was more critical of Vanderbilt and the officiating: . . . Centre was very anxious to play off the game on Monday and settle the question of supremacy but Vanderbilt had enough and declined to meet them. Centre got the hot end of the decisions of the presiding officials, which was due, perhaps, to ignorance of the rules, though it looked as though Vanderbilt was given the benefit of every doubt. The following week the team traveled to Louisville to play their Athletic Club. It was a rainy affair and Centre came out on top, 10-0. Both Centre touchdowns were scored by Lucas, whose nickname was the "The Human Plow." Two Lucas brothers played against Centre for KU two weeks before and you have to wonder whether Desha Lucas, who was praised in the Advocate for his play that day as a halfback for K. U., decided to join up with Centre first for the Vanderbilt game in which he was listed as a starter and then LAC game in which no eligibility requirements were in forced and in which he scored both of Centre's touchdowns. He never played for Centre again. The headline in the Courier-Journal read Muddy Battle. The reporting of this game is of the usual type in which no detail is omitted. The ball was within two yards of L. A. C.'s goal and excitement ran high. When Lucas finally got the ball he raised himself up and throwing himself through the air landed sprawling just over the line . . . Colvin carried the ball four more yards. He seemed invincible as his red shirt was seen pushing its way through right end and tackle for six more yards . . . (There was not much effort to don matching uniforms in those days. Players had discretion to decide what was most practical and fashionable. Some players wore leather vests that were laced from throat to waist. Others wore boldly striped jerseys and socks.) Yeager made another gain of five yards around right end and was tackled by Goodson in a duck pond near the right side of the field. Trainer Lowndes was praised again, this time in the Courier-Journal: Too much credit cannot be accorded to Coach Lowndes, for due to his careful training is the Centre win due, and the game was a triumph for him. He led in the most approved Eastern fashion, and the many gains at center were made by his careful judgement of the weak points in the opposing line. *********** If one were informed of the result of the next contest between these two teams as they exist in 2026, it would not be believable, but on November 16, 1895, Centre College beat what we now call The Ohio State University by a score of 18-0 in Danville. Back then they were called the University of Ohio of Columbus. This OSU team was no match for Centre. According to the Courier-Journal, "the Columbus team could not withstand attacks on their line." And "The game was entirely devoid of unpleasant features and none of the players was laid off by injuries." The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that "Neither team played their trainers," meaning that Lowndes was again reduced to mere coaching, which was of no consequence since with the win over Ohio U., they had not allowed their opponents to score in four consecutive games. The Kentucky Advocate again captures the substance of the game: The Ohioans were surprised at the result . . .They had beaten State College the day before by a score of eight to six and no doubt expected to turn Centre down, especially with Mr. Lowndes out of the game; but the Centre team is one of those that are hard to handle and the way they ran around, bucked and dodged the big fellows from University almost took their breath. The Centre line made up of Cubbins, Harlan and Staples, Kelly, Wood, Cook and Staples held their opposites to a queen's taste, and when the Centre backs were sent out for gains, they rarely failed to make them. . . The visitors, with one or two exceptions, were unable to escape our tackles or budge our line, and the only way they could advance the ball at all was by punting, which was frequently resorted to but with no beneficial results as the Centre men soon worked it back. There was finally some clarification on the status of Lownes as coach, captain, trainer and player, which heretofore was not discussed in depth in any newspaper. The writer reports: . . .Captain Colvin handled the men to good advantage. It becomes more apparent every day that the coach should never be depended upon to play, but that the positions should be filled from candidates for places on the team, and then well drilled. Mr. Lowndes is also of this opinion, for it always more or less demoralizes the eleven when the coach is unexpectedly taken out of it. Here we see the beginning of the adoption of the professional, non-performing, sideline coach which would eventually become the standard at every level of football. Centre would continue with the player/captain/coach model for a few more years, but eventually they would bow to the inevitable. *********** The final game was a re-match of the season's first game in which Centre lost to State College, largely because Coacher Lowndes was not allowed to quarterback the team. The game, to be played on Thanksgiving, inspired a lengthy and biased pre-game preview in the Lexington Herald-Leader which had to dispel a rumor they had published that Centre was going to play a "ringer;" and discussed what a victory for either team might mean in deciding who was champion of Kentucky; and further opined on who would be the champion of the South. An authentic report from Danville this morning emphatically denies that the Center (sic) College team will attempt to run in a "ringer" in tomorrow's game. They will play a legitimate game, utilizing only the regular members of the team . . . The rumor, which gave rise to The Leader's publication of yesterday respecting the supposed "ringer" arose over the identity of the Mr. Cook, who will play right end with the Danville team. It develops that this man is what the footballists call "Little Cook" and is a brother to the former student and player of Center (sic) College. It is claimed that tomorrow's game will decide the championship of the South, but it cannot in itself decide the championship of Kentucky. State College now holds the State championship, having defeated Centre College, 6-0 . . . Should Centre beat State College tomorrow the championship of the State will be a tie. Should State College win it will retain the championship . . . The championship of the South is in question tomorrow, in this manner: Vanderbilt University defeated the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi and North and South Carolina at Atlanta. Vanderbilt was tied by Danville on November 2. So if State College defeats Danville tomorrow, it will hold the Southern championship. This patent nonsense neglected to mention that State College at the time had a record of 4-4 and had lost to Purdue, Depauw, Ohio State and Georgetown College of Kentucky. Centre by contrast was 3-1-1. It had played fewer games because many teams did not want to risk playing them. Centre came inspired and well-prepared for the second State College game of the season. Their defense had not allowed points to anyone since the first game against State College, nor would it in this game. Lowndes would be back calling signals. Again, the Kentucky Advocate outshone all other papers in their superlative-laden and joyful description of the game, which was won by Centre, 16-0: Twelve hundred people yelled themselves hoarse yesterday when the yellow and white of Old Centre waved triumphant over another hard fought-field. It was a great game, and the State College boys, undaunted in courage and unbeaten in spirit, went down fighting like Trojans, but their pride was humbled. They expected to win, and did pit against Centre one of the strongest organizations of the kind ever seen in the State, but were met by one that was perfect in almost every particular, a machine without a flaw, generalship that made no mistakes, individual players that hesitated not and never faltered. . . . [Centre's] interference was magnificent, her tackling most effective, and her teamwork the best seen in Kentucky this year. . . . Cook, Dudley and Cecil scarcely ever failed to make gains around and through the ends, and Colvin and Yeager were thrown against the State College line with terrific effect, our front making great gaps for them to go through. Of Captain Lowndes' work, too much cannot be said. His head was always clear and his superb tackling always broke the hearts of the State College men. . . . Many old Centre men from distant parts were there. It was a fete day. The weather was perfect. The sun was as warm and the air as balmy as in springtime, as if Dame Nature herself had donned her best attire and come to witness the contest. Even the Lexington Herald-Leader was impressed by the crowd, the weather and Centre's dominating performance. They were forced to eat their words of earlier in the week when they opined that if Centre won, it would constitute a tie for the State Championship: The two colleges are now even for the year, as State College defeated Center [sic] by a score of 6-0 at the first of the season. Center is much improved over her form since the first game and is fairly entitled to the championship. State College played a heroic game but was ground down by Centre's speed, strategic expertise and flawless technique which led to them recording their fifth shutout in a row. Rushing statistics told the story. From the Herald-Leader: . . . The best ground-gaining was done by Cook, who averaged nearly ten yards; Colvin averaged four and one-half and Dudley five. For S. C., Carnahan averaged three.
 The 1895 team. Front row, left to right: Cook, Dudley, Yeager, Colvin, Cecil; middle row seated: Tracy (mascot), Starling, Lowndes, Waller; back row: Kelly, Staples, Cubbins, Harlan, Woodard and F. B. Douglas (manager.)
Coach Lowndes played in three of the six games in the 1895 season. The team won all three of those games. He did not play in their one loss to State College nor did he play in the tie against Vanderbilt. His presence in the lineup would likely have altered the outcome of those two games. Although politics prevented his full participation, the Centre faithful must have been pleased with his performance as coach and part-time player throughout the season. And yet, further research shows he may have been pleasantly and understandably distracted from his duties as coach, captain and quarterback of the Centre eleven. On July 3, 1896, seven months after his last game, his engagement to Mary Elizabeth McDowell, a debutante and daughter of one of the most famous families in Kentucky history, was announced in the Courier-Journal: The wedding of Miss Mary Elizabeth McDowell of Danville, and Mr. Richard Tasker Lowndes of Maryland, which has been one of the leading society topics in Central Kentucky ever since the engagement was announced, will take place at noon on Thursday, October 22, at the First Presbyterian Church of Danville. The wedding was among the most anticipated and celebrated high society weddings in Danville's history. The bride was a member of the McDowell family, one of the most influential families in Kentucky's history. The groom's father had just been elected governor of Maryland. And what a wedding it was. From the Kentucky Advocate: The marriage was the prettiest and most elaborate church wedding ever seen in Danville. The floral decorations by Harbison were superb, the costuming was rich and elegant, the wedding tableau was a charming picture, the musical features were artistic, and every detail of the ceremony was carried out in faultless style; and to the refined taste of the bride herself, who planned the entire wedding, is largely due the credit for its success. The floral decorations at the church were in green and white. In front of the pulpit was constructed a bower of similax, dotted here and there with white roses, within the compass of which the entire bridal party stood. Suspended from the center of the arch was a huge wedding bell made of moss and roses, from which hung streamers of white and pink ribbon. . . Those invited to the church were admitted by ticket and they began coming at eleven o'clock. Governor and Mrs. Lowndes, Mr. and Mrs Richard T. Lowndes Sr., Adjutant General Wilmore of Maryland, Mrs Emmet Field, Mrs, Nicholas McDowell, and other immediate friends and relatives arriving just a few moments before the ceremony. . . The bride, noted since her debut as one of Kentucky's loveliest women, never looked more beautiful than she did on her wedding day. She was attired in a magnificent gown of white duchess satin, with court train, and trimmed with real duchess lace and satin. . . From the church the bridal party and 100 especially favored guests [out of four hundred who attended the wedding] went to the home of Mrs. Martha McDowell where an elegant breakfast in six courses, was handsomely served by Mr. Hughes and his chef and assistants from the Gilcher. . . One of the rooms in the home was devoted to the bridal presents. They numbered several hundred and many of them were of rare design and value in gold, silver and crystal. The groom's gift to the bride was a magnificent, diamond-studded crescent. . . At four o'clock Governor Lowndes and party and the newly married couple departed for the East in the governors private car . . . Among the groomsmen attending Mr. Lowndes were some familiar names: Eugene Messler, Francis B. Douglas, and Trigg Waller, who played on the '94 and '95 teams. The Lexington Herald described the betrothed this way: Miss Mary McDowell is one of the beauties of Kentucky and has been since her coming-out pre-eminent among that fair sisterhood known at home and abroad under the title of "Blue Grass Belle." Mr. Lowndes, when he appeared in the Blue Grass himself some time ago to transform the Centre College team into invincible kickers, became a social conqueror as well as an athletic leader, a career which he has crowned by carrying off as his last brilliant victory one of Kentucky's fairest daughters. And yet the marital bliss was not destined to endure. Tragedy stalks even the most favored among us. In June of 1905, Less than ten years after the wedding, Richard Lowndes died at an early age, leaving his wife Mary widowed with a young son. According to the New York Times: He collapsed under an anaesthetic while undergoing an operation for blood poisoning which developed from a slight injury on his hand. Mr. Lowndes, who was thirty-four years old, was a graduate of Yale. 1896 Season Centre hired Princeton veteran Harry McC. Anderson to coach the team for the 1896. The Advocate described the new coach this way: Already, Mr. Anderson has been spoken of as a fascinator and a social toast, for whom the young ladies are pulling caps*. . . He is just recovering from a severe attack of fever and a consequent loss of that famous thatch that is now known as the foot ball hair*, but which is, after all, the hair also of the poets. . . . *"Pulling caps" meant to argue with someone over someone or something. *"Foot ball Hair" was a phenomenon in the 1890s. Football players would grow their hair long and thick to provide extra padding for their crania, which must have been taking a pounding in the days before helmets. Centre's first game of the 1896 season was at home against Vanderbilt on October 17. The sub-headline in the Kentucky Advocate's coverage had it right: Old Centre Squares Several Foot Ball Accounts with Vanderbilt University. The headline rubbed it in even more: ONLY FORTY-SIX TO NOTHING Centre was a veteran team. At least seven players had played in both the previous games that had been played in Nashville. They had endured the 6-0 loss in '94 and the 0-0- tie in '95. And they were no doubt cognizant of the forfeit in '91 when the team traveled all the way to Nashville and were stood up by the Vandy Dandies who were too precious to play in the rain. The Advocate described the action this way: One extraordinary feature of the game was the terrific onslaughts of Centre on Vanderbilt's line. She hit it with wilting force, making wide openings for her backs, who dodged the tackles like they were greased, and advances of twenty to thirty and forty yards were not uncommon. Coach Anderson has certainly proved himself a pastmaster in training a football team, and he was justly proud of the showing made by the men on Saturday. Just before the end of the first half, Captain Connel, of the Vanderbilt team, was injured by running into another player. At first he was thought to be seriously hurt, as he was knocked out of his senses, and when his Coach tried to take him from the field he resisted so that it required the assistance of two men to get him away. He is a game player and a fine captain. He was taken to the hotel and in a few hours he was fine again. On the Friday before the game, there was this curious paragraph in the Advocate that I felt the need to verify: The referee, umpire, linesmen and timekeepers for the game to-morrow will be made up of Mr. W. Lyon of Richmond (the trainer of the Central University team who died from injuries received in the C.U. - L. A. C. game two weeks ago), Smith Alford and Dudley Short, of Lexington; W. B. Thomas and Henry Hale . . . Of Lyon, the October 4, issue of the Lexington Herald reported this: The football season has begun and with it the chapter of accidents. Lyon, right half back and coach of the Central University eleven is thought to be dying tonight of concussion of the brain and other injuries received in the game today between his eleven and the Louisville Athletic Club. Fortunately, this report turned out to be false. Other reports stated that he he had gained consciousness several hours after he hit his head hard on an opposing player's shoe. Lyon is shown in the 1896 team photo of Central University in its 1896 yearbook and he is mentioned in other news reports as being in the starting lineup more than once. Further confirmation he survived comes from Wikipedia: i William Hillyer Lyon (W. H. Lyon, 1872–1957) appears in Central University (Richmond, Kentucky) records for 1896. He is pictured in the Cream and Crimson yearbook that year and is listed as manager of the Athletic Association. He later coached football at Ole Miss (1899, 3–4 record) and lived until age 84 in Connecticut. He is not recorded as having died from football injuries. I was interested in this report because I had not heard of any deaths attributable to football in the state of Kentucky. In researching this near-death, I found that indeed, there had been a death from football in the early years of the game in Kentucky. Harry Goodloe of Central University of Richmond, a teammate of William Lyon, was severely injured playing against State College on Thanksgiving two years earlier in 1894 and died several days later. From the Advocate, Dec. 5, 1894:  I researched that game and found coverage of it in the Courier-Journal. The coverage inlcuded lineups for the game, which was won by State College, 38-10. Mr. Lyon and Mr. Goodloe are listed as quarterbacks for Central in that report, suggesting that Goodloe started the game at quarterback and Lyon substituted for him after he was injured. The report on the game notes "Several men were injured in the play but continued to the end." The fact that Lyon apparently replaced Goodloe as quarterback suggests that is inaccurate.
 Although Lyon is identified as "Lyons" in the lineup, it surely must have been him. As an underclassmen, he was likely a substitute quarterback in 1894. Goodloe's family was originally from Danville where he still had relatives, so the notice of his death was published there in the Advocate of December 5, 1894. I could find no notice of it in any other newspaper that is available for research at newspapers.com. A search on Grok yielded this: Harry Goodloe (May 4, 1874 – December 5, 1894) was a senior at Central University of Kentucky in Richmond who died from a head injury suffered playing football. He was the son of Kentucky State Sen. John Duncan Goodloe (1842–1920) of Madison County. The family genealogy describes him as “a youth of promise and popularity.” Cause of death was given as a stroke of apoplexy resulting from the head injury. A brief wire report published December 7, 1894, noted that he “died of injuries sustained while playing football.” It's an eerie coincidence that the two men, one who nearly died and one who did, are paired together on that team lineup. *********** The win over Vanderbilt was glorious. The Cento summed it up this way: When the dust of battle settled, it was found that Centre had crossed the goal line nine times with a total of 46 points while Vanderbilt had to be content with a large and well-formed goose egg. The fun of 1896 was just beginning. Louisville Athletic Club, which had unmercifully beaten Central University earlier in the month in the game in which Mr. Lyon was injured, hosted Centre the following week in Louisville. They were chafing at the bit to get another shot at the boys from Danville, who had beaten them eight straight times, according to two newspapers. (I could only find five such losses in the Centre College archive that lists the schedule and scores of each season.) The game was more difficult than the Vanderbilt masterpiece. Victory was accomplished in workmanlike fashion by a score of 16-6. The Advocate said that Dickie Van Winkle and Arch Cook "seemed to play the game of their lives." Van Winkle had two touchdowns and Cook one. (Cook is listed and pictured as the Art Director in the staff photograph for the 1897 Centre College book, The EcCentric. He was the brother of Eugene Cook who played for Centre in previous years.) The Advocate praised again the line play of Centre's Woodard, Staples, Nicholas, Harlan and Blaydes who "bravely resisted the rushes and attacks of the heavier Louisville men and held them back when it looked as if a touchdown was almost a certainty." The Courier-Journal was less complimentary of Anderson, but gave him a medical pass: Anderson, the Centre College Coach, at fullback, was a disappointment. However, his playing yesterday should not be accepted as a criterion of his work as he was just out of bed after a long siege of typhoid fever.
The Courier-Journal was, like the Advocate, effusive in it's praise for Van Winkle and Cook: The bright and shining star of the game was "Dicky" Van Winkle, the famous left half-back of the Centre eleven. For the past four years this man has had a reputation for brilliancy of play upon the gridiron, but it is safe to say that never before in his life did he play the game that he played yesterday. Time and again was his number called and in almost every instance did he gain the required ground. His run in the last five minutes of the game from Centre's forty-yard line through the entire L. A. C. eleven to L. A. C.'s twenty-yard line was as fine a bit of work as has been seen here for many a day. Archie Cook, at right end, upheld his position as being one of the foremost players in the South, he being in every place and gaining many yards for Centre by his brilliant runs around the ends. . . Arthur "Dickie" Van Winkle was indeed "the bright and shining star" at Centre in several sports beyond football including baseball, tennis, boxing and track and field. In 1992, a hundred years after he dazzled the region as a multi-sport athlete at Centre, he was inducted into the Centre Athletic Hall of Fame. Here is a photo of him from the Centre Digital Archives in his baseball uniform:  In the Cento of October 1896, before Centre had run up its string of victories, an endorsement of Coach Harry McClellan Anderson by Nat Lafon, staff sportswriter, was run in the section called Athletics. Lafon was also on Centre's reserve team so he was intimately involved and aware of the progress being made: Great credit is due to Mr. Anderson for his zeal and untiring efforts to uphold Centre's standing on the gridiron. In spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and the material that he has had to work with he has shown wonderful efficiency as a coach. He has demonstrated the fact that success is more assured to a team of well-disciplined, enthusiastic men than one of star players who recognize no authority. In the L. A. C. game there was some coarse conduct that was, unfortunately, becoming common in the game in all regions. The Courier-Journal: The game throughout was one of the hardest-fought of the year, the play being frequently delayed by injured men on the field. . . From the standpoint of facial disfiguration, the Centre College boys probably got the worst of it, but as they have the reputation of being rather good sluggers themselves, it is probable that much arnica and vaseline was used by the L. A. C. men last night. The team photo shows heretofore unseen evidence that the game was getting rougher:  The photo is notable for two reasons. Related to the subject of "facial disfiguration," for the first time in team photos, we see evidence of protective gear beyond "football hair" and quilted pants. Linemen Blaydes, Staples and Harlan in the back row are wearing nose and mouth guards strung around their necks as is Yeager, a fullback, in the middle row. Also, the demeanor of the men is markedly different than the that of the men posing in the 1891 team photo. These men have the look of the Terminators-- focused, confident veterans who have grown accustomed to success. The boys in the 1891 photo, except for Berry and perhaps a few others, look somewhat bashful and less self-assured, perhaps wondering to themselves, "what have I got myself into?" They were entering unknown territory in playing early college football and it shows in some of their faces. In the L. A. C. game the referee, according to Centre, made a decision that allowed the Club to score their only touchdown. From the Kentucky Advocate: L. A. C. should not have scored at all, so many believe. The touchdown made be the team was the result of a decision made upon the part of Mr. Douglas [the referee], with reference to the judgement of which there are opposing opinions. L. A. C. had gotten the ball on Centre's five-yard line. It was put in play exactly on the chalk mark, which would have made it just five yards from the goal line. The ball was then worked within a few inches of the goal line, when Centre claimed the ball was hers on downs. L. A. C. however, called attention to the fact that while the ball had not been advanced over the line nor quite to it that it had been advanced beyond the measure of the string carried by the linesmen, and that the linesmen's gauge and not the marks on the field should govern the decision. Mr. Douglas, believing that the claim of the L. A. C. men was just, so decided and in the next play the ball was placed beyond the goal. The linesmen's gauge, however, was not a full five yards, because some time after the game was begun, it was broken and it was shorted in making a knot in it. The teams had been playing by it, however, for some time before the decision which hinged upon this point was made, thus setting the precedent by which Mr. Douglas made his decision. Here we see more evidence that the game was in its infancy. What kind of string is there that doesn't stretch or break? This is why lengths of chain were eventually adopted. Who was this Mr. Douglas? He was Francis Breckinridge Douglas, star Centre player from 1891-94 and team manager in 1895. He officiated several of Centre's games in 1896. None of Centre's opponents are on record objecting to his presence on the field and I could find no record of complaints questioning his fairness, except for that found in the passage above when Centre objected to his call on the goal line. The officials listed in the column also include one Mr. "Giovannoli," as a timekeeper who, we can assume, was Harry Giovannoli, an entertaining columnist for the Kentucky Advocate who often signed his columns "Harrigee." In reviewing the reports for all these games I began to see more and more of former players from various college teams being named as referees, umpires or timekeepers for the games. I wondered how that could be. It seemed an invitation for chaos. How could players who had once played against a man, accept him as a trustworthy official in a football game against his former team? Why would opposing teams allow it? It turns out that in 1893, the rule-making authorities in the Intercollegiate Football Association under Walter Camp and others back east had decided, according to Frank Francisco in his book, Evolution of the Game, "that each game was to have two judges and a referee. The referees were to be alumni of the respective schools." Francis Douglas, Eugene Cook, and even H. McC. Anderson while he was coaching would be assigned to referee Centre games after the rule was written in 1893. The latter would prove to be problematic in the following game. The next game was EASY FOR CENTRE according to the headline in the Advocate with a sub-headline even more disrespectful to their foe: She Defeats State College by a Score of Thirty-Two to Nothing, Without Half Trying. A few more dismissive quotes: It is unnecessary to go into a tiresome detailed account of the game. Centre simply won as she pleased. . . Caldwell kicked to Dickerson who advanced it ten yards. It was then given to Cook and he carried it ninety yards for a touchdown. The State chased him for a while but gave up the race before the goal post was reached. And thus it went throughout the game, the Centre men with their brilliant running and superb interference making gains whenever they tried. . . At no time did State College appear to have a chance to score. . . Harlan, the big, sturdy guard, was injured in the game and replaced by Forman. Next a reprise of the Louisville Athletic Club game, this time in Danville. The Courier Journal was not impressed by the efforts of the L. A. C. and offered a column only eight lines long with this headline: Athletic Club Badly Beaten. But other papers in Louisville protested loudly about the conduct of the crowd and the officiating. At least two reporters excoriated Centre, Danville and the spectators who entered the field on at least one occasion. One scribe asserted that "The spectators were arrayed against them [the L. A. C.]," which leads to the question; did he actually expect the home crowd to be neutral? It was left to the Advocate of Danville to heap deserved scorn on the the Louisville press and L. A. C. and they did it by echoing a headline in the Nashville Banner of a few years back when that paper lambasted their own Vanderbilt team: The Baby Act. The Club men were also outraged by their treatment at the hands of the referee, who, as mentioned above, was Centre's coach H. McC. Anderson. This was supposedly offset by the fact that L. A. C. had the choice of umpire and selected a man named Hardin Lucas, who enraged the Centre fans with his decisions. A more neutral voice, the Lexington Herald-Leader sided with Centre on the issue of fairness by remarking in their report on the game: "The game was marked by a great deal of scrapping and kicking at the decisions by the Louisvilles." The Advocate disputed the charges made by Louisville press reporters and accused the Club men of using "coarse and profane" language on the field and, further, of stealing the silver from the Gilcher Hotel in Danville and "befoul[ing] the sleeping compartments there." Centre drubbed the Club by the score of 28-0. Touchdowns were made by Arch Cook, Woodard, Dickerson, Cecil and Dickie Van Winkle, whose slightly older brother E. Van Winkle, nicknamed "Peggy," (or, in another account, "Pig") also ran for gains in the game, which was never in doubt, despite the protestations of the men from Louisville. Yet a second crushing of State College was next except this time the score at 44-0 was even worse. In a sub-headline, the Herald-Leader said in weak praise of their team that the game, WAS NOT DEVOID OF INTEREST. In another sub-headline, they declared "Old Centre" Wins the State Championship" and indeed they did because neither Central U. or Kentucky U. had a good season nor would Central consent to play Centre in 1896. The Cento summed up the two games with State College this way: As soon as the season opened [State College] knew they would be badly beaten by Centre but instead of throwing up the games, as another college did [read Central U.], jthey were determined to play them out, no matter how badly they were beaten. Such pluck will always be admired. From the Centre Digital Archives, the season at a glance:
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Centre was supposed to play Central University of Richmond later in November but the Lexington Weekly Leader of Nov. 12 reported it was not to be:
The game that was to have been played on State College grounds the latter part of this month between Centre College and Central University, Richmond has been declared off. Manager Rowland of the Centre team, having received a telegram from Mr. Lyon of C. U., in which he said, "circumstances beyond his control" forced him to cancel the game.
Mr. Lyon survived his injuries of early October but the team did not survive its season. They were shutout by Vanderbilt 10-0 early in the season; shut out by Louiville Athletic Club, 36-0; and then, incredibly, shut out by State College, 62-0. After all that, in their last game they lost to the University of Tennessee 30-0 on Thanksgiving Day in Knoxville. The "circumstances beyond his control" were that the team could not score points. Injuries were likely the cause.
The greatest test of the season was ahead. The University of Cincinnati game loomed at their field in the Queen City. After a winless year in 1893, Cincinnati had hired Walter Berry to coach the team and he had raised them up to mediocre with a record of 3-3 in each of the two following seasons. The University had then hired William Reynolds who had been the captain of the Princeton scrub team two years before. He then coached two games at Rutgers and the remainder of the season at Sewanee in 1895. He had squeezed several wins out of the U. C. team whose record on Thanksgiving was 4-3. The program was up and coming and the following year they would beat Centre twice, shutting them out both times, although under a different coach.
After announcing that the Railroads would charge a special price of $2 for a roundtrip to Cincinnati on Thanksgiving Day, the Advocate quoted the Cincinnati Commericial Tribune on the upcoming game:
Coach Reynolds has been putting the boys through all kinds of tricks and maneuvers and has them in better shape, as he himself declares, than they have ever thought of being before. They propose to muster their greatest strength and meet what is without doubt the strongest team in the South . . . This team [Centre] has made a place for itself that has brought it into a place of prominence among Western colleges. . . .
After the game Thursday, the visiting team will be served with a banquet at the Gibson House and given a treat in the form of a box party at the Grand . . .
The Centre eleven was not able to attend the festivities because it took the train to West Virginia after the game.
The game created a press explosion in Cincinnati. Along with numerous columns of print, there was this composite drawing of ten members of the Centre team in the Cincinnati Enquirer:
The Centre team must have been overwhelmed by the spectacle that was being created for them in Cincinnati, one that was anticipated and publicized so much that it drew between 5,000 and 6,000 spectators to the game (the Cento claimed 10,000), probably a record for colleges in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina.
The headline in the Advocate after the Thanksgiving Day game in Cincinnati was simple:
Draw Game
The game ended in a 12-12 tie. They had by far the best coverage of the game, albeit with their bias in full force, and yet they did find fault with the Centre men, accusing them of over-confidence:
Even the warmest friends of the Cincinnati team almost conceded the game to the men from Danville. That was the trouble; Centre had too much confidence and did not awaken to the full realization of the work of her foe until it was too late.
Centre did not put up her good work and played indifferent ball at critical points, only now and then going in with the old-time dash . . . It required twenty minutes of the hardest kind of work for U. C. to score two touchdowns-- one of them almost a fluke-- while Centre buckled down and earned the same number in six minutes.
One thing that put Centre at a disadvantage was the conditions of the grounds. They were soft and at places muddy and slippery, and the Centre ends and backs could not get foot holds in their spurts.
Cincinnati apparently resorted to mass-momentum plays with players moving forward aggressively before the ball was snapped:
. . . This style of play is clearly against the rules, which prohibit any player from starting before the ball does, and Centre called attention to it time and time again without getting it stopped and yet the U. C. men were given ground against Centre for exactly the same violations.
"Mass momentum" plays were banned in 1894, but only partially. The plays U. C. was running that are described by the Advocate may have been legal under the rules, which prohibited "more than three players" in accelerated motion before the ball was snapped. U.C. according to the Advocate was using two or three players in forward motion to attack Centre's ends. Later, as college football developed, the rule was changed; players could only move laterally or backward in motion before a snap.
. . . But the crowning injustice of the afternoon was the removal of "Church" Staples, for "slugging." This occurred about ten minutes after play began in the second half [after all the scoring was done in the first half]. Nobody saw the "slugging" except the official who gave the decision, and after the game the man who was "slugged" said Staples never struck him, and everyone who knows Staples and his playing knows that he is one of the best-humored and squarest men that ever donned a uniform. This decision created a great deal of indignation and practically cost Centre the game as it weakened her at a vital point . . .
It is useless to dwell upon the playing of the second half. Neither side scored and Centre did well to hold her own. She fought stubbornly and was slowly but surely working the ball toward the goal, while U. C. was fighting against time and anticipating defeat while daylight lasted . . .
On the subject of "slugging," the brutality of the U. C. game was captured in a brief report from the Maysville Public Ledger, as quoted in the Lexington Herald:
FOOTBALL PLAYER HURT
"Dickey Van Winkle, left half on the Centre College foot ball team, and one of the stars of the old Maysville baseball club, after the game at Cincinnati was found to have one of his ears split open, several ugly-looking bruises on his face, while his entire body was battered and scratched as if he had been one of the guests of a Kansas cyclone.
The "old Maysville baseball club" was an amateur/semi-pro baseball club that was famous in Kentucky in 1895 for taking two games out of three from the Cincinnati Reds of the National League. "Dickey" Van Winkle showed up in the team photo:
Van Winkle is in the back row, second from the left. In a tangentially-related column in the Toledo Blade, there is evidence of the Princeton connection and also how professionalism was kept secretive but still practiced by at least one of Centre's athletes. It also shows how free and easy tranferring between teams had become and how many were playing professionally under assumed names. The Toledo Mud Hens were a professional minor league team that began playing in 1896, but the year before they were known as the Toldedo Swamp Angels. Dickie Van Winkle played for them, although the paper got his "real name" wrong, which was not "Richard Cecil Van Winkle," but Arthur Cecil Van Winkle. From the Toledo Blade:
Manager Strobel of the Toledo ball team has been unable to locate third baseman "Dicky" Cecil since the season closed. If he wants to find him very badly, he will find "Richard Cecil Van Winkle," which is his real name, playing with the Centre College foot ball eleven at Danville, Ky. He has a brother playing on the same team. Wednesday's Commercial Tribune has a large illustration of "Dicky" in foot ball attire, in which the face and characteristic pose of the young man are easily recognizable. "Dicky" plays left half back and is regarded as a crackerjack. Captain Lee, of Princeton, wanted him for last year's Princeton team, and in fact he did play there, for a few weeks.
It appears that Dickie Van Winkle was good enough at baseball to possibly make money playing it and also good enough to be pursued by Princeton for his football talent. Princeton was 10-0-1 in 1896 and was retroactively named National Champion for that year.
From Cincinnati, Centre took the train to Charleston, West Virginia to play the University team there. West Virginia had played 12 games that year and had a record of 3-7-2. Before Centre arrived, they had been outscored by all opponents 95 to 14. They were not a good team, but were a state university and any victory against such a team burnished Centre's reputation. Centre was 5-0-1 at the time and the fact that West Virginia could schedule 12 games while Centre could only schedule seven shows how difficult it was for a powerful team to find opponents willing to play them and conversely, how easy it was for a weaker team to find them.
West Virginia was coached by Thomas "Doggie" Trenchard, who had been a consensus all-American at Princeton in 1893 playing the end position, a position from which you could score touchdowns because of end around sweeps, a la Arch Cook and Charley Cecil of Centre. He was probably very familiar with H. McC. Anderson, the Centre Coach, also a Princeton man. And, in fact, both men played in the game on Nov. 30 at Charleston, possibly based on an agreement negotiated before the game. Centre was apparently drifting away from its Yale football romance to one with Princeton.
I found no reporting of the play by play against W. Va. but did find fawning coverage of the social aspect of the event as well as heaps of praise showered by the hometown Advocate on the Centre eleven for a splendid season:
With the game at Charleston, West Virginia, Monday, when the Centre College team defeated the crack [?] University of West Virginia eleven by a score of six to nothing, it closed the most successful season that any similar organization in the South ever went through.
The University of Cincinnati folks having positively declined to play off the tie with Centre, the team will probably disband for this season, unless a game is arranged with the Yale eleven that is contemplating a southern tour. . . .
The boys arrived home on Tuesday giving glowing accounts of their trip . . . The game . . . was a most exciting contest and Centre covered themselves in glory. Trenchard, the noted Penn [sic] player, who has been coaching the West Virginia team at a salary of one hundred dollars a week, played one of the half backs against Centre. He told his men they were beaten fairly and squarely, by superior work at all points and that they need not feel ashamed from defeat from such a team as Centre had on the field.
While the trip to West Virginia was not the financial success hoped for [the game was postponed to Monday because of torrential rains on Saturday, hence a smaller crowd], it opened up new territory for the college, giving it a big advertisement. The team made a splendid impression by its gentlemanly conduct in Charleston and won the kindest wishes and regards from the people, who were lavish in their hospitality. Friday night Governor McCorkle gave the boys a box party* at the theatre, and a magnificent reception, and the young gentlemen of the town gave two dances in their honor. Prominent citizens were untiring in their efforts to make the visit pleasant. .. . In fact the boys said they felt like they had been living in Charleston for four years and it need not be surprising if half of them don't go back there to live. It need not be surprising if Centre gets fifteen students from West Virginia next year.
*In the 19th century, a box party (frequently called a box social or lunch box auction) was a popular rural and small-town community fundraising event. Women packed decorative boxes with homemade food, and men bid on the boxes at an auction; the highest bidder won the box and shared the meal with the woman who made it.
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A thoughtful summation of the 1896 football season was published in Centre's first yearbook in the spring of 1897 by a recently-graduated student named A. R. Dunlap of the class of 1895. In this narrative I wanted to include student impressions of the new sport of football as it developed in the 1890s and I hoped that issues of the Cento, the student newspaper than began publishing monthly editions in October of 1891 (which was, coincidentally, a month nefore Centre's historic first game against Central University), might provide observations by enthusiastic student writers who saw the game played for the first time. Sadly, nearly all of the earliest bound volumes of the monthly Cento from 1891 until October, 1894 are missing from the archives in the Grace Dougherty Library, although I did find one issue from 1894 that was not bound. The Cento was more a literary magazine than a student newspaper in those days but it did have a section every month called "Athletics." In later editions which are still in the archives, these sections provide interesting reading on sports at Centre. The misplacement of those missing volumes constitutes a crime against bibliothecography, or as it is currently known, LIS, Liibrary and Information Science.
Mr. Dunlap's account is lengthy and covers much of the ground I have already covered on the 1896 season, but I recommend it. The first two editions of the yearbook in '97 and '98 were titled, The EcCentric. Dunlap's contribution can be found in the Centre Digital archives in their Yearbooks Collection.
While a student at Centre in the late 1960s, I met someone who was a senior at at the college in 1896-97 and whose graduation photo is in the first yearbook. He was one of Centre's more successful graduates in the field of literature studies and his name was Hardin Craig. He was the editor of an edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, (Scott, Foresman and Co., Copyright, 1961), a volume I own to this day. Dr. Craig, who earned his doctorate from Princeton, was a renowned Shakespearen scholar in his era. He was retired then and had a living arrangment at Centre. He would come to lunch at the Cowan Dining Commons in the company of the house mothers of the women's dorms. They took care of him until he died in 1968 at the age of 93. He is cited in the 1897 yearbook as serving as the business manager for the Cento. It was a lovely day in the spring of 1968 when I found myself standing in line behind him at the dining hall. He turned and said, "It is such a beautiful day!" I said yes, it certainly was. He then said, "It reminds me of California forty years ago," which was twice as many years as my age. Because it was time to choose his meal, that was the extent of our conversation. He died the following autumn. I still read his annotated volume of Shakespeare, which is filled with wonderful details of life in Elizabethan England.
Hardin Craig, '97, in the 1897 Centre Yearbook
There were hard feelings between southern colleges on the disposition of football in the 1890s. In 1895, the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association began claiming jurisdiction over football in the South with strict rules that standardized eligibility and sought to eliminate any whiff of professionalism from the sport. Centre, because it had been so successful with a record of 17-2 since the beginning of the sport in 1891, did not immediately join the Association. It's primary opponent in those years was the Louisville Athletic Club, with whom it had reportedly played eight games before 1897, and they knew that the L. A. C. or any other athletic club or YMCA would not be bound by rules written by faculty members from universities who were trying to "purify" the game. Centre wanted to control its own destiny.
Because Centre had achieved three undefeated seasons in its first six years, it was targeted by the SIAA for having "unclean" hands. i don't know to what extent Centre was using so-called "ringers," but I do know that some teams Centre played, including Central U. were using them and that the rules were still malleable. Centre was using graduate students, but so were most other college football teams.
In a report from the Auburn student newspaper Orange & Blue (January 13, 1897), reporting on the SIAA’s annual convention there was this:
“The records of Centre College and the University of Tennessee were considered unclean from a strictly amateur standpoint, and they were blacklisted in foot ball for one year. This means that no team in the Association will be allowed to schedule games with them next season. These two Colleges do not belong to the Association.”
This along with another column written by Caspar Whitney in Harper's Weekly, wherein he was crusading in the East for similar reforms, elicited a long, sarcastic response from Nat Lafon, '99, the sports editor of The Cento, whose passion was informed by his place as a reserve on Centre's football team. I include it in its entirety because it captures the intensity of one student-athlete's loyalty to the college and the team:
"Centre has been expelled from the Southern Athletic Association." This is the information that has been given to the world. Mr. Casp[a]r Whitney, in the Harper's Weekly, has based some friendly (?) remarks upon the accuracy of this action of the S. A. A. Who was present when this significant expulsion took place? Were all the colleges represented? Or was it done by that Executive Committee of "Billy" H Lyon, of Central Univeristy; Doctor Dudley of Vanderbilt; D. Ross of Alabama Polytechnical Instituete [Auburn], and Dr. Hesty of Georgia University? Centre, the one supposed to be most affected, is "on the hunt" for details. She wants to know "where she was at" when all this occurred. Was she summoned before this august tribunal to show cause why she should not receive this sentence? If so, she has not heard of it. Possibly this mighty organization, the Southern Athletic Association, ( I name it so that you may stand it awe of it, this great autocrat) has rules by which it can have a trial and pass sentence when the criminal has never been summoned to appear? Possibly this Association did not want Centre present on that momentous occasion, lest by some means she should clear herself of the crime of playing professional football! Possibly Central University, who has an old grudge against Centre, and Vanderbilt whom Centre beat by a score of 46-0, were present and lent their unprejudiced (?) assistance! But here is the joke of the whole thing. Within the past three years, since Professor Flattery has been in charge of athletics at Centre, this same association has each year sent an invitation for Centre to become a member of the S. A. A. Could it be barely possible that Old Centre had a dream in which she accepted one of these invitations and now has forgotten all about it? At any rate, there seems to be nobody who knows anything about the matter. The S. A. A. has done Centre a great honor in that it has made her a member without the asking and without her consent and without her knowledge.
It has done her the greater honor (which she might have asked if she'd known she belonged) of putting her out, of expelling her. Centre does belong to the Western Athletic Association and no doubt the S. A. A. has confused the two organiztions. Or it might have thought it one of its many privileges to expel Centre from the W. A A. just the same as the Missouri legislature could tax the people of Illinois to defray Missouri's expenses. Centre beat every football team of note in the South and now they have expelled her to the East and North. This is a case of victory coming out of defeat.
There were other Associations around in those days that called themselves "Western," but the one I believe Lafon is referring to was a track and field association named the Western Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association, although I can find no documentation that Centre had joined it.
While I sympathize with those who would impose and enforce strict rules in the name of amateurism, I think the idea that Centre won because it violated vague rules is dubious, given the reports that virtually every other college in the region and across the country was doing it in one form or another. When Centre first hired Walter Berry in 1891, the rules were ill-defined. Berry was technically a professional hired to teach physical culture, but he came from a club/YMCA background that did not restrict participation. He was also 21 years of age, which was the approximate age of most of the men playing the sport. Were Centre faculty stiff collars behind the attempt to purify football because it was disruptive on campus and captured the rapt attention of many students who were drawn to supporting the team, its members and the excitement they provided?
Across the nation in the 1890s and beyond, pressure exerted by faculties, administrations and churches, especially at small colleges in the South, resulted in bans or near-bans of football. Colleges that banned the sport, at least for a short period of time, included the University of North Carolina, Wake Forest, Trinity (now Duke), Emory and Henry, Wofford, the University of Georgia, the University of Tennessee, and Columbia. Near-bans occurred at Harvard, the University of Kansas, and the University of Alabama. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland cancelled the 1893 Army-Navy game after reports of 24 hospitalizations among players.
In the 1890s, a small minority of students across the land became fanatical and unruly in their devotion to their respective teams. Along with all the injuries and fatalities, football on occasion caused riots and other forms of unruly behavior. Because Centre's students were generally of good character, Centre's administration and faculty were less demanding than most but still wanted to exercise significant control over this dynamic new phenonmen. Of the 21 men listed on the Board of Trustees in 1897, 10 were Doctors of Divinity. Most of the men running Centre College were highly-educated, no-nonsense, Presbyterians who had fought in the Civil War, known someone killed in it or witnessed the destruction and murderous chaos it spread across the land. Out of 12 professors in the Academical Department, two men had D. D. degrees and four had LL D. degrees which meant they were doctors of civil and canon law. In the book, Our Standard Sure, Centre College Since 1819, by C. Thomas Hardin and Bob Hill, there is a list of 26 Centre students who were killed in the Civil War followed by the year they graduated or attended. At least some professors were of the generation that did the fighting. I suspect some of them did not take kindly to the wild enthusiasm for football. They wanted students to be studious and pious.
Centre did its best to accommodate both sides of the "foot ball" controversy and the players were always deferential to the faculty and administration. There were likely faculty members who believed that football with controlled violence was a good substitute for the murderous orgy of war. It is difficult to determine how deeply the college was divided on the subject, but we do know the division existed. We also know who eventually won the argument. Centre football would continue to thrive-- not in every season, but in most of them with remarkable success for well over a century.
| The 1897 Season |
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| In its October, 1897 issue, The Cento printed a tentative. pre-season schedule that Centre was planning to play. I reproduce it here to illustrate just how malleable and uncertain the business of scheduling was in the 1890s: |
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| Date Opponent Location |
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| Oct. 9 YMCA Athletic Club of Frankfurt Frankfort |
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| 10/16 U. of Cincinnati Danville |
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| 11/6 U. of Cincinnati Cincinnati |
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| 11/13 U. of West Virginia Huntington, W. V. |
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| 11/15 Washington and Lee Charleston, W. V. |
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| 11/25 Kentucky State College Lexington |
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| 12/4 U. of Virginia Louisville |
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| Here is how the season actually played out according to the Centre Archives: |
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| * Note: in the schedule above with results from the Centre Digital Archives there is an error. The chart records a tie of 5-5 in the first game of the season between the Frankfort YMCA and Centre. Centre actually won the game, 5-0 according to reports in the Kentucky Advocate and Lexington Herald. Therefore the team's record for the season should be 5-2. |
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| Frankfort was the destination for the first game of the season where Centre was to play a reputed YMCA team. But it was not that. The Advocate explained: |
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| RAGGED GAME.-- The Centre College foot ball team went to Frankfurt Saturday to play an alleged YMCA eleven. Centre won by a score of five to nothing, the score being made on a drop kick by Anderson. There was some very dirty work by the Frankfort eleven. They started in kicking and scrapping and became so indecent in their tactics that the Centre men simply let them have their own way. There were several Louisville men on the Frankfort eleven including Jim Frew and Lucas.. . . |
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| The Lexington Herald added this information: |
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Slugging was indulged in to a great extent for which offense, two players, South and Cooper [from Frankfort] were ruled off. The Advocate was sharply critical of Centre's performance against the U. of Cincinatti in the first game at Danville. Under the headline, CENTRE FOUND WANTING they had this to say about the 4-0 defeat: Several things tended to bring the [defeat] about. There is no use denying that some of the men have been a little too careless in their training. They were short of wind-giving work. . . . There was also a sad absence of that old-time team work which has heretofore protected the individual in brilliant end runs and rushes. After explaining how Cincinatti scored its only touchdown, they described the second half: With the opening of the second half, Centre awoke to the fact that there was a game of foot ball going on, and the work she did for ten minutes set the yellow and white to waving. . . Successive gains by Cook, Blaydes, Cooper, Staples and Wilson actually carried the ball within a foot of the goal. Here it was lost on downs and with it all chances of a score. . . In the description, we see more evidence as to how different the game was 1897. In many game reports you read accounts of lineman rushing for "gains" with the ball. In the lineup that day, both Staples and Wilson were interior lineman. . . .Once or twice the Cincinnati coach and another irrepressible individual with a cane and flowing locks and ribbons persisted in going upon the field without due authority, and the police interfered, very much to their chagrin and the amusement of the crowd. Centre threatened near the end of the game and got down within a yard of the goal line. It seems that flawed design and construction of the Centre home field deprived them of a victory. From the November, 1897 issue of the Cento: . . . After U. of C. had made short gains, Neiman fumbled and Wilson [of Centre] fell on the ball. Baydes then carried it 20 yards, Cook 5, Cooper and Blaydes 3 each, Cooper 5, Wilson 7, and Blaydes 15. Then Cooper, by a magnificent run, carried the ball 40 yards, landing it within a yard of the "dead line." He was prevented from making a touch-down by the fence, which at this point cut off a small corner of the field. Then Cook lost ground, as the U. of C. boys had the fence back of them in the push against. Staples gained a yard, Wilson gained 2. At that moment a mighty yell went up and the crowd rushed in on the field wild with excitement and joy, but they yelled too soon. The Mighty Blaydes was sent against U. of C.'s line but it was as firm as a wall of adamant. Then the umpire's voice was heard, "Ball goes over." Nieman [of U. C.] made a beautiful punt to "Pig" Van Winkle, who fumbled, Wright [of U. C.]fell on it. After some see-sawing back and forth in U. of C.'s territory, time was called and Centre had lost--a story sad but true. |
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| There was joy in Cincinnati as mighty Centre had struck out. The following from a column in the Burnet Woods Echo: |
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| It's an old story now, but a good one and a good story will always bear repeating. Just think of it . . . we beat Centre 4-0! Centre College, that proud seat of learning, whose stalwart sons, incited on by "Dickey" Van Winkle, have hitherto spoiled the green grass with our footb-ball pets by trampling them into the ground; entre, bane of our triumphs, mighty Centre has fallen. "Oh what a fall was [there], my countrymen!" There was a whole season of foot-ball compressed in that one hot afternoon on the dusty Danville grounds, when U. of C., surrounded by the howling dervishes of the Kentucky village, avenged the long roll of insulting defeats that the sons of Daniel Boone had piled on their devoted heads. Centre then traveled to Winchester to play their Athletic Club. This time they played with flair. Arch Cook took the ball around end for a 65 yard touchdown early in the game and in the second half, Charley Harlan blocked a punt and recovered over the goal (there was no endzone at the time) for a second touchdown. Centre also scored a two point safety near the end of the game. The Courier-Journal said that Centre had defeated the Winchester Athletic Club . . . in the presence of one thousand people in one of the finest contests ever seen on the local gridiron. . . This was W. A. C.'s first defeat in two years, but the boys feel elated with the good fight they made without their two ends who were unable to play on account of injuries . . . It was a clean game throughout. The Advocate had this to say about the game based on "dispatches:" "The team has improved in its interference and general work and will no doubt be able to put up a better game at Cincinnati." That prediction did not pan out. The second game against the University of Cincinnati exposed the truth that Centre, after six plus years of brilliant and mostly dominating football, had met a team that was superior to it. According to their coach H. McC. Anderson, who was quoted in the Courier-Journal after the 10-0 loss, "The boys did their best and were simply outplayed." The paper had a similar opinion: "In every part of the game, the local boys demonstrated their superiority, and the Danville boys were outplayed at all points." On the U. C. game, the Cento had this comment: "Centre is also distressingly in need of a full-back who can run, buck and kick like Douglas of old." The Advocate reflected on Cincinnati's dominance of Centre: The Centre team is not the least disposed to complain of unfair treatment. They say the Cincinnati team won the game fairly and on its merits. Centre did the best she could. The team needs strengthening, and it could be materially strengthened, if some of those in higher authority would give the athletic association half the encouragement such departments in many other colleges receive. Centre was to play the West Virginia University at Clyffside Park in Ashland Kentucky on Nov. 13, but West Virginia cancelled at the last moment. They had beaten Ohio State, 24-0, on November 6th but stood up Centre on the 13th instead to play Bethany College on Nov. 17. They easily beat a weak Bethany team 30-0. Cattletsburg Athletic Association was inserted in West Virginia's place to play Centre on Nov 13. Centre's Cooper scored three touchdowns in the first half and that was the extent of the scoring with Centre winning 18-0. Did West Virginia suffer a loss of courage that week in refusing to play Centre? Regardless of the answer, their refusal was to good effect. They ended up the season with a 5-4-1 record. If they had played Centre, that record would likely have been 4-5-1. On the Catlettsburg A. A. game the Advocate commented: "Centre played well. The team seems to be getting back into its old form and is expected to play great ball from now on. |
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| The Courier-Jouurnal had a subheadline that said it best: Danvile Team Pulls Together and Plays Great Ball. Coach Anderson was apparently indisposed and coaching duties that week were assumed by past Centre football greats Eugene Cook and Arthur "Dickie" Van Winkle, whose slightly older brother Earnest, nicknamed "Peg" or "Pig" depending on the source, was Centre's quarterback that year. Arthur would become Centre's full "coacher" for the the following season, 1898 at the age of 21, having started college at an early age and graduated in 1897 and '98 again after extra study at the Danville Law School (founded 1894), which was affiliated with Centre. The Van Winkle family, like the Cook family, resided in Danville. Their father John had been a judge and once served as Kentucky's Secretary of State. There were six boys and a girl in the family, although another source claimed it was five boys and two girls. They lived at 216 Maple Avenue, which was then known as Harrodsburg St. Arthur ws the youngest of the five (or six) boys and born in 1877. The father had died in 1888 and the mother was running the household in the 1890s. |
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| Miami was overpowered by Centre with Arch Cook scoring three touchdown. Eugene Cook not only helped coach the team in the week before the game, he was the umpire for the game. It was surely coincidental that his brother, who was now Centre's captain, scored three times. |
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| The icing on the season's cake was spread on Nov. 25 when Centre brutalized State College in Lexington by a score of 36 to nothing. The Lexington Herald commiserated: |
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| Centre College yesterday defeated Kentucky State College to the sad, sad tune of 36-0. Oh, the enthusiastic S. C. rooters hoped for something better, but impartial observers of the game sent out the decree that the blue and white must meet defeat. |
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| In this instance, at least, the wiseacres hit the nail on the head. . . |
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| . . . Captain [Arch] Cook trots through a hole in the line for one of his famous 25-yard runs. |
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| The twin giants, Harlan and Staples, would come out from their respective places as guard and tackle and for five and ten yard gains literally walking over their comparatively midget opponents. |
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| Tackle Church Staples and guard Charley Harlan were both 6'-3" and weighed at least 185 lbs. They, as much as anyone, were responsible for Centre's success in the years they played. They would apparently step back off the line of scrimmage for a few yards and be handed the ball by Pig Van Winkle the quarterback. That waa permitted by the rules in those days. |
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| The Advocate was less sympathetic with this headline and sub-headline: |
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| CENTRE GALLOPED |
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| Back and Forth Acroos the Field at |
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| Lexington Yesterday |
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| The easy victory was won in the face of the fact that old "Stonewall" Nicholas, the center rush, was laid up with pneumonia knocking at his door, and with other regular men off, Fatty Foreman was put in at center and played a good game, as did Mannini on one side of the ends. |
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| And then on the same page there was this under the heading "Next Game:" |
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| Great interest is being aroused in the game to be played at Louisville Saturday afternoon of next week with the University of Virginia team. |
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| This will be the most important contest ever seen on a Kentucky foot ball field and the Centre men should see to it that the old Commonwealth is well-represented in the battle. |
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| Unfortunately, the next game was cancelled. In a column headlined GAME OFF it was announced that Centre could not field a team that was healthy enough to play a game worth the price of a ticket or one that would not damage its players more than they already were. The column explained: |
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| Here the inherent weakness in Centre's football program finally came into play. Centre has always been a small college in a small town somewhat distant from a large city. It's football program was essentially self-supporting and relied on the kindess of townspeople, the alumni and the student body which was encouraged to pay dues to the Centre College Athletic Association to fund all the sports played there. But running a football team, especially one with, at minimum, aspirations to dominate regionally, was becoming increasingly expensive. More than once was Centre mistreated by the weather at an away game in which a large crowd was anticipated but did not materialize because of rain or sub-freezing conditions. (For the Vanderbilt game in '91, the one that was cancelled because of the rain, it was reported Centre had contracted for two-thirds of the gate receipts.) The trip to West Virginia, in which the game had to be post-poned from a Saturday to a Monday because of the weather was an example of a game with greatly diminished attendance and, therefore, receipts. |
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| As the costs for equipment, logistical support and transportation grew over the years, deficit spending became a feature of the budget. The Faculty, which was inordinately powerful in those days was mostly unsympathetic to the problem. A majority were likely opposed to subsidization of the football program from college revenues. Alumni funding and gifts from the citizens of Danville were by necessity smaller than, say, money that could be raised for similar purposes in Cincinnati, Louisville or even Lexington. Centre, for example had a student body one-third the size of the one at the University of Virginia. It had probably been like that for decades, which meant a smaller composite number of alumni who might contribute to financing a football team. |
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| The problem was partially but forcefully addressed by an unlikely source in the 1898 edition of the EcCentric, the second Centre College yearbook ever published. Arthur "Dickie" Van Winkle, who had recently graduated from the Danville Law School (an affiliate of Centre that was housed in Old Centre) wrote a compelling editorial on the problem from the perspective of a man who had been a former star player on the team and who would be coaching it in the coming season. The reader should keep in mind that Van Winkle was 21 years old when the yearbook was published in the spring of 1898. He writes with characteristic lawyerly verbosity, but he gets to the pith of the problem. Here is his submission in its entirety, a voice from a former player and now concerned coach: |
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| A depleted treasury, and uncomfortable debt, few of the members of last year's team returning, together with a current opinion that there would be a marked decadence of interest in the sport on the part of the student body are facts calculated to involve the futture of foot-ball at old Centre in some obscurity. |
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| In the limited space allowed it will be impossible to enter into details of the history, so we shall endeavor to confine all references to the past, to such facts as we deem necessary to prove an assertion or explain some present conditions. Fortunate shall we consider this endeavor if one suggestion be made which would prove profitable to future teams of our alma mater. |
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| The inevitably first complaint-- that increasing faculty strictness practically preclude[s] success-- may be dismissed. with the simple statement that while that body may not, during the past few years, have acted as liberally as circumstances seem to require, still it has at all times been fair and just. |
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| The second cause of our embarrassments is well understood by those who have watched the game closely since its introduction into the State. The seasons of '91, '92, and '93 saw four to six teams in the field. To the very end the issue, as to which was the strongest, was undecided. Enthusiasm among the students and admirers of each was intense. Attendance was good and the receipts, at least with Centre, were far beyond the expenditures of the team. Large outlays were made in improving the athletic field and purchasing equipments which, it was supposed would be assets in the hands of future managers. This prosperous state of affairs persisted until the fall of '94. That year Centre was the only one of the Kentucky colleges able to put up a respectable team and among the colleges, this has been practically the state of affairs since that fall. L. A. C., to be sure, was, during that period nearly always represented by an eleven individually good. Notably so in '96, when the team was one of the best that has ever gone out looking for the scalp of Old Centre. The interests in the contests with athletic clubs is never as great as when between rival colleges, and in the present instance, proved unable to stir up the drooping enthusiam. A glance at the financial standing of the association will show that the forgoing statements are accurate as regards ourselves, and I am told by gentlemen connected with the mangagement of other teams in the State that this is equally true of them. Since '94, no team has been so fortunate to make expenses, and despite donations by the townspeople and alumni, our debts have steadily increased. |
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| Nor can we agree with those who maintain that the decline of the game is due to a lack of appreciation for the sport itself on the part of the general public; that the secret of the early popularity was its novelty. Facts disprove this assumption. The fall of '93 was the last that saw more than one representative college team in the field. That season was far more profitable and successful, in every way, than any of its predecessors. |
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| What surprises us is, not that the attendance has decreased, but that there still be so many who will torture their feelings and tax their patience by witnessing an exhibition that frequently resembles more a foot race in which the contestants are weighted far beyond their strength than a game of scientific football. No! The public will patronize foot-ball if it is played. |
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| The complaint that the undergraduate body lacks the intense spirit and loyalty, which was formerly our marking characteristic, is worthy of the closest consideration. |
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| The forgoing facts might palliate, but in no sense can excuse this attitude, if it really exists. Observations force us to to the conclusion that that devotion which leads the student to sacrifice his time simply to help make the team a success, is a matter for the abstract discussion, but not of concrete application at Centre. Do you question this assertion and ask the grounds on which it is based? Bear in mind , then, that not only the success of the present team, but the hope of future development depend in a large part on the loyalty and work of the second eleven. It is, of course, hard to work that another may reap the immediate profits be lauded as a hero by his fellows, to suffer bruises and aches that you may hear some Varsity man lauded by his fellows while you who have done almost as much and suffered more, are never thought of in the hour of victory. Here, however, is the criterion for determining the strength of college spirit. At no time during the season of '95 was there anything resembling an enthusiastic "scrub." The return of an unusual number of old men in '96 merely postponed the day of reckoning. In '97, the long impending disaster fell, when, owing to the injury of several Varsity men and the absolute impossibility of recruiting from the "consolidated," the game with the University of Virginia had to be called off. |
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| Is then foot-ball, when a few years since it bid fair to flourish so famously a dead sport? Is the prediction of her admirers--that Old Centre would one day rank as the leader of the game in the South--to come to naught? Until there is manifested a greater disposition to work for the team than discuss its prospects, to strive for future laurels than to contemplate the glories of the past, we must confess an unwillingess to hazard a guess. |
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| Under these trying conditions, the managing board have done everything possible toward make the coming season a success. Feeling the inability to assume the burden of paying the salary of a "coach" the assistance of the college was requested. This was refused-- foot-ball being no part of the present curriculum. A step was then taken which we firmly believe will prove a great success. A committee of the association requested a number of old players to undertake the training of the '98 team. |
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| By this move a most efficient corps of "coachers" (trainers) was secured, composed of "Gene" Cook, right half on the teams '91, '92, '93, and '94; Chas. Cecil, left end '95 and '96; Arch Cook, right end and right half, ;94, '95, '96 and capain of the team in '97, and several others of less note who will be equally as zealous for the success of the team. Even conceding the situation to be the worst possible,--that we must begin again at the bottom--what's the odds? It is adversity that shows the temper and worth. Profiting by past experience and using her acquired prestige in a legitimate manner, for securing good games, and not as the fox that hid his weakness under a lion's skin, the name of "Old Centre" will always command respect from those who feel the weight of her metal. |
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| That was the consensus of opinion among the football players who loved their game and of many students who loved their team. But they were only half the story, or perhaps less. The faculty and the Board of Trustees were of a different mind, or at least they were since the premature death of President William C. Young in 1896 who seemed to understand that a succesful football program could bear fruit for Old Centre in the form of prestige, increased student enrollment and financial reward. Recall he actually travelled back east to recruit a "coacher" for the '94 team and returned after having secured the services of Eugene Messler from Yale. |
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| With Young's death and the appointment of a new president, William C. Roberts, the attitude of the Board had taken a skeptical turn vis a vis football, as is evident in the following selections from the Board of Trustees minutes: |
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| From the Board of Trustees minutes, June 7th, 1898: In regard to athletics we need only repeat in a more emphatic form what was included in last year's report. The practice of allowing players on the team playing football who were not bona fide members of the College has resulted in a loss of interest in the team on the part of the mass of the students so much so that it was difficult to get together a second team for practice. The Dean was overruled on every position he took, but the results, many of which are not mentioned, convince him that he was right. Your attention is called to a letter from Prof. Dudley of Vanderbilt in relation to this matter and which is sent with this report. We are happy to add that the baseball team has a clean record, all the men playing on it being students through the year and its successful record shows that ringers are not necessary in the College. The football and the baseball games fell far short of what we looked for. By some strange fatality our teams were beaten badly a number of times. Our men are physically light and unable to cope with the robust representatives of some other Institutions. The Faculty experiences much difficulty in excluding from the games all ball players who are not bona fide members of College. Our outdoor sports call for some readjustment that I am not prepared at present to define. Another year may witness a decided improvement in this department if it can be put in the hands of a responsible director. I would suggest however the appointment of a strong committee to take the whole matter into consideration and adjust it. The employment of an Instructor in the gymnasium was referred to the President and the Finance Committee, with the understanding that all outdoor sports, football and baseball, be placed under one instructor, who is to be under control of the Faculty. I am sorry to state that Mr. Winter has resigned his place as Instructor in Physical Culture. He is a true Christian gentleman, faithful, hardworking, and popular with the students. He is not dissatisfied with his work in the College but goes to New York to study medicine. The Board will be glad to know that the executive committee has in view a successor to Mr. Winter, a man who is in all respects his equal, if not his superior. It is the intention of the Committee to put under the new instructor in Physical culture not only the gymnasium, but the baseball and football teams. The outdoor sports have not been for two or three years altogether satisfactory. It is hoped that we shall be able to put them on a better footing the coming year. A year later, it appears that they had not found their instructor in physical culture who would coach football and all other sports. From the June 12, 1900 meeting of the Board of Trustees: On motion it was ordered that not exceeding $700 be paid for an Instructor in the Gymnasium and the coach for the Foot Ball team. |
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| The 1898 Season |
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| As for the 1898 football season under "Coacher" Dicky Van Winkle, the old saw, "You win some, you lose some and sometimes you don't even get to play the game," probably summed it up best: |
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