Paul Robeson, Football Player

In its ongoing recognition of the 100th anniversary of his graduation (as valedictorian) in 1919, Rutgers Today just published this short history of Paul Robeson's stellar football career on the banks that is well worth clicking on and taking ten minutes to read.

It All Began on This Date in 1869.

Today's the 148th anniversary of the first intercollegiate football game on November 6, 1869, so I'm reposting this transcript again. This appeared in a bicentennial anthology of Rutgers stories published in 1966.

This report of that first "foot-ball" game between Rutgers and Princeton was reported in the Targum in 1869, and reprinted in Aloud to Alma Mater, edited by George Lukac (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1966, pages 67-69).

The Birth of Intercollegiate Football

On Saturday, November 6, Princeton sent twenty-five picked men to play our twenty-five a match game of foot-ball. The strangers came up in the ten o’clock train, and brought a good number of backers with them. After dinner, and a stroll around the town, during which stroll billiards received a good deal of attention, the crowd began to assemble at the ball ground, which, for the benefit of the ignorant, we would say, is a lot about a hundred yards wide, extending from College Avenue to Sicard Street. Previous to calling the game, the ground presented an animated picture. Grim looking players were silently stripping, each one surrounded by sympathizing friends, while around each of the captains was a little crowd, intent upon giving advice, and saying as much as possible. The appearance of the Princeton men was very different from that of our own players. They were almost without exception tall and muscular, while the majority of our twenty-five are small and light, but possess the merit of being up to much more than they look.

Very few were the preliminaries, and they were quickly agreed upon. The Princeton captain, for some reason or other, gave up every point to our men without contesting one. The only material points were that Princeton gave up “free kicks,” whereby a player, when he catches the ball in the air, is allowed to kick it without hindrance. On the other hand, our practice of “babying” the ball on the start was discarded, and the ball was mounted, in every instance, by a vigorous “long kick.”

Princeton won the toss, and chose the first mount, rather oddly, since it had been agreed to start the ball against the wind. At three p.m. the game was called. The Princetonians suffered from making a bad “mount” or “buck” as they call it; the effects of which were not remedied before the sides closed, and after a brief struggle, Rutgers drove it home, and won, amid great applause from the crowd. The sides were changed, Rutgers started the ball, and after a somewhat longer fight Princeton made it a tie by a well directed kick, from a gentleman whose name we don’t know, but who did the best kicking on the Princeton side.

To describe the varying fortunes of the match, game by game, would be a waste of labor, for every game was like the one before. There was the same headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking. In every game the cool goal-tenders saved the Rutgers goal half a dozen times; in every game the heavy charger of the Princeton side overthrew everything he came in contact with; and in every game, just when the interest in one of those delightful rushes at the fence was culminating, the persecuted ball would fly for refuge into the next lot, and produce a cessation of hostilities until, after the invariable “foul,” it was put in straight.

Well, at last we won the match, having won the first, third, fifth, sixth, ninth, and tenth games; leaving Princeton the second, fourth, seventh, and eighth. The seventh game would probably have been added to our score but for one of our players, who, in his ardor, forgot which way he was kicking, a mistake for which he fully atoned afterward.

To sum up: Princeton had the most muscle, but didn’t kick very well, and wanted organization. They evidently don’t like to kick the ball on the ground. Our men, on the other hand, though comparatively weak, ran well, and kicked well throughout. But their great point was their organization, for which great praise is due to the Captain, Leggett ’72. The right men were always in the right place.

After the match, the players had an amicable “feed” together, and at eight o’clock our guests went home, in high good spirits, but thirsting to beat us next time, if they can.

Those Buckeyes Were Just Copying the Scarlet Knights (and not only by copying the color scarlet)

There's a great article by Ryan Dunleavy on NJ.com this morning with the title, "Did Rutgers, not Ohio State, start helmet stickers in college football? Here's proof." Not only is it worth reading this piece about large stars added to the front of Rutgers helmets for interceptions in 1961 in its own right, but the timing is perfect with the Buckeyes coming to town in two days.

See you there.

President Obama at Rutgers Today

This historic moment at Rutgers Stadium is worth memorializing here.


The great address to Rutgers Class of 2016 was streaming online in a few places, but we can't expect to see any full speech on television this year unless it is being delivered by Donald Trump.

"...Rutgers in the Ivy League..." -- Malcolm X

I was surprised in my morning reading to come across this sentence on page 287 of the current Ballantine paperback edition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

"I had spoken at well over fifty colleges and universities, like Brown, Harvard,
Yale, Columbia, and Rutgers, in the Ivy League..."

It would be one thing if this were a new book, or if it were the error of a single author, but the Autobiography has been consistently in print and selling in large quantities since 1965 and it was written by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, with professional editors, and there have been lots of opportunities for someone to correct the simple fact that Rutgers is not (and has never officially been) in the Ivy League.

For much of the nation, the name of the State University of New Jersey does not seem out of place in that list; as long as we don't get too successful in sports, the name will continue to look comfortable there.

(It was a decade before my time, but does anyone remember seeing Malcolm at Rutgers?)

Radiolab's "American Football" Episode

If you're looking something to listen to in this long season between football seasons, I highly recommend listening to episode 4 of the 13th season of WNYC's Radiolab. No, they don't mention Rutgers football in this history of the early sport, but the Carlisle Indian School history is fascinating, as are the other stories in this show.


If you can't listen to the embedded player up above, then click this link to get to the episode's home page.

Rutgers' Mount Rushmore

The Big Ten Network announced the results of their contest for the Mount Rushmore of Rutgers football. No current players were eligible (sorry Kemoko) and no coaches (sorry Schiano),

The winners of the vote were from four different eras and matched my choices.

• Paul Robeson (1915-1919)
• Bill Austin (1956-1958)
• Marco Battaglia (1992-1995)
• Brian Leonard (2003-2006)

Did you choose different players from the 10 that BTN suggested? Honestly, I feel that only Paul Robeson is undebatable.

Great Film on the Rutgers/Princeton Cannon Wars

How long will it take before Maryland or Penn State establishes a rivalry with us as deep as the one between Rutgers and those pretentious rich assholes in orange?

Knights, Tigers, and Cannons. Oh My! (2012) from Zack Morrison on Vimeo.

Throwback Uniforms from the 'Nineties for Saturday's Maryland Game

The Maryland Agricultural College (which became the University of Maryland in 1920) fielded its first football team in 1892.

The 1892 Maryland Agricultural College football team with their bowler-hatted overlord.

The 1891 Rutgers football team had a shady-looking guy in a black suit and bowler too.

This will be the last in a BeatVisitor.com series that began during this inaugural Big Ten year with early photos of  Michigan's football team and continued with Ohio State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan State,

Unlike some of the other Big Ten matchups this year, these teams have a little bit of history between them; the Scarlet Knights' all-time record against the Terrapins, 4 wins and 5 losses, needs to be evened up this week.

The Throwback Photo for Our Next Opponent, the Michigan Agricultural College.

As with Rutgers changing its name from Queens College after the Revolutionary War made that royal name politically incorrect, our next football opponents have had some name changes too. In 1855, the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan was founded; in 1861, it became the State Agricultural College; in 1909, the Michigan Agricultural College; in 1925, the Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science; in 1955, the Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science; and finally, in 1964 it became plain old Michigan State University.

In the tradition we started in this inaugural Big Ten year with MSU's big brother Michigan and continued with Ohio State, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Indiana, here's a photo of the 1915 Michigan Agricultural College football team.

The 1915 Michigan Agricultural College football team.

The 1917 Rutgers College football team.

"...headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking..." Happy 145th Birthday to College Football

I'm republishing the following for new visitors to Rutgers who wonder about "The Birthplace of College Football" line that's proudly displayed next to the football field at R House. Tomorrow is the 145th anniversary of that first intercollegiate football game played between the men of Rutgers and Princeton in New Brunswick, New Jersey on November 6, 1869, just across the river from the current Stadium on the site of the College Avenue Gym.


The details of the game, played by two teams that still needed to agree on rules at game time, are a little like reading the details of an alien game from a foreign land, but this game was neither soccer nor rugby. It was something new, being invented on the fly by college students, and here's a first-hand report of that first intercollegiate game of "foot-ball" played on American soil, exactly as reported first in Rutgers' daily newspaper, the Targum, in 1869, and as reprinted in a short book published for Rutgers' 200th anniversary in 1966, Aloud to Alma Mater, edited by George Lukac, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,  pages 67-69.

Enjoy! But remember, at some point there will be a pop quiz on this information for our new Big Ten conference opponents.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Birth of Intercollegiate Football

On Saturday, November 6, Princeton sent twenty-five picked men to play our twenty-five a match game of foot-ball. The strangers came up in the ten o’clock train, and brought a good number of backers with them. After dinner, and a stroll around the town, during which stroll billiards received a good deal of attention, the crowd began to assemble at the ball ground, which, for the benefit of the ignorant, we would say, is a lot about a hundred yards wide, extending from College Avenue to Sicard Street. Previous to calling the game, the ground presented an animated picture. Grim looking players were silently stripping, each one surrounded by sympathizing friends, while around each of the captains was a little crowd, intent upon giving advice, and saying as much as possible. The appearance of the Princeton men was very different from that of our own players. They were almost without exception tall and muscular, while the majority of our twenty-five are small and light, but possess the merit of being up to much more than they look.

Very few were the preliminaries, and they were quickly agreed upon. The Princeton captain, for some reason or other, gave up every point to our men without contesting one. The only material points were that Princeton gave up “free kicks,” whereby a player, when he catches the ball in the air, is allowed to kick it without hindrance. On the other hand, our practice of “babying” the ball on the start was discarded, and the ball was mounted, in every instance, by a vigorous “long kick.”

Princeton won the toss, and chose the first mount, rather oddly, since it had been agreed to start the ball against the wind. At three p.m. the game was called. The Princetonians suffered from making a bad “mount” or “buck” as they call it; the effects of which were not remedied before the sides closed, and after a brief struggle, Rutgers drove it home, and won, amid great applause from the crowd. The sides were changed, Rutgers started the ball, and after a somewhat longer fight Princeton made it a tie by a well directed kick, from a gentleman whose name we don’t know, but who did the best kicking on the Princeton side.

To describe the varying fortunes of the match, game by game, would be a waste of labor, for every game was like the one before. There was the same headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic kicking. In every game the cool goal-tenders saved the Rutgers goal half a dozen times; in every game the heavy charger of the Princeton side overthrew everything he came in contact with; and in every game, just when the interest in one of those delightful rushes at the fence was culminating, the persecuted ball would fly for refuge into the next lot, and produce a cessation of hostilities until, after the invariable “foul,” it was put in straight.

Well, at last we won the match, having won the first, third, fifth, sixth, ninth, and tenth games; leaving Princeton the second, fourth, seventh, and eighth. The seventh game would probably have been added to our score but for one of our players, who, in his ardor, forgot which way he was kicking, a mistake for which he fully atoned afterward.

To sum up: Princeton had the most muscle, but didn’t kick very well, and wanted organization. They evidently don’t like to kick the ball on the ground. Our men, on the other hand, though comparatively weak, ran well, and kicked well throughout. But their great point was their organization, for which great praise is due to the Captain, Leggett ’72. The right men were always in the right place.

After the match, the players had an amicable “feed” together, and at eight o’clock our guests went home, in high good spirits, but thirsting to beat us next time, if they can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Never too early to start #ChopIndiana week

Continuing the tradition in which BeatVisitor.com introduced our new Big Ten opponents Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, here are a couple of early team photos showing our October 15th visitor to The Birthplace of College Football, the Indiana Hoosiers, who began playing football in 1887, just 18 years after that first game between Rutgers and Princeton, and are another team we have never met before on the gridiron.
I couldn't find any 19th-century portraits of the early Hoosiers, so I've gone with slightly later photos for both squads in advance of this very first meeting.

The 1910 Indiana football team after beating Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago team 6-0.

The 1917 Rutgers team featuring future All-American and valedictorian Paul Robeson.

Homecoming 1992

On Halloween of 1992, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights had one of their more memorable wins in the early Big East era over the Virginia Tech Hokies, 50-49 as time ran out.
Don't feel like you have to watch all three and a quarter hours as homework for this year's Homecoming against Wisconsin (though there are great shots of the pre-expansion Stadium, giant shoulder pads, television coverage unmarred by on-field computer-graphic distractions, etc.), but please watch Brian Fortay lead the last Rutgers drive at least; it begins at about the 2 hour and 50 minute mark of this video.

Another First Meeting in this First B1G Year

I did the same for Michigan, Ohio State, and Nebraska, so here are early team pictures of Wisconsin and Rutgers to commemorate the Homecoming game this Saturday that has been entirely too long in coming. The Wisconsin football program is a year older than Ohio State's and only twenty years younger than Rutgers', having been established in 1889.

The 1903 Wisconsin Football Squad, with pads starting to make their appearance.

The 1891 Rutgers Football Team (I'm not sure of the subtleties of the 1891 rules, but I think the player with the Clockwork Orange bowler was the designated knife carrier).

The 1891 RU image is a New York World-Telegram & Sun photograph from the Library of Congress.

Nebraska versus Rutgers in The New York Times, November 3, 1920

You can read a facsimile of the entire article about the first and only meeting between the Cornhuskers and Scarlet Knights in New York City on 11/2/1920 by clicking here, but I'm sure these first paragraphs will hook you.

NEBRASKA'S SPEED HUMBLES RUTGERS

------

Cornhuskers' Lightning Grid-

iron Tactics Sweep Them to

Victory by 28 to 0.

-------

FUMBLES PLAYED PART

-------

Sanford's Pupil's Err at Critical Times--Crowd of 15,000 Watches Battle at Polo Grounds.

-------

They grow something besides corn out on the prairies of Nebraska. An avalanche of football warriors descended yesterday upon the unsuspecting Rutgers eleven at the Polo Grounds, a great, husky, fearless mass of gridiron terrors, coached by a square-jawed individual named Henry Schulte, and, when they had finished with George Foster Sanford’s cripples, the score stood 28 to 0.

A crowd of more than 15,000 brought umbrellas and raincoats to the baseball lot after they had attended to their civic duty of voting [in the 1920 election between Harding/Coolidge and Cox/FDR], and for the rest of the afternoon, wondered if all western elevens were of the same breed. If so, their advice to Eastern graduate managers is to dispense with intersectional football games [until joining the Big Ten in 2014]. New York won't see any faster or harder football all the rest of this season. Yesterday's first period left the spectators breathless, and what Nebraska's gatling-gun hammering must have done to Rutgers was evident in the second quarter when the cornhuskers pushed across the first two of their touchdowns.

Read the rest here.

Throwback Photo of Our Next B1G Opponents

For the third game in a row, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights will be taking the field against a Big Ten team with its roots in the 19th century. However, unlike the games against Michigan and Ohio State, this game against the Cornhuskers on October 25 will not be the first meeting between the squads. They met once before -- a 28-0 Nebraska victory at the Polo Grounds on November 2, 1920.

The 1891 Nebraska Football Team (The United Nations didn't field their first team until the mid-twentieth century).

The 1882 Rutgers Football Team.

Another First Game That's Been A Long Time Coming

Just like last Saturday's game against the Wolverines, our next game -- in Columbus, Ohio on the 18th -- will be the first meeting on the gridiron of two teams that have been around since the 19th century. The Ohio State Buckeyes are proudly celebrating the 125th anniversary of OSU football this year (something that Rutgers football did in 1994).

The 1890 Ohio State football team (augmented by three prisoners from a local jail?).

The 1882 Rutgers football team.

The Two Oldest FBS Programs Finally Play for the First Time this Saturday

That should be the headline for the game that will be taking place at The Birthplace of College Football at 7pm this Saturday.  It really is amazing when you think about the fact that Rutgers (first game 1869) and Michigan (first game 1879) have never met across a line of scrimmage before this week.

The 1898 Michigan Football Team already sporting their block M.

The 1882 Rutgers Football Team proudly wearing the block R.

Sports Illustrated predicted that it might happen in Pasadena at the end of the 2007 season, but it seems fitting now that it will happen with both teams in the Big Ten, scheduled to meet every year from now until the end of time.

Rutgers Then-and-Now Photos

Here's a must see for anyone who ever spent any time On the Banks.
Elijah Reiss on the Muckgers website has done a wonderful job of presenting historical Rutgers photos and combining them with contemporary shots taken from the same perspective; a slider allows you to time travel.

Click here for the first group posted on April 28.

Click here for the second group posted on April 30.

It's amazing how little some of our favorite locations have changed in a century or more.

The Life of a Rutgers Man in the [Eighteen] Seventies

With the attempted 2013 changes to the first verse of the 1914 lyrics to "On The Banks of the Old Raritan" still fresh in everyone's mind, it's a great time to revisit Howard N. Fuller's (RC, '74) hastily-penned 1873 version which gives a quick contemporary sketch of a Rutgers man's progression from freshman hazee to sophomore hazer to junior card player to senior maiden slayer. 

It's amazing the first and last verses made it from 1873 to 2013 completely unchanged (only the chorus's "my boys" became "my friends" with co-education) while verses II through V couldn't even make it past 1914. The original central verses were unfamiliar to me, but it's amazing how fresh and alive (and politically completely incorrect) they feel.

I.
My father sent me to old Rutgers,
And resolv'd that I should be a man;
And so I settled down,
In that noisy college town,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)
On the banks of the old Raritan, my boys,
where old Rutgers ever more shall stand,
For has she not stood since the time of the flood,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
II.
As Fresh, they used me rather roughly,
But I the fearful gauntlet ran,
And they shook me so about
That they turned me inside out,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)
III.
I passed through all these tortures nobly,
And then, as Soph, my turn began,
And I hazed the poor Fresh so,
That they longed for Heaven, I know,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)
IV.
And then I rested at my pleasure,
And steered quite clear of Prex's ban,
And the stars their good-bye kissing
Found me not from euchre missing,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)
V.
And soon I made my social entrée
When I laid full many a wicked plan,
And by my cunning art
Slew many a maiden's heart,
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)
VI.
Then sing aloud to Alma Mater,
And keep the Scarlet in the van;
For with her motto high
Rutgers' name shall never die
On the banks of the old Raritan.
(Chorus)

Let's sing (loudly) the original first verse at the beginning and end of Saturday's Homecoming game, though we probably won't be singing about all-night euchre players with wicked plans to haze first-year students and become serial slayers of the hearts of many women. It is interesting though that while many schools have replaced "freshman" with the gender-inclusive "first-year student" in the 21st century, the gender-neutral "Fresh" in verses II and III here could be politically correct today (though the first-year hazing and fearful gauntlets and tortures probably less so).