Some Ivy schools might not have wanted Penn in the league only because they thought we would continue to dominate them on the football field.... and we might have, if Munger had stayed. Hell, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton always claim to this day that we (and any other Ivy not named HYP) must be "cheating" if we win.
I remember it all, vividly. My mom and dad had season tickets, and in 1947 they got another season ticket so I could go too. We went every year until maybe 1952. I remember the crush of people on 33rd Street, the whiff of sex before I had a clue about sex from the coeds and their pompons, my ever-growing collection of pennants, my freezing hands and feet and the warmth of the hot chocolate cans at halftime. I even remember something of the games themselves, Bednarik and Bell and Minisi and Bagnell.
Of course, I didn’t know the wonderful stories you tell of Munger and Bixler and of the Reform rabbi who said it was okay to play on Yom Kippur. I had no idea how young Munger was— he always seemed an oldish man in the pictures, at least to me— and I had no idea how young he still was when he quit coaching.
But I do not write to reminisce so much as to ask you a question. Clearly the Ivy League had to have Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. But the rest of the membership was not at all obvious. The eight schools are NOT the eight oldest schools. By any accounting, the eight oldest include William and Mary (the second oldest) and Moravian. By some reckonings the eight would include St. John’s and the University of Delaware. Washington and Lee is older, by its own telling of its history, than Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell. Rutgers is older than Dartmouth and Cornell. And of course Cornell is at best the eight-HUNDREDTH oldest college in the country. Penn was far from an automatic member of that group. It could have been excluded just as William and Mary and Rutgers were. I have heard, more than once, that the condition of Penn’s admission to the Ivy League – tacit or in some versions explicit – was that Penn lose most if not all its Ivy games in the first years of the League (as in fact it did). If anyone would know, you would. Is there any truth to that recurrent story?
William DuBarry, Penn's interim president in 1953, knew and cared nothing about athletics. When Harvard and Yale objected to admitting Penn, DuBarry assured them that Penn wouldn't win many games for years to come.
So interesting! Glad to know much more about the man I would see around Weightman Hall and Hutchinson when I was an undergraduate in late 1960's. Similar in certain ways to the successful rowing coach Joe Burk and his retirement. A friend has written a book about Burk which will be published soon.
From reader Michael Harrigan:
Some Ivy schools might not have wanted Penn in the league only because they thought we would continue to dominate them on the football field.... and we might have, if Munger had stayed. Hell, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton always claim to this day that we (and any other Ivy not named HYP) must be "cheating" if we win.
From reader Michael Zuckerman:
I remember it all, vividly. My mom and dad had season tickets, and in 1947 they got another season ticket so I could go too. We went every year until maybe 1952. I remember the crush of people on 33rd Street, the whiff of sex before I had a clue about sex from the coeds and their pompons, my ever-growing collection of pennants, my freezing hands and feet and the warmth of the hot chocolate cans at halftime. I even remember something of the games themselves, Bednarik and Bell and Minisi and Bagnell.
Of course, I didn’t know the wonderful stories you tell of Munger and Bixler and of the Reform rabbi who said it was okay to play on Yom Kippur. I had no idea how young Munger was— he always seemed an oldish man in the pictures, at least to me— and I had no idea how young he still was when he quit coaching.
But I do not write to reminisce so much as to ask you a question. Clearly the Ivy League had to have Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. But the rest of the membership was not at all obvious. The eight schools are NOT the eight oldest schools. By any accounting, the eight oldest include William and Mary (the second oldest) and Moravian. By some reckonings the eight would include St. John’s and the University of Delaware. Washington and Lee is older, by its own telling of its history, than Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell. Rutgers is older than Dartmouth and Cornell. And of course Cornell is at best the eight-HUNDREDTH oldest college in the country. Penn was far from an automatic member of that group. It could have been excluded just as William and Mary and Rutgers were. I have heard, more than once, that the condition of Penn’s admission to the Ivy League – tacit or in some versions explicit – was that Penn lose most if not all its Ivy games in the first years of the League (as in fact it did). If anyone would know, you would. Is there any truth to that recurrent story?
William DuBarry, Penn's interim president in 1953, knew and cared nothing about athletics. When Harvard and Yale objected to admitting Penn, DuBarry assured them that Penn wouldn't win many games for years to come.
From reader David Gifford:
He should have benched Frank. Rules ARE rules.
So interesting! Glad to know much more about the man I would see around Weightman Hall and Hutchinson when I was an undergraduate in late 1960's. Similar in certain ways to the successful rowing coach Joe Burk and his retirement. A friend has written a book about Burk which will be published soon.