USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 65
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83
As we have pointed out in a previous chapter, President Franklin Johnson had no sooner taken office than he became determined to straighten out the tangled web of athletic responsibility. At the first Trustee meeting after his election, a meeting held in Portland in November, 1929, Johnson reported to the Board:
The Department of Physical Education has presented a distressing state of disorganization. Professor Edwards is the only one with academic rank appointed by your Board. Coach Ryan was appointed by my predecessor and seems to have been given faculty rank without vote of the Board. His salary is paid by the College. Coach Roundy has been appointed and paid by the Athletic Council. The salary of Coach Millett has been paid one-half by the Athletic Council and one-half by the College. That such a group of men have worked harmoniously, as indeed they have, is nothing short of marvelous. But the possibilities that might emerge from such a situation make its continuance unthink- able. There is no evidence of a comprehensive, clear-cut program of physical education, in which each of those men has a part. Only one of them regards himself as responsible to the Trustees through the Presi- dent. Three of them recognize no definite responsibility to the Professor of Physical Education. From this time forward, if you so approve, each of the other men will be responsible to Professor Edwards, as head of the department, and he in turn will be responsible to the Trus- tees through the President. The Athletic Council has agreed to turn over to the Treasurer of the College the money formerly paid directly to coaches by the Council. The salaries of all persons serving on the staff of Physical Education and Athletics will be paid henceforth by the Treasurer of the College.
. The Trustees gave hearty approval to Johnson's fait accompli, and the new President thus succeeded in taking the first important step toward college control of athletic policy. All coaches were placed on a full-time basis, with duties in physical education as well as athletic sports. But the action went only part way. It did not bring control of athletic finances into the hands of the College Treas- urer; it did not integrate health and infirmary services into the physical program; and the coaches were not given faculty status. The catalogue no longer carried Ryan's name in the faculty list, but placed it and the names of other coaches under the heading "Athletic" at the end of a list of "other College Officers."
502
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
The complete change was finally made in 1934, when, following Edwards' resignation, President Johnson brought to Colby the man who would make the department the comprehensive, efficient organization it had become by 1960, for by that time Gilbert F. "Mike" Loebs, Professor of Health and Physical Education, had made the department a model for other colleges to emulate. By 1952 Loebs' duties had become so heavy that it was decided to create the position of Director of Athletics. That officer would be responsible to Loebs, the department head, but would relieve him of making athletic schedules and other details, including supervision of intercollegiate sports. To the new position was appointed the popular and successful coach of basketball, Leon P. Williams.
On April 14, 1934, the Trustees, on recommendation of President Johnson and the Alumni Council, voted to create a Department of Health and Physical Education, to include not only the program of physical training and athletic sports in both divisions of the College, but also direction of the medical and nurs- ing services in both divisions. The new program called for the head of the de- partment to nominate the college physician, appoint nurses, supervise infirmary services, and be fundamentally responsible for the care of student health. It required also that he develop and supervise a program of intramural sports; that he be Director of Athletics, responsible for schedules and equipment; that he assign each member of the staff to some clearly defined duty in each of the fall, winter, and spring terms. Every member of the staff was given faculty rank. All athletic finances would henceforth be handled by the College Treasurer and the Athletic Council would be only advisory.
Although athletic eligibility did not become a faculty issue until after 1900, it had attracted attention as early as 1886. In that year the baseball associations of the four Maine colleges were wrangling about a so-called "ringer" at one insti- tution, and during the ensuing two decades accusations were hurled at every one of the four colleges. Probably at none of the four was the record entirely clean. As it became increasingly evident that the pot was calling the kettle black, faculties began to set up eligibility rules. They were prompted not only to preserve the good name of their college, but also to improve academic standards.
In April, 1913, the Colby faculty voted "to adopt a plan for keeping the members of the athletic squads at work in their studies, in accordance with which the several instructors are to report to the Athletic Committee the names of stu- dents who are not doing good work." In June of the same year it was decided that any student having such academic deficiencies as degraded him to a lower class should be ineligible for one year. In the following April, three students were suspended from college for violating the eligibility rule. In May the faculty bore down on students involved in a tennis tournament held without faculty approval. The time had now come when the faculty must approve athletic schedules as well as set standards of eligibility. In December the faculty de- clared that their approval of an athletic schedule did not permit any student to be absent from a semester examination.
In the progressive spirit of the centennial celebration, Rex Dodge, 1906, proposed an athletic code, which was enthusiastically adopted by alumni, faculty and students, and which received official approval of the Trustees on June 26, 1920.
Believing that athletics are helpful or harmful directly in proportion as they are conducted according to the highest ideals of sportsmanship,
503
THE HEALTHY BODY
we, the students, faculty and alumni of Colby College, signify our desire and determination to do all in our power to maintain the highest possible ideals in the conduct of athletic sports.
We believe that such standards of scholarship should be maintained as will admit to membership on athletic teams only those men who can take part in the intercollegiate contests without lowering the recognized scholastic standards of the College. We approve the eligibility rules of the Maine Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and we denounce as unfriendly to our College any act by student or alumnus which shall re- sult in any violation of the spirit or letter of those rules, or which will result in the tendering of help to any athletic student which he would not receive except for his athletic tendencies.
We believe that our athletic sports can be successful only when individual interests give place to loyalty to the College; that no student is worthy of a place on one of our teams who is unwilling to observe so strictly the rule of training that no act of his can possibly jeopardize the team's chances of success. We express our conviction that the standard of manhood at Colby is influenced greatly by the individual ideal in sport, and we desire that the greatest honor shall be extended to the student who manifests the highest type of sportsmanship rather than personal powers alone. We are firmly convinced that intercollegiate athletic rivalry is desirable when conducted as a means to an end, but we would avoid the spirit of winning for itself alone. We stand firmly behind our athletic sports and will do everything possible, in conformity with the foregoing principles, to make them successful.
In 1923 the Colby Athletic Council voted "that the Maine State Series eligibility rules shall be effective in all games in all sports at Colby College, and that this ruling shall prevail beginning with the baseball season in 1923." In the following year the Council voted to exclude freshmen in their first semester from all intercollegiate teams. The later freshman rule, excluding freshmen from varsity teams throughout the year, did not go into effect until 1940.
In their eagerness to enforce the Centennial Code, the faculty at first adopted rules demanding that every member of an athletic team must stand at all times above passing in each subject, with the result that men were withdrawn from teams often on the eve of an important game. From week to week no coach knew what men he might lose over night. Meanwhile daily recitations were be- coming less important, and more emphasis was placed on hour examinations and prepared papers. It was therefore decided to base athletic eligibility upon stand- ing only at the middle and the end of each semester. The new rules adopted in 1929 declared:
A student shall be ineligible to represent the College in any public way if
1. He is a special student.
2. He is not carrying at least 15 semester hours.
3. He has more than two deficiencies, of which only one shall have been incurred in the preceding semester.
4. He has received more than two warnings at mid-semester, in which case he shall be ineligible for the remainder of the semester.
504
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
5. He has been permanently degraded to a lower class, in which case the ineligibility shall continue for one year.
6. He is a transfer student with full credits, for he is thus affected by so-called "one year rule."+
7. He is a freshman who has previously attended another college; in which case, however, he shall be eligible to representation open only to freshmen.
8. He is on probation, in which case the ineligibility shall be co- extensive with the probation.
The 1929 rules prevailed until 1933, when vigorous protest was registered against declaring men ineligible in the middle of the basketball and hockey sea- sons, as sometimes happened as a result of the first semester marks. On March 8, 1933, the faculty therefore voted to modify the rules by declaring that "ineligibility announced at the close of the first semester shall take effect one month after the registration day of the second semester."
With minor changes the 1933 eligibility rules prevailed until the Second World War. The Gray Book (the handbook of student regulations) was not published in 1942 or 1943, but in 1944 it said:
Like most colleges, Colby has in normal times strictly enforced eligibility rules governing the right of a student to represent the College in extra- curricular activities. Because the war has caused suspension of inter- collegiate athletics at Colby and has eliminated other trips by student groups, all previous eligibility rules are suspended. For the duration of the war the customary rules are waived, and any regular student is eligible to participate in organized extra-curricular activities unless he or she is on probation.
When normal college activities were resumed after the war, the faculty de- cided to continue the wartime policy in respect to eligibility. President Johnson had long argued that the standards of retention should be sufficiently high to grant to any student allowed to remain in college the right to participate in any activity, but it was not until 1947, after President Bixler had been for five years in office, that the policy which Johnson had advocated as early as 1935 was eventually adopted. The Gray Book then announced:
Colby has no eligibility rules. Recognizing athletics and other activities as a legitimate part of college life, Colby holds every student registered for a full program of academic courses to be eligible to participate in all college activities, unless he or she is on probation.
In 1948 the final clause was eliminated, and even students on probation were declared eligible. The Committee on Standing and the dean of the appropriate division were empowered, however, to make non-participation in activities a requisite for continuance in college, if in their opinion a case should so demand. In 1953 students on probation were henceforth not excused from classes for any extra-curricular participation. Whether students on probation should be allowed to participate at all remained a moot point, and in 1960 the faculty was consider- ing a return to the 1947 rule.
505
THE HEALTHY BODY
Colby has faithfully observed the eligibility rules of the various state and national athletic organizations in which it has from time to time held membership. The College has especially cooperated in the development of the Maine Inter- collegiate Athletic Association, which supervises the schedules and the general regulations concerning athletic relations among the four oldest degree-granting colleges in Maine.
In the early days very little money was spent on physical education and ath- letics. As late as 1893, after football had been introduced, the total expense of operating all the teams did not exceed $1500. Even in 1910, when the Athletic Association was paying for part-time, seasonal coaches, all the costs did not reach $3500. By 1936 the appropriation had risen to nearly $17,000, not including the salaries of the coaches, all of whom had been made regular members of the faculty. Six years later, in 1942, the appropriation was more than $21,000. In 1951, when all athletic activity had been removed to Mayflower Hill and enrollment had increased markedly, $32,000 was needed to carry on the program, and in sub- sequent years it mounted steadily until in 1959 the amount was $48,734 - three thousand dollars more than the total for faculty salaries in 1920. If the 1959 athletic appropriation were compared with faculty salaries in 1919, the difference would be even more striking, because 1920 was the year when faculty members received an unprecedented salary increase of forty percent.
How did the white mule come to be the Colby mascot? The polar bear of Bowdoin and the black bear of the University of Maine antedated the Colby mule by several years, and it is quite possible that the Bates bobcat also came earlier. When this historian was a student no one seemed to consider that any such thing as a mascot was needed for Colby athletic teams.
Joseph Coburn Smith, 1924, was responsible for many innovations at Colby, both in his student days and in his later official capacity as Director of Public Re- lations and editor of the Alumnus. In his senior year Joe was editor of the Colby Echo, just as Frank Johnson had been thirty-three years earlier. Like Johnson, Joe was interested in the honest promotion of athletics. On November 7, 1923, Joe published an editorial suggesting that, because Colby football teams so often upset predictions of the newspaper dopesters, Colby no longer appeared as a "dark horse," but ought to be symbolized by a "white mule."
Heeding Joe Smith's advice, a group of students got busy, located a white mule on a Kennebec farm, borrowed the animal for the Bates game on Armistice Day in 1923, and placed the animal, properly caparisoned in blue and gray, at the head of the band and student body as they marched on to the field.
Colby had already beaten Bowdoin and Maine that year, and only the Bates game lay between Colby and the state championship. The new mascot proved effective. Colby defeated Bates 9 to 6, Ben Soule kicking the winning field goal and Bill Millett's punts repeatedly setting back the Bates onslaught. That was enough to make Joe Smith's suggestion permanent. Thirty-five years later the Colby mascot was still the white mule.
THE HEALTHY WOMAN
Women had been enrolled in Colby College for fourteen years before any clamor to provide them with physical exercise, or any such opportunities as were afforded the men by the gymnasium, reached the columns of the campus news-
506
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
paper. It was not until 1887 that the Echo espoused the cause of physical educa- tion for women.
Since we have so freely thrown open our doors to coeducation, the wants of the fair ones must not be overlooked. The young ladies need exercise as much as do the young men, and they have come to realize the need of a gym. They are, however, very moderate in their demands, and only ask for a little simple apparatus, such as dumbbells, Indian clubs, and wands. It seems as if their petition is worthy of more immediate consideration than "Wait until Mrs. - - dies, then perhaps you can have a gym." We do not wonder that the young ladies feel a little dis- comforted on being invited by the Prudential Committee to wait for some dead woman's shoes.5
Before the opening of Foss Hall in 1904 the women had little opportunity for any physical exercise except croquet and tennis. It was unthinkable that they should be admitted within the sacred portals of the men's gymnasium, and they had no gymnasium of their own. President Nathaniel Butler, however, having appointed Mary Sawtelle as the first Dean of Women, heeded her plea for a physical instructor as early as 1898. Arrangements were made for a common instructor with Coburn and the use of a room at that institute. Miss Margaret Koch of Chicago thus became the first teacher of women's physical education at Colby. She started her work in 1898 by being not only a student in certain college classes and an instructor at Coburn, but in her college appointment wearing the two hats of elocution and physical education. That combination was indeed not unusual; it was quite in keeping with precedent appointments in the Men's Division. Since 1889 the man in charge of the gymnasium had carried the title "Instructor of Elocution and Gymnastics." President Butler altered Miss Koch's title a bit by calling her "Instructor of Physical Culture and Expression."
After Miss Koch left in 1902, physical instruction for the women was in abeyance for three years, because the arrangement with Coburn could not be con- tinued and no room at the College was available. The building of Foss Hall, with a planned gymnasium in the basement, made it possible to add a full-time person to the staff. Dean Berry and President White agreed that health and physical education should be combined, and they were fortunate to secure the services of Dr. Mary S. Croswell as Resident Physician and Director of Physical Training for Women. Dr. Croswell remained for four years and laid the groundwork for what eventually became a strong department. It is possible that the insistence of Dean Runnals, in later years, that improved attention be given both to the health and the physical training of College girls may have been due in no small measure to her having been a Colby student when Dr. Croswell was in charge of the program.
Dr. Croswell was succeeded in 1909 by Miss Elizabeth Bass as Director of Physical Training for Women, but she made no pretense to medical training, and unfortunately many years would elapse before physical exercise would again be associated with health and care of the sick. Between 1910 and 1913 Miss Bass combined her instructional duties with those of Dean of Women. Her successors until the effective reorganization worked out by Dean Runnals in 1922 were Josephine Crowell, 1913-14; Florence Hustings, 1914-16; Florence Emery, 1917- 20.
No person of faculty rank gave physical instruction to the women from 1920 to 1922. Meanwhile the new dean, Ninetta Runnals, was working for a sound
507
THE HEALTHY BODY
and permanent program. She wanted a woman of mature years and thorough training to build up a physical program based on scientific instruction, modern methods of gymnasium work, and a broadening intramural program of competitive games. She found that person in Miss Corinne Van Norman, who came as In- structor in Hygiene and Physical Education in 1922, had her title changed to In- structor in Health and Physical Education when the department of that name was organized under Professor Loebs in 1934, and retired in 1939 after seventeen years of competent service.
By 1938 increased enrollment called for a second person on the staff, and Miss Van Norman was then joined by Miss Marjorie Duffy. After her marriage to Philip Bither of the Modern Language Department, Miss Duffy continued as a member of the department until 1941. In later years she was frequently called upon as a substitute instructor, as ski instructor, or in some other capacity, until in 1957 she returned to the department as a full-time teacher of physical education and was still serving in that capacity in 1960.
In 1940 there came to Colby, in charge of physical education for women the woman who was to have the longest continuous tenure since the program had been started in 1898. Miss Janet Marchant began as instructor in 1940, was promoted to assistant professor in 1946, and to associate professor in 1957. After twenty years at Colby she was still in active service in 1960. By that time she had two assistants, Mrs. Bither and Faith Gulick. Since 1934 the entire program of phys- ical education and athletics had been coordinated into a single department, en- compassing both the men's and the women's divisions, headed by Professor Gil- bert F. Loebs.
In 1921 was organized the Women's Health League to cooperate with the newly organized Department of Hygiene and Physical Education for Women in the required and elective courses and in the program of games and exhibitions. Each class elected a health officer. Dean Runnals explained, "This league differs sub- stantially from an athletic association. The athletic work is merely one phase of its activities."
Long before the coming of Miss Van Norman, even before Miss Koch ar- rived as the first gymnasium instructor, Colby women had not been entirely denied athletic games. As early as 1893 there was a "Ladies Tennis Association," and as early as 1880 the girls were playing croquet. The first mention of women's basketball was in 1897, when juniors beat sophomores in a two-game series. In 1898, the year when Miss Koch arrived, the Class of 1901 took the women's basketball championship. Those certainly were not high scoring days, because 1901's scores against the three other classes were 8 to 7, 10 to 2, and 7 to 6.
Women's sports were latent during the new century's first decade. Annual issues of the Oracle were entirely silent on the subject. But after the Class of 1913 entered college, interest was reawakened. Under the stimulus of Miss Bass, basketball, tennis and drill teams gained enough prominence to rate two pages in the Oracle. Two women, both in the employ of the College forty years afterward, were prominent in those years, for Eva Macomber Kyes was captain of 1913's basketball team, and Phyllis St. Clair Fraser won the goal-throwing contest. In 1914 another woman whose husband was for many years on the faculty entered the athletic scene, when Ethel Merriam Weeks was elected "Head of Sports."
In 1912 Miss Bass and Eva Macomber attended a meeting at Smith College out of which developed the Eastern Association of Physical Education for College
508
HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
Women. That association is now part of a great national body and is closely affiliated with the Athletic Federation of College Women.
No reader who has lived through the past forty years needs to be reminded of the change in women's recreational costumes. Considerable yardage separates the modern bikini from the bathing suits of 1910. Bulging bloomers and long black stockings characterized the gymnasium uniforms, but as late as 1920 Presi- dent Roberts forbade the girls to cross College Avenue clad in those outfits. What he would say about the shorts-clad tennis players of today can be imagined.
By 1930 field hockey had become popular, volleyball was receiving attention, and women were becoming interested in winter sports. In 1936 was organized the Women's Athletic Association, controlling the intramural program in field hockey, tennis, basketball, volleyball, and archery. The Association conducted a Fall Picnic for freshmen.
In 1936, several years before any building on the new site was ready for occupancy, the women participated in a winter carnival held on Mayflower Hill, competing with women invited from Bates, Maine, and University of New Hamp- shire. A skating rink was opened behind Foss Hall. The next year saw the intro- duction of softball and fencing, and there began the practice of "after dinner coffees" to honor team and individual winners in all sports.
Colby women are proud of the fact that they have never had a program of intercollegiate contests, as have the men. Miss Janet Marchant, who in 1960 was still Associate Professor of Health and Physical Education and director of the women's program, investigated, on request of this historian, the long history of women's sports at Colby. Concerning the persistent stand against intercollegiate competition, she wrote:
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.