USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The history of Colby College > Part 66
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The women who founded both the Eastern and the National associations voted that in colleges where men's varsity programs were strong, intra- mural programs were weak. Such practices as evaluating sports by gate receipts, distributing athletic scholarships, and absence from classes to make extended trips, were all no part of an intramural program. The women were determined to avoid those evils. The policy of no inter- collegiate competition is not universally followed by the women's asso- ciations in the colleges, but it is quite generally observed. At Colby the purpose has always been to offer a wide program of individual and team sports for the enrichment of the participants' lives.
As de facto coeducation gradually replaced de jure coordination at Colby, did men and women students ever participate in the same athletic teams? Sur- prisingly the answer is Yes. In one intercollegiate sport, and only one, Colby boys and Colby girls together represented the College in contests with other col- leges. That one sport was yacht racing.
CHAPTER XLV
Playing the Game
T HE previous chapter has recounted the development of athletic policy at Colby. Let us now give attention to the various organized sports.
BASEBALL
John Moody, 1867, always insisted that he was the man who introduced baseball at Colby. When the writer of this history was teaching at Hebron Academy, Moody was an aged resident of the town, retired after a distinguished career as principal of Hebron and Bridgton academies and of Edward Little High School in Auburn. Entering Colby in 1863 at the age of sixteen, Moody was too young to be drafted into the Civil War. He told the writer that in his sopho- more year he saw a game of baseball played in Portland, secured a ball and bat, and provided informal games on the campus in the spring of 1865.
So much for the unofficial tradition. So far as the official record tells us, organized baseball began at Colby in the spring of 1867, when a team was formed under the captaincy of Reuben Wesley Dunn of the Class of 1868. His team and Charles Foster's in the following year played only three games each, and the ensuing years saw only sporadic interest until 1875, since when there has been no lapse of organized baseball except for two years during the Second World War. It was the son of a famous Colby man who began that uninterrupted record, for Josiah Drummond, Jr., 1877, was captain of the team in both his sophomore and his junior years. Other captains who became prominent alumni were Hugh Chap- lin, 1880; Forrest Goodwin, 1887; Arthur J. Roberts, 1890; Oliver Hall, 1893; John Coombs, 1906; Charles Dwyer, 1908; and Ernest Simpson, 1916.
It is generally known that gloves, mitts and masks were not used in the early days, but what is not so generally remembered is the method of the pitcher's delivery. C. B. Stetson, 1881, recalled:
In 1877 nine balls instead of four were allowed before a batter could get a base on balls. Underhand pitching was the vogue, and the pitcher was required to swing his hand below his hip; otherwise it was a "foul pitch," several instances of which put the pitcher out of the game. The catcher had no protector, mask or mitt.1
Another instance of the simplicity of early baseball was remembered by William A. Smith, 1891. A Waterville boy, born in 1868, Smith attended the campus games before he was a student in the College. At one such game in
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1880, a batter hit a long ball into the grass north of the Gymnasium. One defense player after another joined in fruitless search. Even with the help of the offense the ball could not be found. It was an important intercollegiate contest, Colby against Bowdoin. "Hod" Nelson, the local horse breeder and later the owner of the world champion trotter "Nelson," was at the game with one of his fast horses hitched to a sulky. Hod jumped into the seat, raced the horse down town, pur- chased a ball and sped back to the field, so that the game could be resumed. A state series championship game in 1880 was being played with only one ball.
The Maine Intercollegiate Baseball Association was formed in 1883, at a time when Colby was supreme at the game, for Colby won the state championship every year from 1881 to 1884, and again in 1886, 1887, 1890, and 1891. In 1883 the Echo said, "Our boys have had the honor of breaking in new uniforms." Perhaps the new uniforms were responsible for the team's spotless records, be- cause that year Colby not only took the state championship, but also won every game on its ten-game schedule. The University of Maine was not yet a member of the league, the state series being fought out by Bates, Bowdoin and Colby. When it was over, the Echo said, "The scene after the final game with Bowdoin [Colby 3, Bowdoin 2], the reception at Waterville with horns, bells and fire- works, and the banquet at the Elmwood will long be remembered."
In the early days the team had no coach. Pleading for a gymnasium instructor in 1887, the Echo said: "A capable gymnasium man would be an excellent coach to the nine." The first coach was Harley Rawson in 1907. Some of his remem- bered successors were "Baggy" Allen of Fairfield and Fred Parent of Red Sox fame, before the long, enviable record of "Eddie" Roundy from 1925 to 1953. Roundy was succeeded by one of John Coombs's protégés, John Winkin.
In 1888 the team again sported new uniforms. The Echo proudly described the outfit.
The new suits for the nine are a great improvement over the old ones. The pants and shirts are very near the college gray, with hats to match, blue stockings and regulation shoes. The hats are trimmed with blue, and the word Colby in navy blue adorns the front of the shirts.2
In 1892, when William L. Bonney was captain of the varsity nine, there was a second nine captained by W. E. Lombard, and each class fielded a team. The varsity pitcher was Charles P. Barnes, later a justice of the Maine Supreme Court, while the President of the Colby Baseball Association was Frank Nichols, for many years publisher of the Bath (Me.) Times.
The 1893 constitution of the Baseball Association provided that any student of the College could become a member by paying the annual dues of five dollars. Besides the usual officers found in student organizations, the Colby BAA included a team manager, a captain of the first nine, a captain of the second nine, a scorer and a sub-scorer. Note how the players were chosen:
The Board of Directors of the Association and each captain shall to- gether choose the players of each nine; the captain's vote counting three, and the vote of each director counting one.
Colby's most famous baseball player was John Wesley Coombs, 1906, star pitcher of Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics from 1906 to 1916. In college,
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PLAYING THE GAME
Jack Coombs pitched Colby to the state championship in 1902 and 1906, and in the latter season lost only three of seventeen games. In junior and senior years his catcher was Charles Dwyer, 1908, who afterward spent a lifetime of teaching and coaching at Hebron Academy and became known as the Grand Old Man of Hebron. Dwyer was said to be the only man, in Coombs's student days, who could hold that pitcher's fast ball.
Dr. J. Fred Hill, redoubtable friend of Colby athletics, played an important part in getting Jack his chance with Connie Mack. Pulling every wire he knew, including Mack's acquaintance with Jack's brother Tom, Hill succeeded in getting a Philadelphia tryout for the Colby pitcher. It resulted in a contract, and on July 5, 1906, Coombs pitched his first big league game, beating the Washington Sen- ators three to nothing. It was in that first year with Mack that Coombs pitched his famous 24-inning game against the Red Sox in Boston, on September 1, 1906. With the teams tied one to one at the end of the ninth, the game went on for four hours and 47 minutes. Not until the 24th inning did Philadelphia get three more runs, while in their half of the inning the Red Sox were held scoreless by Coombs.
Jack's banner year was 1911, when he pitched 377 innings in 40 games, winning 28. That year the Athletics were opposed for the World Series by the New York Giants with their renowned pitcher, Christie Mathewson. He and Coombs faced each other in the third game of the series. After a terrific pitchers' battle that lasted eleven innings, the Athletics won three to two. Coombs partici- pated in three World Series, 1910, 1911, and 1916 - the last as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He is one of very few players who ever pitched all nine innings of three games in a single World Series.
Jack Coombs ended his professional playing career in 1918. He tried his hand at managing the Phillies of the National League, but soon turned to college coaching. For more than a quarter of a century, until his retirement in 1956, Jack was the successful and beloved coach of baseball at Duke University. On his Texas farm, planning strategy for the diamond and writing several books on the sport, Jack lived in happy retirement until his death in 1958.
Throughout the years Colby's record in baseball has been superior. In State Series competition, she has won 329 games, lost 271, and tied 5. Out of 84 state championships awarded since 1881 (there were several years when no series was played) Colby has won 25 and tied 7; Bowdoin 19 and tied 7; Bates 15 and tied 2; Maine 10 and tied 6. Under Eddie Roundy, Colby either tied or won in five consecutive years, 1931 through 1935; and under John Winkin, a protege of Coombs at Duke, there were four consecutive years of championship, 1956 through 1959.
When Colby moved to Mayflower Hill, plans were at once made for a superior baseball diamond to honor Jack Coombs. The first game played on the new field, on May 8, 1949, was a state series contest against Bowdoin, which resulted in a victory for Colby by the close score of two to one. The diamond was dedicated as Coombs Field on June 9, 1951, in the presence of that. honored baseball veteran. It was Jack's last appearance at Colby.
FOOTBALL
The first mention of football in any Colby publication occurred in 1886, when in its issue of November 12 the Echo said:
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We need fall athletics of some kind. In the spring we have our field day, our baseball games, and the perennial lawn tennis. A desirable fall sport can be found in football. It is the general impression that foot- ball is a rough and dangerous game, and even our stalwart men who daily whack a polo ball in the gym shrink from a football contest. But all who have seen the game scientifically played must acknowledge its beauties. We hope that by another fall we shall see football at Colby.
The next autumn the Echo lamented that attempts to start the game at Colby had fallen flat. It said: "A one-sided game between seniors and sophomores, characterized chiefly by ignorance of the rules, is the sum total of football history here this fall."
Football continued to be an intramural sport from 1887 until the formation of the first varsity team in 1892. An earlier attempt to form such a team in 1888 had proved abortive. Another attempt was made in 1891, as indicated by a com- ment in the Echo.
The organization of an eleven by the sophomore class was greeted as a step toward a college eleven. Class teams practiced daily, and the advo- cates of the game were highly encouraged. But again our football pros- pects have undergone a serious blow. The partially arranged game with the Maine State College has been canceled. One step has, however, been taken. The boys have seen a football and have discovered that it is not such a formidable thing as they had anticipated. Next year should see a Colby eleven in the field.
The Echo did not have to wait until 1892 to report a game of football played by a Colby team. It could not make that report with any thrill of pride, for Colby's first football game was played on November 7, 1891, against Cony High School of Augusta, and the high school team won by a score of 10 to 0. On that first varsity team the captain was S. R. Robinson, and other well remembered players were Archer Jordan, Walter Gray, and Cyrus Stimson.
The year 1892 marked the beginning of intercollegiate football at Colby, with Robinson still captain of the team. Colby's first game with another college had Bowdoin as the opponent on October 15, 1892, when Colby went down to a resounding 56 to 0 defeat. On October 29 came the first Colby football victory, when the team beat Maine 12 to 0. A return match with Bowdoin was played on November 5, when the Waterville boys held the Brunswick eleven to a score of 22 to 9. The Maine Intercollegiate Football League was formed in 1893. Colby defeated Maine 30 to 4, beat Bates 4 to 0, but lost to Bowdoin 42 to 4.
In the fall of 1894 there came to Colby from Hebron Academy the only man who ever captained Colby football teams for three successive years, Clayton Brooks. Named to the captaincy in his sophomore year, Brooks stood six feet, weighed 225 pounds, was fast on his feet and was a powerful blocker. In that year, 1895, Brooks's team won two games from Maine, 56 to 0, and 18 to 6; lost one to Bates, 6 to 0; and lost two to Bowdoin, 6 to 0, and 5 to 0.
In Brooks's second year as captain, 1896, Colby held Bowdoin to a 6 to 6 tie in the game at Waterville, took two games from Maine and another from Bates. Then in their captain's senior year, 1897, Colby for the first time beat Bowdoin 12 to 0, but was able to do no more than tie Bates 6 to 6. Since 1893 Bowdoin had been undisputed champion, but in 1897 Colby and Bates divided the honors.
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PLAYING THE GAME
A number of interesting features accompanied those early games. No one had worried much about paid attendance at baseball contests; the home team simply passed the hat and took what it could get. But football, with expensive equipment, demanded better financing. So a high wooden fence was built along the west side of the field to make paid admission feasible. The equipment thus purchased included uniforms of canvas with very little padding, all on the outside. Because no helmets were used, players allowed their hair to grow long to give their heads some protection. They did wear shin guards. There were no compli- cated plays, each man being supposed to take care of the man opposite him. No tackling was allowed below the knees and no forward passes. Any man removed from the game could not return, and as a result most players stayed through the game unless seriously hurt. Scoring too was different: a touchdown counted five points, a goal after touchdown one point, and a field goal five points. Until 1896 a touchdown had counted only four points. It was the heyday of the flying wedge, a mass play as effective as the Greek phalanx, and one that could be broken up only by diving in and grabbing legs at the risk of being trampled by the whole wedge. The dangerous device was outlawed in 1897. Soon afterward the hurdle was also banned. For that play the center sometimes wore a leather harness to protect his back when a light-weight quarterback used it as a perch from which to launch a dive through the air across the enemy line.
Although Colby tied Bowdoin for the championship in 1908 it was not until the following year that the Waterville College won its first clear title. In both 1908 and 1909 the captain was one of Colby's greatest athletes, Ralph Good. A brilliant backfield runner, a baseball pitcher, and a dash man in track, Good was an all-around athlete who could star at any sport to which he gave his attention. This writer well remembers that football season of 1909, because it was his fresh- man year in college. Colby went through its seven game schedule without a single loss. In State Series play, the team defeated Bates 11 to 3, Bowdoin 12 to 5, and Maine 17 to 6.
One of Colby's finest football teams was state champion in 1914, when Paul "Ginger" Fraser was captain. Teamed with Fraser were two other brilliant backs, Eddie Cawley and Jack Lowney. Kent Royal and Tom Crossman were fast ends, and the speedy backs could have done little except for the effective line play of Ladd, Dacey, and Pendergast. In fact, when the season was over, nine members of the squad were named to the All-Maine team. They defeated Bowdoin 48 to 0, squeezed by Maine 14 to 0, and swamped Bates 61 to 0. Then they threw a scare into the strong Navy team in the season's final game at Annapolis. When the first half ended, Colby had scored three touchdowns and led the midshipmen 21 to 10. Only a swarm of fresh players against a tired Colby eleven enabled Navy finally to win 31 to 21. The New York Times said of the game: "It was one of the finest exhibitions of football ever seen at Annapolis. In the first half the brilliant running of Cawley, Lowney and Fraser quite swept the midship- men off their feet."
Since 1914 Colby has won the State Series only four times, and it is interest- ing to note that its latest victories, 1958 and 1959, were the only successive years in series history when Colby won the championship both times. Except for three war years (1943 through 1945) there has been no interruption in this series since its inauguration in 1892. During that long period of 67 years (64 series) Maine won 23 and tied 3 titles, Bowdoin 14 and 7, Colby 7 and 8, Bates 7 and 2.
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
The new football gridiron on Mayflower Hill was first used for an inter- collegiate game on September 25, 1948, when Colby defeated American Inter- national College 14 to 0. The Colby team was captained by George MacPhelamy, and was coached by Walter Holmer with the assistance of Eddie Roundy and Robert Keefe. On October 23, 1948, the field was dedicated as the Charles F. T. Seaverns Football Field, when at the first State Series game played on the Hill Colby lost to Bowdoin 28 to 0. Mr. Seaverns was present for the occasion and was presented with the ball that had been used in the first Mayflower Hill game on September 25.
Unlike baseball, football was from almost the beginning subject to coaching. The first coach, R. S. Parsons, was hired for three weeks in 1893, and his suc- cessor, Guy Murchie, was around only two weeks in 1894. Clayton Brooks came back to coach the team through most of the season of 1899, but not until 1906, when George Bankhart of Dartmouth took over, did a coach gather the squad for pre-season practice and see it through the whole schedule. After two years at the post, Bankhart was succeeded by his Dartmouth teammate Harry McDevitt, who stayed for four years and was coach of the 1909 championship team. Coach of the great 1914 team was Myron Fuller, and Roger Greene trained Eddie Caw- ley's 1916 eleven. Then for three years, which included the period of the First World War, the great end of Ralph Good's team, Robert "Braggo" Ervin, was the Colby coach.
As has already been noted in the previous chapter, it was in 1924 when the coach of Colby football made other than a seasonal appearance on the campus. In 1924 Eddie Roundy became a year-round coach, directing football, hockey, and baseball. Roundy fielded thirteen successive football teams from 1924 to 1936. Then from Northeastern University came Al McCoy, whose steady build- ing of a strong team prepared the way for Nelson Nitchman to win the State Series in 1941. Bill Millett coached the team in 1942, the first year of the Second World War, and took it over again in 1945 when the war had ended. Then for one year Daniel Lewis left the newly created admissions office to coach the foot- ball team. After his one unsuccessful year he was succeeded by Walter Holmer for four years, Nelson Corey for one, and Frank Maze for four. In 1956, from a position on the athletic staff at Williams College, came Robert Clifford. Sports writers predicted that never again would Colby win a state championship; the black bear of Maine was too big and brawny and fierce. Colby simply didn't belong in the same league with the University. Bob Clifford proved the sports writers wrong. After a disastrous season in 1956, when his team lost six of its seven games, he led the 1957 squad to three wins and three losses. Then in 1958, with victory over all three state rivals, Colby won the championship, and to the astonish- ment of the experts, repeated in 1959. The surviving members of Ralph Good's 1909 team, who watched that 1959 Bowdoin game from seats of honor, were proudly convinced that football was still played at Colby.
BASKETBALL
What has become a favorite indoor winter sport was slow to gain recog- nition at Colby. In light of the popularity of basketball today it is hard to believe that not until 1936 was it recognized here as a varsity intercollegiate sport. That late date is even harder to understand when we remember that basketball was a New England invention. It was Professor James Naismith of Springfield College
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PLAYING THE GAME
who introduced the game and set up rules by which two Springfield teams first played it on January 20, 1891, using peach baskets for goals.
When intramural basketball had come to Colby in 1896, the Student Hand- book said:
During 1896-97 basketball was introduced at Colby. In the fall and winter terms it is played in connection with the regular gym work in both the men's and the women's divisions. It has been enthusiastically received and several matches have been played between rival classes.
In 1902 the Handbook comment was as follows:
Class teams in basketball are organized in the fall term after the close of the football season. From these teams candidates are chosen for the varsity team, which plays games with various teams throughout the State during the winter season.
The Maine State Basketball series began in 1908, with Bowdoin not repre- sented. At the first intercollegiate championship game ever played in Lewiston, Colby defeated Bates 21 to 7. That was on February 9, 1908. The series lasted only a few years, because the associations at the three competing colleges would not agree to place the sport on a formal basis. Interest in the game also waned in the high schools until shortly before World War I. But throughout the second decade of the century enthusiasts for the sport persisted in attempts to revive it. In November, 1920, the Colby Athletic Council discussed "the necessity of the college basketball team's securing recognition in the state athletic council." Pro- fessor George Parmenter pointed out that basketball was nowhere looked upon as regular college sport. The general opinion of the Colby Council was registered as opposed to the recognition of the game. Informal play continued, however, and in 1921 Professor Edwards reported that games had been scheduled with Maine and Bates.
At last, in December, 1936, the Athletic Council voted to make basketball a recognized intercollegiate sport at Colby. But there was no adequate playing surface. The new Field House had been built, but it had no basketball floor and no seats. After consideration of rented facilities, such as the Winslow High School gymnasium, it was decided to lay a temporary floor in the Field House at an expense of $1125, and to erect there the temporary bleachers used on the football field. Not until January, 1938, were those facilities ready, and on the evening of January 20, Colby confronted Northeastern University in the first game played in that building.
Freshman basketball had actually preceded varsity recognition. In 1934 the Council agreed to sponsor a freshman team and approved a twelve game sched- ule. When an officially recognized varsity team first appeared in the winter of 1937-38, freshman recognition continued. Basketball is therefore the only major sport at Colby in which both varsity and freshman teams have consistently repre- sented the College since the time of the first varsity team.
Coach Eddie Roundy had always been a lover of basketball and regretted that it did not find earlier acceptance at Colby. He did much to encourage it in- formally between his coming in 1924 and its final recognition in 1936. When a varsity team took the floor in January, 1938, it was under Roundy's coaching, because several years earlier Bill Millett had relieved Roundy of responsibility for hockey. Between 1938 and 1943, when intercollegiate basketball was suspended
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HISTORY OF COLBY COLLEGE
during the war, Colby won two state championships (1940-41 and 1942-43) and tied twice with Maine (1939-40 and 1941-42).
In 1946 there came to Colby the man who put basketball firmly on the map. Leon P. Williams, as one of his friends put it, "lived and breathed basketball." His team won the series in 1948-49, but lost the title to Maine the following year. Then, beginning with the season of 1950-51, Colby won the state championship for eight successive years. Not until 1958-59 did the Colby season end in a cham- pionship tie. In that year the title was shared with Maine. In nineteen seasons of recorded series competition since 1937, Colby has led twelve times and has tied three times. In only four of the nineteen years has any other college held clear title.
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