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Sports Uncategorized

The Auburn-Wofford game, Sept. 22, 1950

Since taking part in the very first intercollegiate football game in South Carolina in December 1889, Wofford’s team has had many memorable moments.  The era of the late 1940s and early 1950s, under legendary head coach Phil Dickens, has a good number of those highlights.  Coming off an 11-0 regular season in 1949, ending with a New Year’s Day loss in the Cigar Bowl in Tampa to Florida State, the 1950 Terriers were hopeful of another good season.

Members of the Eleven Club – the precursor to the Terrier Club – were perhaps a little less than enthusiastic when the 1950 schedule appeared.  The first game on the schedule was against Auburn, a perennial power.  And so on September 22, the Terriers traveled to Montgomery, Alabama for the game against the Tigers, putting their 15-game regular season win streak on the line.

The game turned out a bit differently than anyone expected.  Auburn jumped out to an early lead, scoring the first touchdown.  But then Wofford scored twice, taking the lead at 13-7.  Auburn scored again, taking a 14-13 lead, but Wofford got the final score and escaped Montgomery with a 19-14 victory.  They were aided by three Auburn fumbles, and a good passing attack.  The Bohemian noted that three Bobs were essential to Wofford’s victory.  Fullback Bob McLellan was playing in his first varsity game, and he scored one of the touchdowns. Tailback Bob Starnes moved the ball well, and Bob Pollard covered three fumbles by Auburn that were crucial to Wofford scoring.

Auburn went on to a dismal season, losing all ten games.  Not surprisingly, their coach, Earl Brown, in his third season, was shown the door at the end of the season.  Wofford lost to Stetson the next week, which was its first regular season loss since 1947, but went on to a 7-2-1 season.

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Buildings Sports

Gyms of Days Past

The groundbreaking of the new Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium gives us a chance to recall the construction of two earlier athletics facilities, the Andrews Field House and the current Campus Life Building.

Andrews Field House
Andrews Field House

The first of those two, Andrews Field House, opened in 1929. It was the gift of Spartanburg businessman Isaac Andrews, and it was designed to serve as a basketball, volleyball, and even handball court. It also was to serve as a space for instruction in all indoor sports, and it could seat large crowds for significant events at the college. Soon after it opened, it hosted some of the college’s 75th anniversary events. As was said at its opening, “there is no more adequate building anywhere, and it will contribute much to the physical training and athletic activities of Wofford students.”

Andrews Field House replaced an earlier gym, but the previous building was not large enough to hold athletic events. Andrews was expanded twice, once in the late 1940s for racquetball courts, and later in the 1960s for locker rooms. But, by the late 1970s, it was becoming inadequate for the college’s athletics needs.

In the late 1970s, the college moved to construct the Campus Life Building, and on January 22, 1981, the Benjamin Johnson Arena was dedicated. The women’s basketball team played the first game in the new arena prior to the dedication, and the men’s basketball team played its first game against the Citadel following the dedication. The new arena had a seating capacity of 2,832 when it opened.

Campus Life
Campus Life Building

The Campus Life Building, dedicated in November 1980, was a much-needed addition to the college’s facilities, bringing a number of different student life offices and spaces together in one building. The building has seen countless theatre productions, community events, and student lunches in the canteen, Zach’s, since it opened.

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Photographs Sports

The Terrier Tankmen

While it’s true that Wofford has never had a swimming pool on campus, that doesn’t mean that we’ve never had a swim team.

TankmenFor several years in the 1950s, a group of students swam competitively against other colleges in the area, including Clemson, USC, Davidson, and The Citadel.  The team members practiced at the Spartanburg YMCA.  Here’s a picture of the group, which was called the “Terrier Tankmen.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sports

Basketball, 1915

For your Friday afternoon reading and viewing enjoyment, here is a photo of the 1915 Wofford varsity basketball team.

Basketball1915

 

According to the March 1915 issue of the Wofford College Journal, the team had a pretty good run during the winter of 1915.

“Since the February issue of the Journal, the Wofford basketball team has been going at a rapid clip.  The students of Wofford have never before experienced such success in this line of athletics as has been experienced this season.  It was evident at the beginning of the season that the Terrier quintet was in line for the State Championship.”

“Beginning with Erskine, she has defeated the fast Carolina five on two occasions, Clemson twice, P. C. twice, and Newberry once.  No one of these teams has been able to break the winning streak of the Terriers until Newberry came back for revenge of her former defeat on March 2.”  (Apparently we didn’t play Furman that year.)

Things have been looking pretty good for basketball this winter, too, so let’s hope that 1915 and 2015 bot mark great years for basketball here on the city’s northern border.

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Sports Students

A century ago – reinstating football

It’s a well-known story at Wofford that the Terriers played the first intercollegiate football game in South Carolina, defeating Furman University’s team on December 14, 1889.  So, our game against Furman this fall will mark the 125th anniversary of that first meeting, though not the 125th time the two teams have played.  I’ll have more to say about that first game later this fall.

Wofford's 1914 football team, the first varsity team since 1901
Wofford’s 1914 football team, the first varsity team since 1901

Football, as many sports historians know, was a pretty dangerous and violent sport back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Broken bones, severe wounds, and even deaths occurred with some regularity.  The Methodist Church was quite critical of football, and the Southern Christian Advocate had this to say in November 1914:

“The papers of last Thursday carried this news item from Columbia: After putting up a stubborn fight, Wofford College was defeated by Newberry College by a score of 36-0. Swanton, left half for Newberry, broke his leg and was rushed to the hospital. Wofford lost the game but apparently did not have any member killed or maimed…  We are told that when Wofford played in Greenville some time ago that practically every member of the team carried off bloody faces.”  “It is difficult to understand,” the Advocate wrote, “how any parent can give consent for his or her son to engage in games that so often result in death or broken limbs.  The fatalities are nearly as great as in war.  They call it ‘college spirit!’  Deliver us from such!  How long will it be before some mother’s son in South Carolina will be carried from a glorious game of football a mangled corpse to the mother’s embrace?”

In 1896, the Methodist Conference recommended that college authorities entirely prohibit football at Wofford, and from 1897-1899, there was no team.  In the fall of 1899, the prohibition was rescinded, with the regulation of football and other sports left in the hands of the trustees and faculty.  Wofford played about 9 total intercollegiate games in 1900 and 1901, according to sports records.  Then, there was no intercollegiate football for some dozen years.  While class football – what we might today call intramural football, flourished, the college did not schedule any games against other colleges.

But, pressure built, from students and alumni alike.  President Snyder received communications from alumni who wanted to resume playing, and in 1913, the student body unanimously petitioned the trustees to resume intercollegiate games.  And so the trustees gave in on November 26, 1913, with play to resume in the fall of 1914.

It took a few years before the college’s varsity team got some experience, and only in 1917 did they post a winning record.  The 1914 Terriers, in fact, put up a 1-6-1 record, scoring 32 points in all of their games together, compared to 219 for their opponents.  Their only win was a 7-0 defeat of Presbyterian, and their worst loss was an 88-6 stomping at the hands of Davidson.

So, this fall marks the centennial of the resumption of football as well as the 125th anniversary of football at the college, and I think that’s worth recognizing.

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Alumni Photographs Sports

The mysteries of early football

This morning I received a call from an alumnus who wanted to know if I had a photo of the last Wofford football team to defeat South Carolina, which would have occurred sometime around 1900.  He had seen the photo somewhere and wondered if he could get a copy.

I didn’t recall seeing the photo, but considering that I don’t know a lot of the specifics of Wofford’s early athletics history, and also that there are a lot of things in files that I have yet to discover, that doesn’t mean much.  So, I set about the research process.

The alum told me that an ancestor of his had played in the game. That gave me a clue as to where to start looking.  His ancestor enrolled in 1900.  The football media guide lists all of the games our team has played – at least all of the ones for which records have been located.  Sure enough, Wofford beat USC in football on November 18, 1901, by a score of 11-6.  Apparently the game was in Spartanburg.

So, we’ve confirmed that there was a game, and that Wofford won it.  But what of the picture?  (And there are some other questions, but we’ll get to those later.)

We have a collection of football scrapbooks maintained by my predecessor.  Checking in the oldest scrapbook led me to a photocopy of a picture from a Columbia newspaper from 1948.  The photograph recalled a great Wofford team of the past, which it identified as the 1900 team “which defeated the University of South Carolina and Furman and lost only to Clemson in the state.”  But that’s not correct.  The 1900 team did lose to Clemson and Davidson, tied in one game with Furman, and beat Furman in the other game.  There wasn’t a recorded game with USC.  In 1901, Wofford won 3 games – Kings Mountain, Asheville, and USC, and lost games to Georgia Tech, Bingham, and Furman.  So, it goes to show that if you aren’t careful, information recorded in newspaper captions can lead you astray.  Our literary magazine, the Wofford College Journal, acted as the campus newspaper during the first years of the 20th century, and their records echo athletics records, and often provide some details of the game.

So is this a picture of the 1901 team?  The researcher’s ancestor is listed in the photo.  I am guessing that it probably is the photo in question.

But what of my other questions – one has already been satisfied – the alum’s ancestor was in the picture, so I don’t have to break that bad news!  The other one, the assertion that “this was the last time that Wofford beat USC in football” – well, that’s not quite true.  Wofford beat Carolina on November 16, 1917 as well, by a score of 20-0.  Wofford and USC played sporadically in the early years, and even in the 1950s, but those games are rare now.

Photo of the 1901(?) Wofford football team, from the Wofford football scrapbook.  

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Documents Sports

Football playoffs

As a tribute to Wofford’s post-season football appearance against the University of Northern Iowa tomorrow, here’s a reminder of a game of nearly 62 years ago – when Wofford went to a bowl game.

After an impressive 11-0 regular season and a 23-game streak without a loss (in 1948, the Terriers were 4-0-5), Wofford was invited to the 1950 Shrine Cigar Bowl game in Tampa, Florida.  They faced the Seminoles of Florida State, which had only resumed playing football after World War II.  Newspapers heralded the football battle between “two of the nation’s best little college grid teams.”  And, Wofford was favored in the match.

Unfortunately, somebody forgot to tell the Seminoles.

They won the January 2, 1950 tilt by a score of 19-6, ending Wofford’s 23-game undefeated streak.

Here’s the game program from that day – which saw South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond leading the South Carolina delegation to the event.  Towns along the way hosted Wofford fans, and many Terrier friends enjoyed lots of orange juice and cigars while in Florida.

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Documents Sports Students

Baseball Games from 1902

The Wofford College Journal provided something of a season round-up in this June 1902 story.  

            Our base ball team went to Knoxville, Tenn. where they played two games with the University of Tennessee on April 25 and 26, respectively.  A local paper at Knoxville remarked that the “Varsity expected to live on Easy Street while Wofford was there.  But they were rudely awakened on the afternoon of the first game, the black and old gold waving above them with the score 8 to 7.  The second game was still more decisive, the score being 17 to 4 in favor of the boys from South Carolina.  Wofford pulled together beautifully, with something like the results expected in “ye olden times.”  When the results of these games was announced on the Campus, the hearty reception of the news, the yelling, the singing, the speech-making reminded one of the famous days of ’99 and ’00.  The boys of the team report excellent treatment by the Tennesseans. 

            The great South Atlantic States Music Festival annually attracts large numbers of the most cultured class of people from South Carolina and the neighboring states to Spartanburg.  Wofford has always tried to do her part in entertaining these visitors.  This year two games of ball were played on the college grounds.

            On April 30, Furman came over from Greenville and crossed bats with the home team.  There were no interesting features to the game, and Wofford added another victory to her list, having made 14 runs to Furman’s 1. 

            On May 1, Trinity and Wofford met, and a battle royal ensued.  The game was hard played on both sides from first to last.  Trinity has a splendid team and made it hot for the home boys, but the latter finally won by a score of 4 to 3. 

            The last game of the season was played at Clemson College.  The Clemsonites there defeated the Wofford boys to the tune of 6 to 3 in a clean, snappy game of ball.

Categories
Documents Sports

Wofford’s Mascot

I had a question recently from an alum about the college’s mascot – specifically, could I share some pictures of different mascots through the years. 

According to some research undertaken by my predecessor, Herbert Hucks, the first time the college’s teams were called the “Terriers” in print was in a November 1914 article in the Wofford College Journal.  In 1909, an image of a small dog appeared in the Bohemian in a cartoon on the gymnasium team’s yearbook page. 

Mascot1909
The 1911 and 1912 Bohemians also featured more elaborate drawings of dogs that appear to be terriers, and the 1912 volume identifies the dog as “our mascot.” 

Mascot1912
It’s not easy to find a lot of images of the mascot until after World War II.  This image appears to be common from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. It was in a 1965 Old Gold and Black.  

Mascot1965

Several different types of terrier show up in various publications, Terrier Club newsletters, and the like in the 1970s to the 1990s.  Here are a few:

  Mascot1979

Mascot1990s

In looking over the various images the college has used, I also found photos and stories about several specific mascots – dogs named Jocko, Baron Ben, Spike, and Blitz, among others.  I'll work on something about those in the future.  

Categories
Photographs Sports

Basketball, 1906

I hope the picture that came to the archives today represents a good omen.  

Today, Mr. Perry Dukes, the grandson of T. E. Dukes of the class of 1907, came by the archives with a photograph of the 1905-06 basketball team.  To my knowledge, this is the oldest basketball team photo in the collection.  

The December 1905 Wofford College Journal lists the following as the team members:  P. L. Martin, center; C. A. Johnson, right guard; P. K. Switzer, left guard; S. L. Allen, right forward; P. E. Dukes, left forward; G. S. Coffin Jr and R. E. Holroyd, substitutes.  

Here's a copy of the photo.  Mr. Dukes is on the right end of the front row.  

Basketball1906
And what do I mean about this being a good omen?  If you follow Wofford basketball, you'll know what I mean!  

Click on the image for a larger version.