200 Memories Central
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Kicking off a celebration of 200 moments, memories, coaches and student-athletes from the history of Lycoming College athletics is somewhat of a daunting exercise. Limiting the field to 200 candidates was hard – but trying to find the documentation of the early beginnings of the athletic department at the school was a different matter altogether.
Longtime women’s tennis coach Deb Holmes wrote a history of men’s sports at the College in 1978 and her research proved invaluable in the early years of this list. However, primary documents from the College archives are understandably sparse on their information from the late-19th century and early 20th-century athletic events.
Another couple things to keep in mind while going over the first 10 moments, from 1812 to 1847, Lycoming was known as Williamsport Academy and in 1847, the academy was purchased by the United Methodist Church and became the Williamsport Dickinson Seminary. The Seminary served for the next 62 years as a preparatory school, similar to a modern high school.
These first 10 moments will cover parts from the latter incarnation of the institution, as, after all, organized sport in America really didn’t begin until after the Civil War, well after the Williamsport Academy became a prep school.
With that as a pretext, here are the first 10 moments in our series of 200:
1. 1. The First Baseball Team, 1890 – While baseball had quickly become the National Pastime by the latter part of the 19th century, Dickinson Seminary struggled to draw an interest in any kind of athletics teams until the late 1880s. However, the natural fun of athletics became too much and by 1885, games between two different schoolyard “nines” and eventually, the “day scholars and boarders” games were a regular event at the school. Finally, when Pott’s Business College issued a challenge in the fall of 1890, the Seminary created a baseball team. That first event proved a huge success, as the Seminary won, 17-6, despite the team having no coach. By the third game in a 6-2 season, the team purchased “new gray uniforms and black stockings.” A football team tried to follow in November, but no other schools in the area would take on the challenge of facing the Seminary. The first football game wasn’t played until 1895.
2. 2. Rev. Edward J. Gray, May 1893 – Prep school and college athletics were both in a precarious spot at the end of the 19th century. Football was so violent a sport that in 20 years, President Theodore Roosevelt felt the need to step in and he helped oversee the creation of uniform rules for the sport, helping pave the way for the NCAA. Knowing those dangers, it may have been easy for the Seminary to not support its athletics teams, which in the 1890s included both baseball and football. Both sports were run by the student-athletes, with student-managers offering much of the actual coaching. Still, it was hard not to see the benefit of interscholastic athletics, as the games created excitement throughout the school. By 1893, Rev. Edward J. Gray was in his 19th of 31 years as president of the Seminary. With the excitement of a newly-founded athletic association, Gray sought out land for the purpose of an athletic field. In 1902, near the end of Gray’s tenure, he secured funding for a 1,000-seat grandstand at the football field, which is now the campus quad.
3. Coach Forrest Craver, 1899 – Like many schools that began athletic programs around the turn of the century, the sports at Dickinson Seminary were coached by the students themselves. This, of course, led to inevitable problems. In fact, that first baseball team in 1890 had critics that believed the team could have been more successful if the “student-managers had chosen team members by talent rather than personal friendships,” according to Holmes’ history of the athletic department. By 1899, Forrest Craver, who taught Ancient Languages at the Seminary, was ready to help change that culture. Craver organized practices and scheduled games against teams outside of Williamsport. While he coached for just one year before yielding to Professor T. Marshal West, the head of the Latin and Rhetoric department, Craver’s influence on the football team was immediately felt, as he guided the team to a 3-1-1 record.
4. 4. Win over Mansfield, Oct. 12, 1902 – By 1902, the Seminary football team was well-established, having entered its seventh year of play. In 1901, the team finished 7-1, but the 1902 team, which went on to finish 6-2 overall, was the first to make heads turn around the state. On a mid-autumn Saturday, the Seminary travelled into the mountains and came away with the first victory for any team at Mansfield State Normal School in six years. After making a goal-line stand on the opening drive, the defense held its ground for the rest of the first half. After a second-half opening kickoff return by George Grove to midfield, the team kept rolling down the field. Finally, William Evans broke through the Mansfield line and he rushed 15 yards to the goal-line before the ball was stripped. However, Bobby Rich fell on the ball for the touchdown. A later score by Robert Stine sealed the 12-0 victory. Later in the year, when Mansfield made a trip to Williamsport, the Seminary easily handled the team, with Rich scoring four times by himself.
5. 5. Robert (Bobby) Rich, 1902 – Although Robert Rich left for Mercersburg Academy in 1901, it was his return in 1902 that made the football team one of the greatest in the school’s early years. Rich, a 5-11, 167-pound back from Woolrich, Pa., Rich helped the team to a 5-3-1 mark in 1900 as a fullback before leaving for Mercersburg in 1901. Coming back to the Seminary in 1902, Rich moved to halfback and immediately left his mark as one of the best players in the school’s early history. He was the hero of the Mansfield game, and he finished the season as the team’s top rusher with 10 touchdowns. After graduating from the school at the age of 20 in the spring, his affiliation with the school was far from over. His father, Michael Bond Rich, owned the Woolrich Woolen Mills and became a large benefactor of the school, eventually serving as the President of the Board of Trustees. Robert Rich, when his father passed in 1931, took over the position and served in that role through the school’s transition into Lycoming College. Rich, who went on to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, still has an influence seen today at Lycoming, through Rich Hall. Rich is also not the only Board of Trustee member to have gone from the athletic field to the board, as the past chairmen of the board, Art Haberberger, played on the first varsity men’s soccer team at Lycoming College.
6. 6. The Penn Relays win, April 26, 1902 – Few athletic events have the aura of the Penn Relays. In 1902, the relays were in just their seventh year in a now 117-year history that recently grew to include induction in the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame as an institution. Even in 1902, the Relays reputation was growing quickly when the Seminary sent four of its own to compete in a relay against West Chester Normal, Genesee Normal, Philadelphia Normal and West Jersey Academy. Pop English made the first lap across Franklin Field, handing off to Chas Henry Barrett before Barrett gave way to George Grove with both West Chester and Seminary nearly neck-in-neck. It was during the home stretch of the third leg that Grove opened up a lead, handing off to Clyde Holland, who held off the West Chester runner twice during the final quarter-mile, clinching the victory in 3:45 for the Seminary. In the student newspaper of the time, the Dickinson Union, it was noted that “…with great satisfaction, the good news was telegraphed to Williamsport…When the team arrived in Williamsport on Monday morning an enthusiastic reception was accorded them. On Tuesday morning at chapel, Capt. English, in a neat speech, presented the trophy to the Athletic Association.”
7. 7. First Basketball Team, 1907-08 – While the Seminary began to leave its impact on the football field and track cinders, the boys at the school quickly became interested in this new sport from New England called basketball. Invented in 1892 by Dr. James Naismith, the boys at the Seminary began playing the game just 10 years later, practicing each night in a small gym. It took five more years, though, before the team would make its interscholastic debut, albeit under difficult conditions. In Holmes’ history, she said, “The team had a small schedule and did not play well due to poor training rules and a lack of stamina. They only practiced once a week against a team of scrubs.” From those humble beginnings of a 0-3 season, starting with a 57-14 loss to Wyoming Seminary, the team turned into a winner just two years later, finishing 5-1.
8. 8. Clyde Bastian, 1911 – As a preparatory school, Dickinson Seminary’s main goal for its students was to get them into a four-year college. With a football program that enjoyed 14 straight winning seasons from 1899-1913, the team was full of players that moved on to storied collegiate programs. Jack Minds and Jim Reese left for the University of Pennsylvania teams in the 1890s, as did Ed and Charley Young for Cornell. Clyde Bastian was a bit of a surprise when he moved into Seminary’s backfield for his senior year in 1911. The bruising back was the key cog in a 4-3 season for the Seminary, while his work on the defensive line helped keep opponents on their heels. At the end of the season, he headed out to Ann Arbor, where he joined the University of Michigan football team, earning letters in 1914-15, as the Sheffield, Pa., native was coached by the legendary Fielding Yost.
9. 9. Alexander Brown Mackie, 1913-14 – Another prominent alumnus of the football program from those early years was Alexander Brown Mackie. Although he played for just one season at the Seminary in football and basketball in 1913-14, Mackie played football at Ohio Wesleyan University and went on to become the most successful football coach in the history of Kansas Wesleyan University. From 1921-37, he helped the team to a 72-40-14 record and five conference titles. Following his career as head coach of the Coyotes, Mackie opened the Brown Mackie College with Perry E. Brown. The college has 27 centers throughout the country and an enrollment of more than 10,000 students.
10. 10. The Insurmountable Seminary, 1916 – One year after finishing 4-6 overall, the 1916 Dickinson Seminary boys’ basketball team left its mark as perhaps the greatest team in the Seminary’s history. At the very least, it was the only one to enjoy an undefeated season. With Howard Robbins on the sidelines, the Seminary five allowed just one opponent to come within five points of it, as the Jersey Shore Y.M.C.A. fell to Seminary by a combined seven points in two games. With only eight men on the squad, the team leaned heavily on its starting five, captain Ray Krebs and Lewis Wynn started at forward, Ward Lewis played center and Roland Wolf and George Foresman played at guard. Krebs and Lewis each averaged in double figures. At the end of the season, the Seminary team hit its stride, more than doubling the scores of Lewisburg High School (50-18), Lock Haven Normal (65-9) and York High School (55-14) during the team’s final three games.
We hope you enjoyed our first look at 200 Memories. Stay tuned on Friday, Sept. 2, as moments 11-20 will be released, with moments capturing both Dickinson Seminary and its transition period into a junior college.
As always, if you feel we missed an event or two that can be deemed a memorable moment or a memorable student-athlete, please share them. Tell us why they are special and any information you may have about that moment or person to Sports Information Director Joe Guistina at guistina@lycoming.edu. Special addendums with your feedback will be released following the conclusion of the list in 2012.
