200 Memories Central
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Welcome back to our celebration of 200 moments, memories, coaches and student-athletes from the history of Lycoming College athletics. In this second series of moments, the school moves through the roaring ’20s and into the heart of the Great Depression. With that period comes the first emergence of interscholastic girls’ athletics and the school’s transition from Dickinson Seminary to Dickinson Seminary and Junior College, beginning in 1929.
On the athletic fields, the football team built up some of the best teams in the school’s young history, even as it transitioned from a prep school squad to a junior college one.
Once again, 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.
With no more ado, here are moments 21-30 in our series of 200:
21. John Lindemuth, 1927 – From just down Fourth Street in Newberry, Lindy was a eight-time letterwinner at the Seminary, posting letters with the football (three), track and field (three) and basketball (two) teams. As a right end on the football team, Lindy worked his way to the captaincy as a senior. The 1927 Dart yearbook proclaimed that, “Some morning he will awake and find himself famous.” Sure enough, 14 years later, Lindemuth began to leave a legacy that is still in evidence today. He was approached by Little League creator, Carl Stotz, and along with coaching a team, he became the member of the board. He eventually became a full-time employee and became the commissioner of the organization in 1955, helping to spread the Little League World Series into an international event. His connection to the Lycoming College never wavered, either, as the Athletics Hall of Famer was central in having the Little League teams from the World Series stay in the college dorms in the ‘50s before dorms were built on-site in South Williamsport. In the ‘80s, he also endowed a scholarship prize at the school.
22. Glen Good, Nov. 11, 1926 – It may have been Armistice Day, but for the Dickinson Seminary squad in 1926, there was no truce involved in their matchup with Lock Haven Normal School. Even after a 28-point first quarter, the Seminary kept the pedal down, scoring at will against Lock Haven, thanks to the three-man running tandem of Glen Good, Benjamin Pencheff and Granny Nye. The Seminary moved the ball easily all game, led by Good, who scored a still-school-record six touchdowns, while Pencheff added four in easily the most dominating performance in school history. By the time the dust cleared, Seminary walked away with a still-school-record 106-0 win. The Dickinson Union congratulated Lock Haven for their good sportsmanship and fair play despite the rout. Good, from the Newberry neighborhood of Williamsport, finished the year with eight touchdowns to lead the squad, which rattled off 156 of its 205 points on the season in its last two games, following the rout of Lock Haven with a 50-0 win over Keystone Academy.
23. First Girls’ Basketball Teams, 1927-37 – As girls’ athletics continued to be of stressed importance in the Seminary, so, too, did it become an inevitability that the girls would want to play against outside competition. Coach Mary Wilson, the director of the Girls’ Physical Education department, organized that first competition in 1927, as the Seminary took a 21-19 decision from the local YWCA. In the only other matchup of the year, the YWCA returned the favor with an 18-16 win over the Seminary. In 1928, the girls at the Seminary squared off with the YWCA five times, winning three meetings and tying once. By 1929, the team was playing both Hughesville and Montoursville and over the course of the 1930s, the Seminary continued to play local high schools. However, in 1938, no varsity team was fielded, as the director of girls’ physical education left halfway through the year for another position. The school shifted its focus, requiring the women at the junior college and the girls at the seminary to participate in gym classes in one of four disciplines, according to the student yearbook, The Dart. The women choose from bowling, basketball, volleyball and swimming. Women’s athletics wouldn’t come back at Lycoming College until 1972.
24. Bob Heisel, 1930-31 – An English professor, Robert Wilson Heisel may have been one of the more unassuming football coaches in the school’s history. However, by winning percentage, he was also the most successful. In his two years at the helm, the Seminary posted a remarkable mark of 14-4-2 (.750), capping his career as the head coach at the Seminary by guiding the team to the 1931 State Prep Championship. A graduate of Washington & Jefferson College, Heisel came to the Seminary after two years at Lock Haven High School. Perhaps his greatest triumph came early in his first season when he guided the Seminary to a scoreless tie with old nemesis Wyoming Seminary, whom the team hadn’t beaten since 1925. The tie, in which the Seminary posted 16 first downs to Wyoming’s three, helped the team truly gain confidence and in 1931, helped the Seminary claim the state prep school championship.
25. Ellis Martin, May 10, 1930 – A two-year member of the football and track and field teams, Ellie was one of the stars of the football team under Coach Heisel, but it was in the arena of track and field that he truly shined. In some of the bigger track meets at the state, his powerful shot put heaves rose to the occasion, as he won the title at the Penn State Track Class A Track Meet with a toss of 51-4 and followed that by taking the title at the University of Pennsylvania’s Interscholastic Track & Field Championships, posting a throw of 50-10. From Lock Haven, Pa., Martin also took third in the discus at the meet in Philadelphia and followed his career at Dickinson Seminary by attending Washington & Jefferson.
26. State Prep Champions, 1931 – Even though by 1931, the school had incorporated into a junior college as well as a prep school, the team that hit the field was still considered a prep school one and featured only players from the undergraduate school, despite games against three college varsity teams and four college freshmen teams. After starting the season with a 6-0 win over the legendary Mount Carmel High School, the team lost its lone game of the year, in the school’s first night game, at West Liberty State Teachers’ College in West Virginia. The game was also broadcast on WRAK, also marking a new experience for the Seminary football team. After the narrow 7-0 loss, the team allowed just three more scores all season, powering past the Penn State Freshmen, 19-7, Mansfield State Teachers’ College, 50-0 and the Bucknell Freshmen, 7-0. Lock Haven State Teachers’ College tied the Seminary, 0-0, but a 14-7 win over Bellefonte Academy clinched an 8-1-1 record, a record for wins that stood until 1980. After the win, the Seminary claimed the state prep school championship and received a challenge from the National Farm School, now Delaware Valley, but according to the Dart, the team “was little more than a high school team. No other challenges were offered and Seminary held her claim for the 1931 title.”
27. Earl Z. McKay, 1932-41 – Earl Z. McKay spent more time around the Seminary’s ballfield and the Hilltop Gymnasium than anyone in the first half century of the school’s athletics history. He was a star quarterback for the Seminary and a basketball captain before graduating in 1925. After spending four years at Cornell University, he returned to the hilltop and served as an assistant coach under Bob Heisel. When Heisel stepped down as football coach in 1932, McKay took on the duties of head football and basketball coach. During his decade with the football team, despite taking over a squad that eliminated its athletic scholarships due to the Great Depression, he led the team to four winning seasons and the 1936 Eastern Junior College Championship. On the basketball court, McKay’s teams were even better, posting a then-school-record 81-45 (.643). In between, he helped the athletic program transition from Seminary teams to Junior College teams beginning in 1935. His tenure at Dickinson Junior College was cut short in 1942, though, as he enlisted in the war effort, serving as a Red Cross Field Director.
28. Girls’ Basketball Team, 1932 – By 1932, the girls’ basketball program at the Seminary had grown from just games against the YWCA to playing local high schools. Playing seven games in a period of 23 days in late February and mid-March, the team posted six wins, hardly letting anyone challenge it until the final two games of the season. After opening the season with a 29-9 win over Montoursville and a 40-5 win over the Muncy Girl Scouts under head coach Eleanor J. Fitch, the team, led by forward Helen Mallalieu, cruised past Messiah Lutheran and Montoursville. The team posted its fifth win, a 39-35 win over Shamokin High School, but fell in a heartbreaker in the finale to Hughesville, 25-23. Still, it was the best season a girls’ team ever enjoyed at the Seminary, scoring 178 points and allowing just 110. Ironically, coming off the best season in school history, the girls’ athletics department focused on intramural athletics solely in 1933 before the team played some outside games again in the years between 1934-37.
29. Men’s Basketball Team, 1934-35 – During his first two years as head basketball coach, Earl Z. McKay quickly led the team to one of the most dramatic jumps in the school’s history, taking the team from a 5-5 record in 1933 to an 11-4 mark in 1934. In 1934-35, while the athletic department made the transition from a focus on its prep school students to its junior college students, McKay developed one of the finest teams in school history led by junior college students Bernard Dempsey, Howard Springman and the star of the squad, Don Manno. The team posted several impressive wins, including taking down Keystone Junior College, 47-16, Bucknell Freshmen, 49-14, and the Mansfield Teachers College, 48-21. The Mansfield game was postponed a week due to an auto accident that injured three members of the team on the way to the game, but it didn’t slow the McKaymen down, who won seven straight games at one point before a narrow loss to Wyoming Seminary. Still, the team had a successful enough season that it played an unofficial post-season game, downing Rehobeth Beach, 72-24. In all, the team finished 13-2, averaging 50.2 points per game, a high average for the time period.
30. First Tennis Team, 1936 – Led by Professor Kenneth Kates, Dickinson Junior College put together a six-man squad for interscholastic competition for the first time in school history. Jack Hirsch topped the lineup for the team, which opened its season by facing Harrisburg Academy. After that, the Junior College team tied the Brandon Park Tennis Club and played three more matches. The team drew plenty of interest, with 20 athletes making up the team, but after the year, the squad disappeared. It wasn’t until the school became Lycoming College in 1948 that the team was restarted, and, even then, the team disappeared for the 1950 and 1955 seasons. Still, with the addition of the team in 1936, tennis became the fifth sport in the school’s history and the only one to be introduced while Dickinson Junior College.
We hope you enjoyed our third look at 200 Memories. Stay tuned on Friday, Sept. 30, as moments 31-40 will be released, with moments capturing both Dickinson Seminary and Junior College and its transition period into a four-year institution.
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.
