The football player holding the ball is Clarence “Cap” Howland who is considered the Walter Camp of Dartmouth. He came to Dartmouth from Williston Seminary who had been playing a similar style football to Harvard and Yale. In 1880 he organized the first football team.
It wasn’t until 1881 that they played and won their first game against Amherst. H.A. “Holy” Drew was one of the players instrumental in their first win due to his plunging of the line. He is the other player pictured and also filled in as the captain in 1882 when Howland suffered a broken nose which sidelined him.
Charles Frederick Mathewson in addition to being on the baseball team was also on the first football team.
In 1882 Dartmouth wanted to test their skills against a big dog such as Harvard. They fell flat on their face losing 53-0. This causes the Dartmouth school newspaper to print “Rugby is dead. If there is any other game Dartmouth can play better than football, it would be better to encourage it.” Later in 1882 Dartmouth played McGill in a very unique game. The captains compromised on playing 13 vs 13. This was 2 more than Dartmouth was accustomed to and 2 less than Mcgill’s usual number. Dartmouth ended up winning this game. Cap Howland was also captain of the 1883 and 1884 squad before continuing his football career at Columbia during law school. One final note that may interest you guys is that Dartmouth ended up playing Yale in 1884. They lost 113-0 and is the first time a football team had lost by 100 points.
No comments:
Post a Comment