V 11 N. 16 Spring Is Here, Getting Old, and Ogden Nash on University Sport

Ah, second week of March and traditionally track is fully underway outdoors in the American Midwest where I cut my teeth on the sport.  My apologies to the Florida and California readers, I ask for your indulgence, but it's time you know what we had to do to run track in the Spring.    The sawdust jumping pits have be dug up and broken up into small blocks  so they would  soon thaw and the vaulters and high jumpers could  begin to  practice.  By the first of March we'd be running on soggy tracks and looking forward to that first meet in another two weeks.  Then before we knew it the big relay meets would be upon us in Bellaire, Springfield, Mansfield, Dayton.  Baseball still hoping to get in an outdoor practice or two  and not having to wait until the basketball team was  finished practice in the gym.  The sooner they get eliminated in the basketball playoffs, the sooner the gym will  theirs at a reasonable hour.

Regarding getting old, yesterday I went downtown and suddenly realized I was wearing mismatched shoes.  I guess if I were really old I would not even have noticed.  At least they were the same color if not the same style.  The only time I saw some else do that was Bruce Kritzler when we were at the All Ohio Cross Country meet thirty-five years ago,  and I looked down at the line before the start,  and he had on a blue shoe on one foot and a red one on the other.   Turned out that a shoe company had sent our coach Steve Price some samples but only one shoe of each style, however Bruce found a right and a left both his size.

 I know this is a track and field blog and sometimes I stretch the point.  Today you thinclads will have to bear with me, but I could not help but convey a poem to you on importance of university sport in America by the beloved poet Ogden Nash. Europeans, again I beg indulgence, but we often judge the quality of universities by the record of their football team.   Yes it speaks of American football and it's bloated importance, but some of this  could be extrapolated to our sport.  And too it makes some fun of the American 'university system'.  

                   One  Man's Meed Is Another Man's Overemphasis

by Ogden Nash 

from

Collected Verse from 1929 On

I salute the section of our lordly Sunday journals which is entitled

        Scores of College Football Games Continued from Page One,

Because there a flock of not very notorious institutions of learning 

        find their annual place in the sun.

Yes, the football season is a kindly time of year,

And during it we read of campuses of which at other times we do

        not often hear.

Would a playwright, for instance ordinarily select Aurora as the 

        Alma Mater for his hero?

Yet it is here recorded that Aurora  one week held Wright Jr. to a 

six-to-six tie and the next week took the measure of Wartburg

     nineteen to zero.

Yes, and the St. Cloud Teachers are an aggregation that no college lover   

    can conscientiously shelve, 

Because they nosed out Bemidji Teachers thirteen to twelve.

Oh ye of little faith who take Yale  and    Notre   Dame  for  your  Alpha

        and Omega,

What about Hiwassee, which outscored Biltmore, and Dillard

       which engaged in a Homeric deadlock with Talladega?

When better endowments are offered,

Well,what's the matter with Augustana and Millsaps and Spear-

        fish and Gustavus Adolphus and Wofford?

So if anybody makes derogatory remarks about the football season

        let us answer with scornful defiance.

And meanwhile let us not forget that Huron beat Yankton six to 

        nothing on the very same day that Jamestown smothered

    Wahpeton Science.      

Good old Nash.  He saw the academic world for what it was.  Some of these schools still exist and function, others are long gone.  How many could you identify, location, teams, etc.?

Here are answers to some of those burning questions.

1. Aurora    The only current institution by that name is in the Northwest Territories of Canada.  So I'm going to take a guess that Nash's Aurora was some little now defunct school in Aurora, Illinois  and today there is a small institution called...Orville was still alive in 1934 but Wilbur was deceased, so the new jr college was named for him.

Aurora is very much in Illinois and Aurora College is now Aurora University, still small and private.

Take care,

Tom..

2. Wilbur Wright Jr. College in the Chicago area.  But it is possible this is not the Wright that Nash mentioned.

(George:  Before you casually dismiss Wright Jr. College, you might want to take a  quick look at its alumni.

They include, among others, Comedian Shecky Greene, Actress Kim Novak and newspaper man and journalist, Mike Royko.  

I think another good actress, Barbara Harris, also went to Wright, Jr.

Wright Jr was founded in 1934 and is now part of the City Colleges system in Chicago.

Ogden was ahead of his time.  Lots of good scholarship and good athletics take place in small and little appreciated colleges.

Take care,

Tom Coyne)

3. Wartburg, hail to Wartburg in Waverly, Iowa home of the Knights of Wartburg,  where football still exists and men and women can run track and cross country.

4. St. Cloud Teachers, now St. Cloud State U. in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  The Huskies have dropped football, but lady thinclads can still get an education there.

5. Bemidji State,   Bemidji, Minnesota.  The Beavers still play football and have a women's only track and cross country program.

6. Yale and Notre Dame  (couldn't find anything on them)

7. Hiwassee,   Madisonville, Tennessee.  Permanently closed.

8. Biltmore U.  In 1963 they joined forces and became part of University of North Carolina at Ashville.

9.  Dillard University This is an historically black university located in New Orleans.  The Blue Devils offer basketball , track , cross county to both sexes and also volleyball to the ladies.

10. Talladega U.  Another traditionally black university in Talladega, Alabama, no sports, how could they?

11. Augustana College Rock Island , IL.  The Vikings got football!

12. Millsaps U. Jackson, Mississippi  Football

13. Spearfish U. Now Black Hlls State College in Spearfish, South Dakota

14. Gustavus Adolphus U.  St. Peters, Minnesota.  Still have football.

15. Wofford U.  Spartanburg, South Carolina,  The Terriers don't play football anymore.

16. Huron College was a also known as  Si Tanka U. at Huron, South Dakota.  Closed its doors April 1, 2005.

17. Yankton is a now defunct private college in Yankton, South Dakota.  Their old football stadium is now used by Mt. Marty U. for football games.

18. U. of Jamestown      Still called U of Jamestown,  Jamestown, North Dakota

19. Wahpeton Science  now part of North Dakota State College of Science, Wahpeton, North Dakota.

"How could Nash have left out Slippery Rock?"   Anonymous

         Okay, it was a slow track day.  The track is still thawing out as is my brain.

                                                                                                                                                                    Describing March was so true but I am more and more convinced that there is truly global warming because this spring has been easy.  Maybe its because we have an all-weather track circling a FieldTurf infield, but we have had numerous days over 60 degrees, not the bone-chilling weather we had at one time.  I fully believe that Cincinnati today is the southern Kentucky of our youth.  Thanks for mentioning those great HS track meets in Ohio.  Most of them are probably still meets but they are a shadow of themselves.  All the glory is now at major suburban schools who can guarantee seating, parking, safety, and excellent competition, all the while using the children and grandchildren of the heroes of Bellaire, Springfield, Mansfield, and Dayton.   Bill Schnier                                                                                                                                                  George:                                                             I can appreciate this greatly for several reasons.  Having coached at Olivet College (Michigan), we competed against one or two of the one’s you mentioned.  

 

Also, I have a good story for you.   In about 1968, I was the high school coach at Talawanda HS  (Oxford, Ohio).    I had run a dual meet one Friday night against nearby Hamilton Garfield HS at home.  I had spent about 3 hours preparing the cinder track the night before, so it was in great anticipation also due to the fact that Garfield had really good athletes, though their team could be really mediocre in early season.

 

We ended up winning the meet by a few points, they had the talent, but we had the depth for a dual meet team.   After the meet, it was a Friday night endeavor, a friend and I went to the local bowling alley for a sandwich and to celebrate.   There, we ran into Bo Schembechler (Miami Coach at the time).   He asked did you have track meet at home as he had noticed the lights at the field.   I very proudly announced, “Yes, we knocked off Hamilton Garfield..”   He jokingly replied,  “Overemphasis! Overemphasis!”  At which point, I smiled and said “You Bet!”

 

Joe  Rogers                                                                                                                              

Great article, George.  When I was in junior high, my dad bought season (football) tickets for us to attend the games of the Grand Rapids Junior Raiders who were one of the few junior colleges in Michigan to have a football program.  (Full disclosure:  I attended JC in ‘66-‘67).   I remember at least one game against Wright Junior College and another one against Thornton Junior College, also from the Chicago area.   GRJC played its games on local high school football fields so we went all over the county to watch them play.   Nash got Wright Junior all right, but he left out my Raiders.   Great times and great memories!  E. Geelhoed