University of Virginia Library

XV. Athletics

It has already been stated that a field for the athletic
exercises was offered to the General Athletic Association
by the University, and this was in a condition to be
thrown open to use on the threshold of the session of
1888–89. The acquisition of this private ground so long
aspired to was largely due to the foresight and energy of
Felix H. Levy, at that time the president of the association.
The space occupied in 1896 was bounded by Main
Street on the north, by the roadbed of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Railway on the east, by the Lynchburg highway on
the south, and on the west by a line that extended from the
site of the postoffice building, parallel with East Range,
back to the road to Lynchburg. This area proved in the
end to be unsatisfactory as it was marred by serious inconveniences.
In 1901, the land for a substitute having
been obtained on the north side of the University, the
first spade was struck in the soil of the new field, and by
the end of the second year the arduous work upon it was
completed. The fund in the treasury of the association
at the beginning of this work was only sixteen hundred
dollars. The entire cost ultimately mounted up to ten
thousand dollars; and of this sum, the alumni contributed
a respectable share. The surface of the new athletic
grounds spread over twenty-one acres. To prepare
it for football, baseball, and track contests, required the
removal of forty-eight thousand cubic yards of earth.
Within its bounds not less than one thousand persons
could be seated without jostling or over crowding. It
was very properly named Lambeth Field, in honor of
Doctor William A. Lambeth, to whose knowledge,
fidelity, and industry, the prosperity of athletic sports at
the University was already so deeply indebted.

It is a proof of the increased importance of these sports
at this institution, that, in the course of 1903, one of the
debating societies discussed at length the question whether
athletic instruction should not be required as a subject
indispensable to the winning of a degree. Some years
earlier, the students had suggested that twelve athletic
scholarships should be established; but the Faculty had
refused to listen to this recommendation; and that body
also, in 1902, declined to allow the ceremony of presenting
the V to each distinguished member of the athletic
teams to form a part of the public exercises of commencement
week. The most popular games during the Eighth
Period, 1896–1904, were football, baseball, track, golf,
and tennis; cricket and lacrosse also had a small number
of ardent devotees; while the events in the gymnasium
were as absorbing as ever to the students at large.

The foremost of all these sports, however, continued
to be football and baseball. It was said, at this time,
that, in proportion to the number of its matriculates, the
University of Virginia had one of the most remarkable
records in these two branches of athletics that had been
made in the different American seats of learning. Her
leadership in both was frankly admitted by every member
of the Southern group of colleges. Of the two, football
enjoyed the primacy in the popular view. This fact was,
in a measure, attributable to skilful coaching by outsiders
like Spicer, the two Neilsons, Gresham and Johnson Poe,
Mackay, Sanford, Abbott, Chamberlain, and John de
Saulles.

There was, during many years, a feeling of opposition
to the employment of strangers for this duty, and under
its influence, the General Athletic Association, in the
course of the session of 1898–99, concluded that it would
be expedient to substitute alumni instructors for the professional

experts from the Northern colleges who had
been hitherto engaged. The rule now adopted was that
a fully qualified alumnus should be placed in charge of the
team; and that, if he should be found to require assistance,
other alumni, of equal experience and efficiency,
should be summoned to his side. Although the scores
recorded, during the existence of this system (1898–
1900), seem to have been capable of a favorable comparison
with those made under the preceding one, it was
abandoned after 1900, and the alien coaches were again
called in. Some of the most distinguished members of
this class of experts in the East now took up the drill on
the University ground; but in spite of their success, the
former regulation of using only alumni coaches was, after
the lapse of some time, reintroduced.

There was a prevailing impression that no matter how
skilful as trainers, or agreeable as men, these foreigners
might be, it was impossible for them to enter with such
spontaneous sympathy into the spirit of the University
life as to feel exactly as the student felt. Naturally,
their interest was restricted to the triumphs of their
teams, and as long as they were in command, there was a
risk of professionalism creeping in,—an insinuating
poison which was so firmly to be eschewed. On the other
hand, it was thought that the alumnus coach took instinctively
a larger view of his duty and for that reason, bore
always in mind the higher welfare of the University in
the pursuit of the different sports. Moreover, he was
more likely to fix a vigilant eye on the future, and, as the
result of this deliberate foresight, to leave behind him
suitable material for the team of the ensuing year.
"The professional coach," it was said at the time,
"comes for one year and is paid for one season to develop
one team. He does not care what the next professional

who comes along,—probably from some college the rival
of his own,—will find for developing a team and making
a reputation."

Doctor Lambeth, whose opinion was, on account of
his ripe experience and acknowledged ability, entitled to
thoughtful consideration, preferred the alumni coach for
the following reasons: (1) the student of the University
of Virginia was just as intelligent and just as acquisitive
as the student of any other seat of learning in America,
and was, therefore, quite as capable of making of himself
a competent trainer; (2) the game of football depended
upon those definite principles of force and strategy which
have been accepted as correct for many years in the past,
and were not likely to change substantially for many years
in the future; the method of forming and operating
change, but the principles remain; and these principles
were as fully inculcated in the student of the University of
Virginia as in the student of Yale or Harvard, Princeton
or Columbia; and he was equally as competent in his turn
to teach them; (3) under the foreign coaching system,
there was no prospect at all of the player's rise to a class
higher than the one in which he started, but always a
chance of his falling into a lower one; the principal coach
could give the University nothing that could properly be
considered its own,—nothing which local pride could concentrate
itself upon and gradually perfect; he left the
team as he found it, without sentiment, spirit, or confidence
in its own exertions; (4) the alumni system was
employed by every college which could show a record of
success in football; it fostered harmony; it encouraged the
players to be more thorough in the lecture-room; it caused
more students to become players; and it put a ban on professionalism;
(5) the Southern colleges that employed
graduates of the University of Virginia as coaches were as

often triumphant in the competitive games as those which
obtained their coaches from the Northern seats of learning;
this had been demonstrated at the Universities of
Alabama and Mississippi, at Tulane University, and at
the Blacksburg Agricultural and Polytechnic College,—
to mention only a few among many.

Z. N. Estes concurred in opinion with Doctor Lambeth.
"A hired coach," he said, "will usually have a set
system of football beaten into him, during four years at a
Northern college, which he will teach regardless of the
character of the team. He does not pick out the strongest
team possible, and adapt the playing to it. He cannot
observe the capabilities of each player. Besides, he is
apt to offend in many ways, as he is not accustomed to our
conditions and traditions. The alumni system, on the
other hand, fosters traditions. It presents to us more
athletes who have done great things for alma mater.
The spirit of enthusiasm which alumni coaches employ in
their work will stimulate zeal in their men."

In spite of a solid foundation for the views which we
have quoted, there was, nevertheless, some disadvantages
accompanying alumni coaching which could not be put under
foot. In the first place, the absence of a curriculum
system at the University of Virginia, by placing every
student, whether in his first or second, or even his sixth
year, on the same platform, tended to dwarf and even to
prevent entirely the growth of that feeling of reverence
which the freshman has for the fellow-collegian who belongs
to a class above him. The alumni coach was crippled
in his authority by this attitude of perfect equality,
and the edge of his instructions was, to that extent,
blunted in the ears of his subordinates. Moreover, it
would require a series of years to pass before the novelty
and rawness of the alumni coaching system could wear

off completely. But, above all, as the enormous majority
of the graduates had, after leaving the precincts, to look
to their own industry for support, very few could afford
to give up any of their invaluable time to the exhaustive
work of preparing a team for the field.

There were two supreme regulations which were enforced
by the General Athletic Association with unremitting
strictness: (1) every player must be a genuine student,
and not a matriculate who attended the lectures for
the ostensible purpose of graduating, but with the real
purpose of securing an appointment on the team; and
(2) he must ask for and receive no money for his services
in the field. By these two rules, the slightest taint of
professionalism was made impracticable. So keen was
the opposition to such a spirit creeping in that a member
of the Faculty was charged with the special supervision
of the University players, in order to block its introduction.
The record of the football scores during the sessions
between 1898 and 1902 inclusive is exhibited in the
following table. This record embraces the contests with
all the schools, colleges, and universities, both Northern
and Southern.

                 

Year	University	Opposition
1895	206	104
1896	242	88
1897	111	54
1898	117	60
1899	92	88
1900	186	37
1901	274	48
1902	157	51

During these years, there were found among the opponents
of the University of Virginia, the Universities of
Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins.
The majority of the games, however, were played

with the teams of small colleges and academies situated
in Virginia and other parts of the South.