By Ronald A. Smith
Penn State played its first intercollegiate football game in 1881, not in 1887.
The story of the first game in 1887 has been repeated consistently by the Penn State Athletic Department. It is even recited by the Centre County Historical Society’s Encyclopedia of History and Culture. “Penn State played its first game on November 5, 1887,” states the generally accurate Encyclopedia, “defeating nearby Bucknell 50-0 at Lewisburg.” That was the second game and the second defeat of Bucknell. It was off by six years, as Penn State visited Bucknell and shut out Bucknell 9-0 on Saturday, Nov. 12, 1881. The story is worth retelling, though writer Ken Rappoport correctly mentioned the first game in his “The Nittany Lions: A Story of Penn State Football,” published a half-century ago.
American intercollegiate football began a dozen years before the 1881 contest, as a soccer-like game was contested at Rutgers against Princeton, a 6-4 victory for Rutgers in 1869.[1] Soon, however, because Harvard accepted rugby football as the best game, other schools followed suit and turned to rugby by 1875. The first rugby football “championship” was contested by Yale and Princeton in the first Thanksgiving Day game in 1876 by the student-run Intercollegiate Football Association. Walter Camp played for the Yalees in their victory, and as the “father of American football” was instrumental in the early 1880s in changing the rules of rugby to form a game that included a “scrimmage” line to replace the rugby “scrummage.” Soon, yards to be gained in a certain number of plays developed, and rugby turned into American football.[2]
Students at Penn State caught the rugby football spirit, purchased a book of rules on the playing of rugby, and began practicing on the lawn in front of Old Main. The 1879 rugby playing rules used by Penn State are retained in the Penn State University Archives.[3] Irvin P. McCreary (class of 1882), helped organize a team in the fall of 1881, and he asked a friend attending Bucknell if they would play a game. Students at The University of Lewisburg (soon renamed after William Bucknell, its chief benefactor) quickly accepted the challenge to play a game in Lewisburg in November of 1881.
After the challenge was accepted, the Penn State team began to practice in earnest for the contest. But, how would a Penn State team get to Lewisburg, 60 miles away, and not miss classes? Fortunately, a rail line had been completed from Lewisburg to Spring Mills, on what was intended to be a rail to Tyrone. If the team could be transported by horse and carriage to Spring Mills, where the uncompleted rail line ended, it could take the train to Lewisburg for a game. The team of 11 players left for Spring Mills on a Friday afternoon in two horse-drawn rigs, leaving them at a livery, and they then took the train to Lewisburg. There they were met by the Bucknell team, who “royally entertained” them.[4]
Irvin McCreary (class of 1882), acting as manager of the team, was asked by the Bucknell team to be the referee. Another knowledgeable Penn Stater, James G. White (class of 1882) was called upon to be the umpire. It may seem illogical for two members of the senior class of visiting Penn State to be the officials, but the rugby rules book was in Penn State’s possession, and the Penn State aggregation was much more familiar with rules of rugby than were the Bucknell players. Penn State may also have been more organized than Bucknell as it was dressed in football togs created by Billy Hoover of local Shingletown Gap. The Penn State team, as noted in the Bucknell Mirror soon after the game, were “well uniformed and disciplined.”[5] Penn State was apparently led by two “star performers,” George Chadman (class of 1882) and Bob Foster (class of 1882), who may have scored most of the touchdowns. Chadman was also evidently a good student who later became a lawyer. Umpire James White also carried on the good academic tradition of Penn State players when he achieved his Ph.D. at Cornell University.[6]
Like at the major universities in the East — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Pennsylvania — the football game they played in 1881 was rugby. The rules booklet clearly stated, “a touch down is when a player putting his hand upon the ball on the ground in touch or in goal, stops it so that it remains dead or fairly so.” To be counted as a goal and thus scoring, the rule stated that “a goal may be obtained by any kind of kick except a punt,” meaning a drop kick or place kick following a touchdown or from the field of play (a field goal). Touchdowns counted for nothing but allowed a team to kick a goal (extra point) following the touchdown.[7] So, the game in Lewisburg played on a rainy and muddy Saturday, “little short of sleet,” on Nov. 12, 1881, was in the tradition of rugby of the major Eastern universities in the early 1880s.[8]
Following the 9-0 shutout, McCreary went to the Western Union Telegraph Office in Lewisburg and sent the results of Penn State’s first football victory to Bellefonte, as State College had no wire facilities. The telegram read: “We have met the enemy and they are ours; nine to nothing.” The report was then carried by horse 10 miles to the Penn State post office so that the less than 50 registered Penn State students could see the same-day result that evening posted on a sheet of pasteboard.[9]
It was the only football game of the year for Penn State, and this was the first undefeated team in Penn State’s illustrious football history. It was accomplished with no money from an athletic department or led by an athletic director and a highly paid coach or even an unpaid coach. There were no athletic scholarships and no institutionally paid training table. It was completely a student-run event, with the cost of food and transportation paid for by the team members. The team paid for its own dinner that evening following the game at Myers Hotel in Old Fort. The team arrived at Penn State in horse-drawn carriages at about midnight, and students gave the victors an “appreciative reception.”[10]
The first of any activity is usually celebrated, but it has not been done with Penn State’s most visible sport, football. It is time after nearly a century and a half to clearly acknowledge a Penn State first. The second Penn State football game has falsely often been given the honor of starting Penn State football. The principal reason for lack of recognition is that after the initial game in 1881, no other Penn State football team was organized for a half-dozen years.
Continuous play did not occur until after the 1887 season. Then, Penn State played two games against Bucknell, the first in Lewistown in a 54-0 contest with principally Americanized rugby rules, and a return game on campus and another shutout, 24-0.[11] This time, the two teams could travel on a railroad that connected Lemont, a short buggy ride from State College, and Lewisburg on a line that had been completed through Lemont from Spring Mills to Bellefonte in 1885. A second undefeated season was culminated with the addition of an upperclassman in prelaw, Clarence Cleaver, as the advisory coach. The large scores were the result of a scoring system in which a touchdown was worth two points, a goal after touchdown was four points, and a kicked goal from the field counted five points.
Since 1887, Penn State has continually played a schedule, generally more than two games, though in 1918, only four games were contested because of restrictions during World War I.
Recognition of the first football game in 1881 is similar to claiming that Penn State began with the signing of the charter by Gov. James Pollock on Feb. 22, 1855, rather than when the first class of students were admitted on Feb.16, 1859. One could choose 1859, but that would be an injustice to the historical record. To honor the men who played in the first Penn State football game in 1881, the Penn State Alumni News in 1923 produced a three-page story as told by the football alums from the first game. Wrote James G. White, umpire of the original game: “I shall be interested in seeing what detail of the game you may be able to dig up after the lapse of 41 years from the time the game was played.”
In another decade, the Penn State Board of Athletic Control decided to honor the remaining players from that team. One letter came from John Price Jackson, who played for Penn State in the 1887 Bucknell contests. Jackson was a strong supporter of Penn State athletics and dean of the School of Engineering from 1909-1915. Jackson, a long-time member of the Penn State Athletic Council, made a request of the Penn State Varsity Club to honor the 1881 team. The Varsity Club agreed and purchased a gold football and an “S” sweater for each member of the 1881 team. They were “presented upon the occasion of the Varsity Club dinner in the fall” of 1936.[12] Now, well into the 21st century, nearly a century after the 1930s acknowledgement, the first Penn State football team and its game against Bucknell should get general recognition. Or as a player from the 1881 team stated, “There can be no question that this game was played.”[13] T&G
Ronald A. Smith is a Penn State University professor emeritus and has written eight books on the history of intercollegiate athletics. Visit townandgown.com for a full list of sources and notes.
NOTES:
[1] Larry Pitt, “The First Game: 1869,” in his Football at Rutgers: A History, 1869-1969 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 1972) 3-23.
[2] For a lengthy account, see Ronald A. Smith, “From the Burial of Football to the Acceptance of Rugby,” in his Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 67-82.
[3] Latest Revised Rules for Lacrosse, Foot Ball, Ten Pins, and Shuffleboard (New York: Peck and Snyder, 1879) SVFXXX—0056U, Penn State University Archives.
[4] “Story of the 1881 – and 1887 Teams,” Penn State Alumni News, 10, No. 3 (December 1923), p. 10.
[5] Bucknell Mirror, January 1882, as quoted in “Story of the 1881 – and 1887 Teams,” Penn State Alumni News, 10, No. 3 (December 1923), p. 11.
[6] “Story of the 1881 – and 1887 Teams,” p. 10.
[7] Latest Revised Rules.
[8] I argued over three decades ago claiming that football at Penn State began in 1881. I was quoted in the Daily Collegian: “It‘s an erroneous argument” by Penn State athletics and its Sports Information Director Jeff Nelson that Penn State football was only a form of rugby. I noted: “All football in 1881 was a form of rugby football.” Quoted by Kevin Gorman, “PSU Debates Whether Michigan is 1,000th or 1001st Game,” Daily Collegian, 15 October 1993, p. 13.
[9] “Story of the 1881 – and 1887 Teams,” p. 10.
[10] Ibid.
[11] The [Penn State] Free Lance, November 1887, p. 59 and December 1887, p. 70.
[12] Board of Athletic Control Minutes, 13 March 1936 and 6 June 1936, Intercollegiate Athletics Records, Box AJ06.12, Binder “1931-1950,” Penn State University Archives.
[13] “Story of the 1881 – and 1887 teams,” p. 10.
