letterwinners - Rutgers

176
THE FIRST FOOTBALL GAME
Rutgers and Princeton played the first game of intercollegiate football on
Nov. 6, 1869, on a plot of ground where the present-day Rutgers gymnasium
now stands in New Brunswick, N.J. Rutgers won that first game, 6-4.
The game was played with two teams of 25 men each under rugby-like
rules, but like modern football, it was “replete with surprise, strategy, prodigies
of determination and physical prowess,” to use the words of one of
the Rutgers players.
At 3 p.m. on that memorable afternoon, the 50 competitors and about
100 spectators gathered on the field. To distinguish themselves from the
bareheaded visitors, 50 Rutgers students, including players, donned scarlet-colored
scarves which they converted into turbans.
Events leading up to the game were described by John W. Herbert, Rutgers
’72, who was one of the players: “To appreciate this game to the
fullest you must know something of its background,” Herbert wrote in
1933. “The two colleges were, and still are, of course, about 20 miles
apart. The rivalry between them was intense. For years each had striven
for possession of an old Revolutionary cannon, making night forays and lugging
it back and forth time and again. Not long before the first football
game, the canny Princetonians had settled this competition in their own
favor by ignominiously sinking the gun in several feet of concrete. In addition
to this, I regret to report, Princeton had beaten Rutgers in baseball by
the harrowing score of 40-2. Rutgers longed for a chance to square
things.”
A challenge for the game was issued by Rutgers. Three games were to be
played that year. The first, played at New Brunswick, was won by Rutgers.
Princeton won the second game, but cries of “over-emphasis” prevented
the third game in football's first year when faculties of both institutions
protested on the grounds that the games were interfering with student
studies.
An analytical account
of the game
appeared in the November,
1869 issue
of the Targum, Rutgers’
undergraduate newspaper.
“To describe the varying fortunes of the match, game by game, would be a
waste of labor for every game was like the one before,” wrote the student
reporter. “There was the same headlong running, wild shouting, and frantic
kicking.
“To sum up, Princeton had the most muscle, but didn't kick very well, and
wanted organization. They evidently don't like to kick the ball on the ground.
Our men, on the other hand, though comparatively weak, ran well, and
kicked well throughout. But their great point was the organization, for
which great praise is due to the captain. The right men were always in the
right place.”
One of the Princeton players, William Preston Lane, in 1933 contended in
a newspaper interview that Rutgers “ran us Princeton men out of town. I
never found out why they did that,” he related. “But we don't ask any questions.
When we saw them coming after us, we ran to the outskirts of New
Brunswick and got into our carriages and wagons and went away as fast
as we could.”
Lane's contention is refuted in the Targum account. “After the match the
players had an amicable "feed together," the paper reported. "At 8 o'clock
our guests went home, in high good spirits, thirsting to beat us next time, if
they can.”
Regardless of what actually happened after the first game, football was
here to stay. Rutgers got Columbia University started in the grid sport the
following season and in a few years most of the colleges and universities in
the East were represented on the gridiron.