If all goes to plan, the Syracuse University Football team will celebrate a blowout win against Ohio University in front of a jam-packed home crowd in the newly renovated JMA Wireless Dome this weekend.
For a program kicking off its 135th season, there is a whole lot of new up on the hill.
New Wi-fi. New Seats. New Players and a dynamic new coach, Fran Brown, who has infused this historic program with an excitement notseen in a quarter century.
At his introductory press conference in December, Brown spoke powerfully and endearingly about the storied history of the program he was taking the reins of and what it meant to him as a kid from Camden, New Jersey to be the head football coach at Syracuse.
The land of Brown, Davis, Little, Csonka, McPherson, Darius, McNabb, Harrison, and Freeney.
As a historian and as a fan, I must admit, he had me ready to suitup and run out of the tunnel.
As a longtime season ticket holder and alumnus, my son and I will be among what we all hope is a crowd of at least 40,000 screaming Orange fans putting the loud back in the “Loud House.”
It is a wonderful bit of historical serendipity that the opponent for the beginning of this new era is from Ohio, as Syracuse knocked off Miami University in the very first game in the Dome back in 1980.
The scene described above would have been unimaginable to the group of roughly 25 students that came together in the fall of 1889 to create Syracuse University Football.
For the 20 years after the first college football game was played between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869, the game of football spread slowly to college campuses, including Syracuse.
Stories of informal games being played in the large field just east of University Avenue on the edges of modern-day Thornden Park date dot the historical record.
Yet, it was not until John Blake Hillyer came to the University in 1889 that organized inter-collegiate football came into being. He successfully gathered a group of students familiar with the sport in the hopes of fielding a squad.
As such, Hillyer is for all intents and purposes the father of Syracuse football.
According to Arthur L. Evans’ seminal historical work on the subject, “Fifty Years of Football at Syracuse University,” published in 1944, the program’s birthdate is October 17, 1889.
On this date, The University Athletic Association elected Horace E. Stout as Manager and named S.U. senior, Frank Rooney, J. Blake Hillyer and Gordon W.Hoyt as directors of football.
Having been made an official part of theuniversity, they set out to raise funds to pay for uniforms, pads, and travel.
According to one of those original players, William Fanton, on November 2, 1889, nearly 25 men answered Hillyer’s call and turned out for a scrimmage against Syracuse High School students in the old Star Park on South Salina Street.
Owing to the scarcity of a proper ball, the game did not begin until five men each agreed to put up a dollar each to cover the cost of the ball. With the funds secured, the ball was set down andthe game began.
Though more rightly called a scrimmage perhaps, the very first game involving Syracuse University students, the fighting pink and blue (Orange did not become the school’s official color until 1890), ended with a 28-0 victory.
Football was gaining in popularity across the northeast and word of the game at Syracuse spread quickly to nearby universities and colleges.
Hillyer and his boys received three challenges from teams in nearby Rochester, including Rochester University, Union, and RPI.
Unfortunately, Syracuse could not answer the challenges right away as they were still without proper uniforms.
As Thanksgiving drew near, Syracuse’s fledgling team had raised the funds necessary to purchase uniforms and to pay for the train fare to Rochester to answer the challenge of Rochester University.
On November 23,1889, the first intercollegiate game in the school’s history took place in Culver Park.
It did not go well for the Pink and Blue.
According to the report published in the Syracuse Standard the next day:
“The Syracusans made a plucky fight, although weakened by the absence of two of their best men and by the loss of Captain Hillyer…the Syracusans feel well pleased with the showing which the team made not withstanding the defeat, for the Rochester eleven has been in training under a professional coach and has played several games this season.”
Plucky though they might have been, Rochester routed Syracuse 36-0. The loss must have been extra painful as, according to Fanton, the team had no padding in their uniforms, as they could not afford any.
And who says that money in college sports is a new phenomenon?
Robert Searing’s weekly articles are supported by the William G. Pomeroy Public History Media Series. To learn more about the William G. Pomeroy Foundation’s work to promote public history, visit wgpfoundation.org.
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