‘Rummy in the Ivy League

Donald Rumsfeld as a footballer?

Indeed. Before he would go on to fame (or infamy depending on your political point of view), Donald Rumsfeld was featured in an Ivy League Football Program.

The 1967 University of Pennslyvania v. Princeton Program coinidently happens to have one of our favorite covers on it, featuring the Princeton Tiger mascot holding up a box of Quaker Oats with the face of the Penn mascot of Ben Franklin.

The program also features a two page write-up detailing the career of then Congressman Donald Rumsfeld (Princeton ‘54).  The 35 year old congressman looks clean-cut as you would expect. Rumsfeld was then in his third term as a congressman from “Illinois’ fashionable North Shore”.

 

Rummy was the captain of the Tiger 150-pound football team (read: lightweight) and of the wrestling team as a senior. Since the lightweight team and the wrestling team didn’t publish programs, this is a rare feature having the future Defense Secretary appear in a program.

Prior to serving as a congressman he served as a Flight Instructor in the Navy, an organization he described as “the most important entity in the world today”. You can see even then, Don was quite modest!

He goes on to be quoted in the program as saying “I have great interest in Congress as an instrument of government”, which is ironic since he would go on to ignore that particular branch of government while Defense Secretary.

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Lon Keller Football Program Illustrations

Cover illustrations have a rich history of craftsmanship and artisan-ship. We have previously written about cover illustrations done by long time Army-Navy program illustrator Gib Crockett. Today, we feature another illustrator/artist who designed program covers for an extended period of time, Lon Keller.

Keller designed his forst program for a 1932 Cornell-Penn Thanksgiving Day game, one of the oldest rivalries in college football.

,Keller program from 1935

Keller was also one of the first artists to be involved in producing cover illustrations that were ’syndicated’, or widely used by many teams across the country. Originally produced with the help of tobacco company sponsors in the 1930s several companies started to offer mass production of programs at a lower cost.

Keller designed program for many college, the Army, Navy and Air Force academies, Princeton, Cornell and other colleges as well as for high school programs. His most popular program were for his depiction of women on program covers.

For an in depth look at Lon’s career and illustrations please see www.lonkeller.com

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Columbia University Football and Lou Gehrig

Everyone knows Lou Gehrig as one of the greatest baseball players to ever live. What most people don’t know is that Gehrig also briefly played football while attending Columbia University. Gehrig is seen practicing at Columbia above in 1922.

Lou went to Columbia on a football scholarship to pursue a degree in engineering. Before his first semester began he played summer professional baseball under an assumed name, which was not legal.

Gehrig was discovered after playing a dozen games for Hartford in the Eastern League. As a result, he was banned from intercollegiate sports during his freshman year.

During the 1922 season, his sophomore year at Columbia, he was allowed to participate in sports again and Gehrig played right half back for the Columbia Lions football team.

The 1922 Columbia and Cornell program, seen above, lists the future Yankee Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig, although he is not pictured in the program.

Gehrig played for the Columbia baseball team in 1922 as well. It was while playing baseball at Columbia that Gehrig was discovered and signed to the Yankees the following year, 1923. He never graduated from Columbia.

Columbia programs from the 1922 season are highly collectable due to Gehrig’s affilation with the team.

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Army-Navy Program 1941 – U.S.S. Arizona

The 1941 Army – Navy game, which was played at Franklin Memorial Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1941.  The program is 212 pages in length. It is filled with great black and white photos of each of the squads, articles and photos pertaining to the future both the Army and Navy and how each was keeping up to date for our defense. 

There are wonderful full page cartoons featuring many of the era’s favorite characters, including Popeye, Dagwood and Blondie, and Snuffy Smith……each with an Army and/or Navy theme. 

One item I find quite prophetic is on page 180.  There is a classic bow shot of the U.S.S. Arizona  with the following caption:  “A bow on view of the U.S.S. Arizona as she plows into a hughe swell.  It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs.”  On December 7, just one week after this game was played, the Arizona was sunk by bombs dropped by Japanese aircraft with a great loss of life.

This is an important  historical Army-Navy program from this important war year, chocked full of great pictures including FDR as president, Frank Know, Secretary of the Navy and Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, the Naval Academy, West Point and many details about the buildup of the Navy pre WWII and the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga.

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The Kennedy’s and Football Programs

Bobby Kennedy played football for Harvard in 1945, 1946 and 1947 Harvard Programs. His picture can be seen in Harvard program from this period, making them more collectable and valuable than other programs of that era.

From the Harvard-Dartmouth 1947 program:

 

1963 Stanford-California Football Program also has special significance. The game was scheduled to be played November 23, 1963, but was postponed a week to the assassination of John F. Kennedy the day before.

Ted (Edward) Kennedy played for Harvard on the 1955 team, seen here from a Harvard-Princeton Program of the same year:

 

 

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Gerald Ford and College Football

Gerald R. Ford, the 38th President of the United States is featured in several college football programs from 1935 to 1940. Ford was educated at the University of Michigan, where he played on the football team. He turned down offers from the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions and instead went to Yale Law School.

Ford served as an assistant coach for the Yale Football team and is featured in many programs from this period, including this Yale v. Penn program from 1940.

Ford served as a student coach, which is a testament to his skills and leadership abilities. He is also pictured in the Penn v. Yale 1936 program as well:

Programs signed by the former president are quite rare, but we are lucky enough to have a 1938 Dartmouth v. Yale program signed twice by this great American.

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F. Earl Christy – Ceramic & Porcelain College Collectables

We have previously written about one of our favorite artists, F. Early Christy. Christy did a lot of college illustrations and work early in his career including postcards, illustrations, pillows, etc. This time we focus on his works related to ceramics and porcelain.

A beautiful set of mugs and a pitcher were adorned with Christy artwork, seen below. Such finely crafted items normall sell for upward of $300 each mug. This versions features a play from Yale. Christy also did versions of the same mugs for Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.

Examples of Columbia University and Yale plates. Christy did most of this working during the very early part of the 20th century, prior to 1910. These particular mugs were manufactured by Avon.

Lovely Yale and Columbia  mugs  worth in the $400 range:

 

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Stanford v. California Rugby Football 1910

This is the third time we have taken up this subject, which is football games played between Stanford and U.C. Berkeley played under Rugby rules rather than traditional American Football rules.

1913 Big Game Program

1914 Big Game Program

There has been a string of “Big Game” programs on the market recently and they are such good programs, that we can’t resist featuring them over and over.  This latest version, in excellent condition, sold for over $550.

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1940 Dartmouth v. Cornell – The Five Down Game

 

The 1940 Dartmouth v. Cornell featured Cornell with a powerful offense averaging 30 points per game, a perfect 6-0 record and Number 2 ranking in the AP poll is at Hanover, NH, for it’s annual game at Dartmouth, then 3-4. The Big Red hadn’t lost a game in nearly three seasons (18-0). But for almost four quarters, the spirited Indians, coached by the legendary Earl “Red” Blaik, bottled up the mighty Cornell offense. Late in the game Dartmouth holds onto a precarious 3-0 lead when Cornell’s offensive juggernaut awakens. Cornell with a first and goal at the 6-yard line with less than a minute remaining on the clock ran five plays scoring on the last.

The consensus view in the press box was that Cornell had used five downs to score. That was transmitted to the referee after the game. Both schools filmed the contest, so the next evening referee Red Friesell watched the final sequence of plays and spotted his error. He then contacted Asa Bushnell the commissioner of the Central Office for Eastern Intercollegiate Athletics who was a stickler for rules. Bushnell advised Friesell that since the game was already entered into the official record books, the final score would stand. When the news of the error reached Cornell president Edmund E. Day, athletic director Jim Lynah and coach Carl Snavely concluded that the honorable thing to do was to forfeit the game.

The action was unprecdented in intercollegiate football history. The gesture would be remembered and honored across the decades. This is considered one of the most memorable games of all-time ranking just below the November 10, 1928 Notre Dame vs. Army ” Win one for the Gipper” game.

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F. Earl Christy College Memorabilia

F. Earl Christy was an American Artist who lived from 1882-1961. His oeuvre includes many works of art relating to early college football, with a particular emphasis on the Ivy League. His works were shown on pillows, postcards, magazine covers, mugs, pitchers… An example of his work is seen below – an image of a Yale girl on a pillowcase.

Christy practically invented the illustrated image of the “All-American Girl,” at least for the Ivy-League set. His early works glorified the society college girl – always beautifully dressed at football games, golf and tennis tournaments, riding in automobiles or playing instruments. His first College Girl postcard series was published in 1905 by the U.S.S. Postcard Company. When the college girl fad had run its course, he went on to paint more mature men and women, movie stars and political figures, still romantically idealized. His work can be found on the covers of vintage fan magazines like Photoplay, Modern Screen, Pictorial Review, Popular Songs, Radio Stars, Screen Album, Screen Romances, and Shadowplay - not to mention sheet music, fans, blotters, book illustrations, boxes, jigsaw puzzles, posters, serving trays, bookmarks, advertising mailers, catalogs, programs, china, and textiles [Reprinted from Vintage Image Craft].

Later in his career Christy would go on to specialize in glamorous women during the Art Deco period and did many illustrations of women in suggestive and alluring positions.

F. Earl Christy was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1882.  The “F” is believed to stand for “Frederic”. At 17, he painted originals for the Boardwalk Atlantic City Picture company, with many of his early works published by the J. Hoover and Sons Calendar Company of Philadelphia. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts from 1905-1907. A University of Pennsylvania post card that mimics a playing card is seen below:

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