HOBOKEN, N.J. (October 1, 2020)  – In honor of the 150th anniversary of Stevens Institute of Technology, the Department of Athletics will dig into the archives and explore the origins of every NCAA-sponsored sport played on Castle Point over the lifetime of the institution. 

Over the course of the coming months, this feature series will highlight the history of a particular sport that has helped shape the athletic department into its current form, while also highlighting interesting facts, figures and people.

The series “kicks off” this week with the Stevens football program. One of the first five college football programs in the United States, Stevens Football first took to the field in 1872 and the program existed on Castle Point for 52 seasons (although there was not a varsity team in 1901, there were two teams for underclassmen). 

Historically speaking, Stevens football can be divided into two eras: the first, which took place from 1872 through 1891, saw the Ducks compile a 37-74-13 record against what is viewed as a more traditional-style collegiate schedule against mostly varsity programs; the second took place from 1892 until the program was disbanded, with the Ducks posting an approximate record of 73-135-20 against a hybrid schedule of college and club teams. All totaled, Stevens football finished its run in 1925 with an approximate record of 110-209-33.

As the sport began its evolution from its roots in soccer and rugby into a format that more closely resembles the game we see today, the emphasis placed on speed led to a significant increase in violence in the sport. It was not an unusual practice for teams to attempt to intentionally injure the opponent’s top players. Broken noses, broken legs and other serious injuries were fairly common and there were even quite a few deaths on the field before then-President Theodore Roosevelt (who had a son playing football at Harvard) convened a meeting in 1905 with several of the top programs in the region to curb violence in the game. Stevens, which had already begun distancing itself from the sport, was not present at that meeting.

Ultimately, it was the violent nature of the sport that contributed to President Alexander C. Humphreys decision to abolish the program in June of 1925. The Ducks struggled through the 1924 season, where they suffered numerous injuries while scoring just three points en route to finishing with an 0-7 record. Stevens was believed to be the first school to eliminate the sport in a direct response to the modernization of the sport. 

In a statement, President Humprehys noted, “This change in the nature of the game has with us resulted in a large increase in the number of injuries to the players. A number of these injuries have necessarily kept the students so injured from their studies, so preventing them from graduating with their classes or threatening them with misfortune. To avoid the many injuries suffered by our players in this open game, our observations indicated that this game demands specialized physical development, and to this end, the players should be kept in special training the year round…All of this indicates a program that is impossible of acceptance for our students in view of the serious character of our course of study.”¹

Humphrey’s decision was covered by the Associated Press, with The New York Times circulating the AP’s story on Stevens abolishing football. Following Humphrey’s statement, Stevens withdrew from the 1925 season, which only had a confirmed game with St. Lawrence University on the books. 

Inside the Numbers 

• 5: Stevens was one of the first five college football teams in the United States along with: Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University and Rutgers University.
• 1872: The first year of existence for Stevens football
• 11/23/1872: The first football game in Stevens Athletics history. Stevens fell on the road at Columbia, 6 goals to none. The Ducks would go on to play Columbia a total of 17 times, which is the 11th-most games the Lions have played against any non-Ivy League opponent in their history.
• 10/18/1873: The first collegiate athletic victory in the history of the institution, the Ducks defeated NYU, six goals to one
• 52: Seasons, from 1872 to 1924
• 10/24/1891: Stevens traveled to New Brunswick to take on the Rutgers Queensmen in the first game played at Rutgers’ Neilson Field.
• 7: Stevens football posted its highest number of wins in program history in 1919 when it finished with a perfect 7-0 record. Stevens did not allow a touchdown and yielded only a safety and a field goal the entire fall
• 162: The most points scored by the Ducks in a single football contest. Stevens defeated City College of New York 162-0 on Nov. 3, 1885 for its most lopsided victory of all-time.

Stevens Athletic Hall of Fame Members

• Ralph “Swede” Carlson (’21) – HoF Class of 1990
• Leonard C.M. Bloss, Sr. (’20) – HoF Class of 2000

Fun Fact

• In the 1883 season, Stevens competed against the University of Michigan. The football powerhouse currently ranks first in the NCAA with 962 victories in their 140-year history. One of those wins, however, is disputed by some. According to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, “Michigan has always claimed the victory, but Stevens partisans claim the final score was 5-1 in favor of the New Jersey school. The referee’s confusion over the rules and several reversals of his own decisions led to the disputed claims.” The two Michigan student newspapers, The Michigan Argonaut and The Michigan Chronicle, both claim a victory for the Big Blue while the New York Times account of the contest gives Stevens as the winner by a 5-1 score. It is also worth noting that College Football Reference, part of the well respected “Sports Reference” network, lists the victory for the Ducks. 

Quotable – Jim Weathersby, College Football Historian

• “Stevens was involved in what I like to call, ‘The Wild West of College Football.’ All of these schools were playing by their own rules – it was more of a soccer-style game, maybe a mix of soccer and rugby, than what we know as college football today – the visiting team traveled to the home team and had to play by the home team’s rules; there wasn’t a unified set of rules.”
• “Stevens kicks off in 1870, and you had Columbia, Rutgers, Yale and Princeton; these powers from the Northeast, and Swarthmore and New York University would also field teams. Someone came up with the idea that since there were all of these schools playing with different rules, why don’t we try to standardize the rules? So in 1873, five schools (of the 11 or so playing at that time) got together at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City – Princeton, Yale, Rutgers, Columbia and Stevens – and made a valid attempt to standardize the rules: Scores could only be made only by kicking or butting the ball with the head across the opponents goal-line; Players can’t run with the ball; Passes can only be made laterally or backwards and tackling below the waste was prohibited. They also established something called the Intercollegiate Football Association to try and enforce those rules.”
• “In 1876, Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Columbia met, once again, to try and establish the rules. Stevens was not part of this meeting, which was also held in New York. They developed rules associated with those of something called the Rugby Football Union’s Code from England; Harvard, who was not at the meeting in 1873, was already playing with a similar format. There was not any mention, at least publicly, of what Stevens, and the other programs not at this meeting, were doing at this time.”
• “It was a very violent game during the early years, something that continued until the early 1900’s. People were paying players to go to certain schools and they’d leave mid-year to go to another school that would pay them more, classes were developed for certain developed strictly for football players, players were getting into schools they had no business going to academically, professors were asked to give players a passing grade, and alumni, fans and students were betting on the games.”

Special thanks to Scott Orgera, Jim Weathersby and Ted Houghtaling (Archivist, Samuel C. Williams Library) and Erin Lewis (Managing Editor of the The Stevens Indicator), who contributed to this story.

Facebook: “Like” Stevens Athletics     
Twitter: @stevensducks
Instagram: @stevensducks
#AllRise
 

¹  Associated Press (1925, June 11). President of Stevens Tech Bans Football; Blames Injuries and Lack of Studying. The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com