Cornell-Ferris State In Progress

[Beeeej]

Somebody's archives must have correspondence that would confirm or refute the claims of invitations.  
The Wikipedia entry for Ivy League has a long discussion of the norigins and quotes Cornell's Rym Berry in 1936

I can say with certainty that in the last five years—and markedly in the last three months—there has been a strong drift among the eight or ten universities of the East which see a good deal of one another in sport toward a closer bond of confidence and cooperation and toward the formation of a common front against the threat of a breakdown in the ideals of amateur sport in the interests of supposed expediency. Please do not regard that statement as implying the organization of an Eastern conference or even a poetic "Ivy League". That sort of thing does not seem to be in the cards at the moment.

[Emphasis added.]

The most common and sensible explanation for that comment that I've heard is that West Point and Annapolis regularly competed in football with the eight eventual Ivies on a regular basis, and were therefore included in early discussions of the league, but nothing came of their participation.

[Jim Hyla]

I love it. We need to keep this game going till next October. It never ends, we never lost.

[Aaron M. Griffin]

Somebody's archives must have correspondence that would confirm or refute the claims of invitations.  
The Wikipedia entry for Ivy League has a long discussion of the norigins and quotes Cornell's Rym Berry in 1936

I can say with certainty that in the last five years—and markedly in the last three months—there has been a strong drift among the eight or ten universities of the East which see a good deal of one another in sport toward a closer bond of confidence and cooperation and toward the formation of a common front against the threat of a breakdown in the ideals of amateur sport in the interests of supposed expediency. Please do not regard that statement as implying the organization of an Eastern conference or even a poetic "Ivy League". That sort of thing does not seem to be in the cards at the moment.

[Emphasis added.]

The most common and sensible explanation for that comment that I've heard is that West Point and Annapolis regularly competed in football with the eight eventual Ivies on a regular basis, and were therefore included in early discussions of the league, but nothing came of their participation.

I have heard that too. I've also heard that Rutgers was included at one point because it had a well-established and heated rivalry in football with Princeton during that era. This explanation is often accompanied with the inclusion of Army and Navy, and the exclusion of Brown. That gets one to the total of ten. The late addition of Brown to the Ivy Group discussion lends credence to the notion that Brown might have been an afterthought at that time.

The famous quoted editorial that began the movement toward the current Ivy League states:

The Ivy League exists already in the minds of a good many of those connected with football, and we fail to see why the seven schools concerned should be satisfied to let it exist as a purely nebulous entity where there are so many practical benefits which would be possible under definite organized association. The seven colleges involved fall naturally together by reason of their common interests and similar general standards and by dint of their established national reputation they are in a particularly advantageous position to assume leadership for the preservation of the ideals of intercollegiate athletics.

The editorial ran simultaneously in the Columbia Daily Spectator, The Cornell Daily Sun, The Dartmouth, The Harvard Crimson,The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Daily Princetonian, and the Yale Daily News in 1936. Note the exception of Brown at this earliest stage but the inclusion of all other current members.

[Aaron M. Griffin]

So now Union's coach, Bennett, is a finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award, otherwise known as national coach of the year. Since their former coach won it last year, it only seems fair that he gets it this year.

He might have been nominated but he didn't win.

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