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| The first mention of football at the academy in the December 2, 1857, Journal of the Officer of the Day. |
If you have watched any of 2019's college football games you may have noticed the "150" patch on the players' uniforms to mark the 150th season of the sport's storied history. On November 6, 1869, Princeton University (then called The College of New Jersey) lost 4-6 to Rutgers University on the field in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Coincidentally, the year 2019 also marks 140 years since the United States Naval Academy entered intercollegiate competition. On December 11, 1879, naval cadets (as midshipmen were called from 1870-1902) making up the Naval Academy's first intercollegiate football squad managed a scoreless tie against players of the Baltimore Athletic Club. The history of football at the academy is a long and celebrated one, and records in the academy archives detail the first 33 years of the academy's football history, predating the Rutgers-Princeton game and culminating in the formation of one of the school's storied traditions, the annual Army-Navy game.
The first recorded mention of football in Annapolis also predates the Civil War, and is found in the Journal of the Officer of the Day, the main record of all events and activities on the yard by the academy's watch stander organization. The entry for December 2, 1857 reads that on a crisp, 47-degree afternoon, "during recreation hours, the students amused themselves with a number of foot-balls; almost the whole Academy seemed to partake of this amusement."
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Journal of the Officer of the Day from December 23 and 27, 1862 showing the prohibition of football playing by midshipmen. |
Despite the apparent interest in the sport, football does not resurface in the official academy records until 1862, when the academy had temporarily relocated to the Atlantic House Hotel in Newport, Rhode Island due to the Civil War. During the course of one week in December, football at the Naval Academy was prohibited. The entry for December 23, 1862 records the promulgation of "an order prohibiting foot balls to be used in the house or in its immediate vicinity," while the December 27 has "an order prohibiting the playing at foot ball until further orders."
At the close of the Civil War in 1865, the academy returned to Annapolis, and Rear Admiral David D. Porter was appointed superintendent bringing with him an abundance of energy and a new focus on athletics. Sports became a part of the curriculum as had a Thanksgiving Day program of athletic festivities and activities including baseball, gymnastics, track and field, and rowing starting in 1867.
In this new spirit of athleticism, the old ban on football was apparently lifted. Hawley Olmstead Rittenhouse (Class of 1870) remembered "that around the year 1869 some progressive individual in the corps appeared on the drill field with a large round football. The game was simply a boisterous free-for-all kick fest in which shins suffered far more than the ball. There were no goal posts, no purpose in view except to get your toe on the ball. The ball was never out of bounds unless it went in the water or over the Academy wall. This, however, I believe was the beginning of Academy football."
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| Superintendent David D. Porter |
The game of football during this period, played in the "rugby" or "hands-off" style, was practically unrecognizable if judged by today's rules. The 1882 football coach, Vaulx Carter, wrote that "up to an including 1876, the game played was Association Football - in which the rules were few; Players could not catch or hold the ball, but must get it forward by other means - kicking, slapping, punching, butting, etc. The ball was spherical and of black-rubber covered material."
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Hawley Olmstead Rittenhouse
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The first attempts at organizing a football team were made by varsity baseball player Herbert Judson Robinson (Class of 1879) and William John Maxwell (Class of 1881). Maxwell was manager, trainer, and coach and routinely drilled his teammates both before the morning reveille and after formal training drills and meal formations. Maxwell even contracted a reputable Annapolis tailor, William Bellis, to customize for each player a sleeveless, canvas-style jacket, capable of being laced up the front and drawn tight about the body.
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| Navy's first football team, with coach Maxwell first from the left, consisting of 10 forwards, two halfbacks, one three-quarter back, and two wholebacks in 1879. |
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| Vaulx Carter (back left) and the 1882 Navy football team in their maroon stockings, caps, and belts with white canvas jackets with maroon laces. |
Maxwell wrote that football on the Academy grounds in the autumn of 1878 had "no organization and no opposing team to play with. Any individual was free to join in the game. Usually the gang would carry the ball by this method [the 'hands-off' style] from the 'Old Quarters' in front of Stribling Row to the then 'New Quarters' until the call for Mess Formation sounded and later we would carry the ball back to the 'Old Quarters' and keep the ball in play until the Study Call Sounded." Regarding rules and techniques, Maxwell later writes, "there was very little discipline in our team and [the] main idea was to down the ball if we had to and then the rest of the team would push the ball forward...we learned to kick, drop kick and punt, but never dreamed of passing the ball. The main things to [do] - were elusiveness, speed and cohesion and mass to push the ball on and keep hold of it if we could."
This team played Navy's first game, organized by Maxwell, against the Baltimore Athletic Club, a collection of college graduates who had played the game at Princeton, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins. The game was a vicious spectacle, according to sports historian Morris A. Bealle, who cited a contemporary article in the Baltimore American and Chronicle calling the game "a battle from beginning to end - a regular knock down and drag out fight...the scrimmages were something awful to witness - living, kicking, scrambling masses of humanity surging to and fro, each individual after the leather oval." Maxwell graduated in 1880, and because of the general lack of interest and support of the game by academy authorities, Navy's next game was not organized until Thanksgiving Day, 1882. This round resulted in a 8-0 Navy win over the visiting Clifton Football Club of Baltimore, representing Johns Hopkins.
Navy would go on to beat Johns Hopkins again in one-game seasons in 1883 and 1884. In 1885 St. John's College was added to the list of Navy victories, and over the next four years Princeton, Gallaudet, Pennsylvania, Dickinson, Lehigh, and Virginia would all play against Navy. On the evening of November 28, 1890, 16 naval cadets went on leave for overnight travel to West Point, New York, to play the Naval Academy's first football match against the United States Military Academy. Navy won, 24-0, and that game inaugurated the Army-Navy game, an integral element of the Naval Academy's tradition. The Journal of the Officer of the Day entry for November 29, 1890 reflects the jubilant atmosphere afforded by Navy's win over Army: "By permission of the Superintendent, at 7:45 the Corps of Cadets fired seventeen guns to celebrate the victory of the football team over the U.S. Military Academy football team." The custom of holding the annual Army-Navy game between Thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday grew out of the athletic contests held on Thanksgiving Day started by Admiral Porter in 1867. What most likely began as spontaneous moments of boisterous fun on the grounds has grown to be one of the most spirited of the Naval Academy's storied traditions.
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| Journal of the Officer of the Day celebrating Navy's victory in the first Army-Navy game. |
For more photographs of and information about the history of the annual Army-Navy football games see Special Collections and Archives' Army-Navy Football digital collection.
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| Formal photo of Navy's first football team from 1879. |
Sources
Bealle, Morris A. Gangway for Navy, the Story of Football at the United States Naval Academy 1879-1950. Washington, D. C.: Columbia Publishing Co, 1951.
Carter, Vaulx. Vaulx Carter to Commander Jonas H. Ingram, USN, Canaan, NY, December 27, 1929. Folder N-Club, Box 5, Office of the Commandant of Midshipmen: Entry 151h: Records of the Department of Physical Education. Special Collections & Archives Department, Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy.
Clary, Jack. Navy Football Gridiron Legends and Fighting Heroes. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
Maxwell, William John. W. J. Maxwell to Instructor Walter Aamold, Outpost Farm, Ridgefield, CN, September 26, 1928. Folder: Football, Early Years, 1869-1929, Box 7, Office of the Commandant of Midshipmen: Entry 151h: Records of the Department of Physical Education. Special Collections & Archives Department, Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy.
Rittenhouse, Hawley Olmstead. H. O. Rittenhouse to Instructor Walter Aamold, Annapolis, MD, January 11, 1939. Folder: N-Club, Box 5, Office of the Commandant of Midshipmen: Entry 151h: Records of the Department of Physical Education. Special Collections & Archives Department, Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy.
United States Naval Academy. Journal of the Officer of the Day. Office of the Commandant of Midshipmen, Entry 151d: Watch Logs and Reports. Special Collections & Archives Department, Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy.
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