User:A Texas Historian/Sandbox 4

The history of football at the United States Naval Academy begins in 1879, when a squad of twelve cadets challenged a team from the Baltimore Athletic Club to a game. During the nineteenth century, teams from the academy participated in 104 games over nineteen seasons, amassing a total of sixty-eight wins. The Naval Academy remained independent of any football conference the entire time. The school appointed a total of seven coaches during this time, with only one holding the position for more than one season. While early games were likely played on unused drill fields, starting sometime around 1890, Worden Field officially began to serve as the team's host facility.

In its inaugural season, the Naval Academy football team, captained by William John Maxwell, played a single game, which ended in a tie. After the game, football at the academy went on a two-year hiatus due to lack of support from the school's supervisors. The sport returned to the school in 1882, when player-coach Vaulx Carter led a squad to an 8-0 victory...

Background and first year
It is widely believed by football researchers that the playing of intercollegiate football began in November 1869, when a player at Rutgers University challenged another player at the nearby College of New Jersey (now Princeton). The contest more closely resembled soccer, with teams scoring by kicking the ball into the opponent's net, and lacked a uniform rules structure. The game developed slowly; the first rules were drafted in October 1873, and only consisted of twelve guidelines. Even though the number of teams participating in the sport increased, the game was still effectively controlled by the College of New Jersey, who claimed eight national championships in ten years. Only Yale presented any form of challenge, claiming four national championships in the same time period.

According to biographer C. Douglas Kroll, the first evidence of football at the United States Naval Academy came in 1857, but the school's cadets lost interest in the game shortly afterward. The first occurrence of serious interest in the sport came in 1879, when a squad of twelve cadets challenged men from the Baltimore Athletic Club to a contest. The team was captained by William John Maxwell, lacking "official" support from all academy supervisors. The team was student operated, and supported by the friends of the players. Maxwell, who was set to graduate in 1881, organized the contest, which was played on December 11, apparently on the cow pasture of the Naval Academy Superintendent. The Baltimore American and Chronicle newspaper described the game in its December 12th edition. It stated:
 * The game, played under rugby rules, was a battle from beginning to end—a regular knock down and drag out fight. Both sides became immediately excited and the audience was aroused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by the spirited contest. The ball oscillated backward and forward over the ground without any material result.


 * The scrimmages were something awful to witness—living, kicking, scrambling masses of humanity surging to and fro, each individual after the leather oval. If a Baltimorean got the ball and started for a run, he was unfailingly caught by one of the brawny Cadets and dashed to earth with five or six men falling on him.

The contest was described as a series of large scrimmages, with masses of players battling with each other in groups, with each side desperately trying to possess the ball. The Baltimore team would occasionally gain possession and attempt to move downfield, but the player with the ball was quickly caught by Navy and tackled by several players. It is reported by the Baltimore American that the Naval Academy team never gained control of the ball the entire game, which ended in a 0-0 draw.

Some time after the game, Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football", credited Maxwell as the inventor of the first football uniform. After he was informed that the Baltimore team he was playing outweighed his by an average of ten pounds, Maxwell looked for a way to make the teams more evenly matched. Using his knowledge of sailing, he decided to design a sleeveless canvas jacket which would make his players "difficult to grasp when they began to sweat". He presented the design to the academy's tailor, who created the double-lined jackets which "were laced down the front and drawn tightly to fit snugly around a player's body". The weighted suits were worn by the team, which was confused by the "strangle, heavy, newfangled getups".

1880-1884
After the 1879 season, football at the Naval Academy went on a two-year hiatus, due to a combination of support from school officials and the departure of William Maxwell in 1880. After Maxwell's graduation, as historian Ted Patterson put it, "there was nobody at the Academy to keep the football flame going". A renewed interest in the sport came in 1881, when several inter-class games were played at the academy. In 1882, second-year cadet Vaulx Carter formed a team, which he lead as both a player and the coach. He scheduled a single game for the season, which was played on Thanksgiving Day against the Baltimore-based Clifton Football Club. The Clifton team was made up of players from Johns Hopkins University, who were unable to play for their school due to the administrator's negative views towards the sport.

It snowed heavily before the game, to the point where players for both teams had to clear layers of snow off of the field, making large piles of snow along the sides of the playing ground. The field was 110 yards by 53 yards, with goalposts 25 ft apart and 20 ft high. The first half of the game went scoreless; the Baltimore American reported that "the visitors pushed Navy every place but over the goal line in the first half". During play, the ball was kicked over the seawall a number of times, once going so far out it had to be retrieved by boat before play could continue. The American described the second half in detail:
 * After ten minutes interval the ball was again put in play, this time being kicked off by the Cliftons. The rest period had apparently stiffened the Cliftons, for the Academy making a vigorous spurt got the ball thru them, and Street, following it up well, scored a touchdown for the Academy.


 * The try at goal failed, but the ball, instead of going to the Cliftons behind the line, fell into the field and into the hands of one of the Academy team. By a quick decisive run, he again got the ball over the Cliftons goal line and scored a touchdown.

Cadet George Washington Street, of Wisconsin, was identified as the first person ever to score a touchdown for the Naval Academy. The Baltimore Sun stated that William Abrose O'Malley, of Pennsylvania, was the cadet who caught Street's blocked kick and scored the second touchdown. The Sun also covered, in detail, the uniforms the squads wore; Johns Hopkins sported blue, black, and white striped uniforms, while the Naval Academy wore maroon and white uniforms. Both teams also nailed strips of leather to the bottom of their shoes to help deal with slipping.

The Naval Academy challenged Johns Hopkins again the next year; the opponents had procured the approval of their school officials and were playing under the name Johns Hopkins for the first time. The 1883 game, again played during the academy's Thanksgiving day athletic carnival, was a 2-0 victory for Johns Hopkins. Hopkins won the game on two single-point safeties, both of which were intentionally made by Navy to prevent a Johns Hopkins touchdown. Writer Morris Allison Bealle summed up the game as a "backed up" victory for Hopkins, due to its manner of scoring. The Baltimore American described the contest in a short article:
 * The game began in heat and discussion and ended in quarrel and wrangle. At one point matters grew so hot that the Hopkins team was about to stop playing. The Hopkins team had the skill and light weight; the Academy team the endurance and muscle. Paul Dashiell (of Hopkins) kept up his reputation as a fine player, one of his feats being a standing leap over the heads of the Cadet rush line.

Starting in 1884, all games that Navy played were hosted at the Naval Academy. It was not until the final game of the 1889 season that the Academy played an away game, when the squad traveled to Washington, D.C. to challenge the Washington All-Stars. According to writers Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Jamie Howren, all games played during that time were hosted on whatever parade or drill field was unused at the time, instead of Navy having a specific football-dedicated area. The 1884 season was the final one where the Naval Academy would participate in a single contest. The game, which was played entirely under the rules of rugby, was a rematch with Johns Hopkins. In the first half, Hopkins scored twice, on a touchdown from a Mr. Bonsall and on a two-point safety. Navy returned the favor in the second half of the game, when halfback Julius Dashiell, brother of Hopkins' Paul Dashiell, kicked a five-point goal and rusher David W. Taylor scored a touchdown to secure a victory.

1885-1889
After three consecutive single-game seasons, Naval Academy officials finally allowed the football team to play multiple contests in a season. According to Morris Allison Bealle, "Football at Annapolis had shed its swaddling clothes when the autumn of 1885 rolled around. Some of the faculty actually gave in and admitted that football might, at that, be or become an interesting diversion" so that year's squad was allowed to schedule three games. The first was played against St. John's College, also located in Annapolis. The game kicked off a brief rivalry with St. John's, which would conclude in 1911 with Navy winning eighteen of twenty-one contests. The 1885 match was a 46-10 blowout victory over St. John's. The second game of the season was the annual Thanksgiving Day match against Johns Hopkins. After winning the previous year, Navy fell to Johns Hopkins 12-8. The season concluded with the Naval Academy challenging the Princeton freshman team, a game which ended in a 10-0 shutout loss for Navy.

1890s: success
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Army
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Johns Hopkins
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Maryland
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Pennsylvania
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Penn State
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Rutgers
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Others
Georgetown, Lehigh, Princeton, St. Johns College, Virginia. To add.

Facilities
The first football game in school history was played on the cow pasture of the school superintendent. Following the two-year break after this game, writers Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Jamie Howren state that all of the games played at Annapolis during the 1880s were likely hosted on an unused parade or drill field. All but a single game during that period of time were played at home, the lone away game being played in Washington D.C. Starting sometime around 1890, Worden Field began operation as the main host facility for the team. The field, named for John L. Worden, commander of the USS Monitor, consists mainly of a large, open expanse of grass. Located on the western edge of the academy campus, bordered by the Severn River and College Creek on two of its sides, the field has a few bleachers on its south side, a band gazebo on its east side, and has been bordered by officer's quarters on two of its sides since its formation. People watching games on the field either were seated on the small rows of bleachers or stood around the out-of-bounds line on the field.

Culture and lore
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Coaches
The Naval Academy team went without a coach for its first season, instead being lead by organizer and captain William Maxwell. It was in 1882 that the program received its first coach, cadet and player Vaulx Carter. He had been born in August of 1863 and raised in Pennsylvania, entering the Naval Academy at the age of 17 in 1880. After two years at the academy, Carter reintroduced football to the school, leading the team to its first win; he never coached again afterwards, and is only listed as lettering in 1882. He graduated from the academy in 1884, serving as an officer in the Navy until September 25, 1886, when he resigned. After Carter left the team, the program was left without a coach for the rest of the 1880s, as well as the beginning of the 1890s.

The Naval Academy's second coach came in 1892, when Ben Crosby was hired to fill the position. Crosby was born in March of 1868, and was raised in New York. He entered classes at Yale University in 1889, where he was a starting right end on the football team and a member of the crew team. When he graduated from the school in 1892, he began taking classes at the New York Law School. He was hired to coach the Naval Academy team that year, leading them to a 5-2 record, including a 12-4 victory over Army, where his team presented him with a special trophy. However, while coaching one of the games, he contracted "a severe cold", which worsened into typhoid fever after he returned to New York. Crosby died of the disease on December 29, at the age of 24.

John A. Hartwell replaced Crosby as coach of the Navy team. Born in September of 1869, Hartwell was raised in New Jersey with a constant interest in science. He entered classes at Yale in 1885, majoring in biology. He participated in both crew and football, winning several class awards in his first year at the school. He entered the Yale Medical School, attempting to receive a graduate degree. He was named a consensus member of the 1891 All-America team and graduated from Yale with a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.). After he graduated, Hartwell continued working with his medical career, but stopped to coach the Lehigh football team. He led them to a 3-6 record before leaving. He returned to help out with athletics at Yale, before replacing Crosby as Navy's coach. He led the Naval Academy to a 5-3 record. He left and returned to Yale, coaching them for one season. That year, he led Yale's team to a 13-0-2 undefeated record and the squad was named national champions.