Canisius College - Azuwur Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

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EIS TUBE WSWS - EPIQBRADY You can have your Chihuahas, Plranhas, Horned Frogs or lguanas. The best all-around athletic mascot in the business today has to be the beast adopted by Canisius- the Golden Griffin. -Steve Weller Buffalo Evening News This column is called Griffin On The Wing. This newspaper is known as The Griffin. Athletic teams at this college are referred to collectively as the Golden Griffins. This much we know. What follows is a history of how the griffin came to rest its wings here at Canisius. Let us proceed, from the known to the unknown. A griffin is a mythological beast, with a lion's body and an eagle's head and wings. Hopefully, this uncomplicated definition is not an unknown for any Canisius student. lAlthough, a number of years back, a freshman was under the mistaken impression that Griffin was the surname of some prominent alumnus who had donated money in order to have the teams named in his honor. Which, when you consider the Canisius scheme of things, was not an unreasonable assumption.l Perhaps the very best anatomy of a griffin's sporting utility comes from the continuation of Steve VVelIer's quote above: The Griffin is a creature with the head and wings of an eagle, which is partiotic: the torso of a lion, which gives the student body a feeling of securityg and most important, the changeable personality ofa chameleon, which keeps the coach from getting complacent. as as as THE LEGEND of the griffin predates Christianity, though our fabulous creature was to become a symbol in Christian art. The Canisius history-Canisius College: The First Hundred Years-pro- vides the following information: One of the high points of European poetry is that part of Dante's silver Purgatorio where, on the banks of the river that winds through the Earthly Paradise, there passes the Pageant of the Griffin. The Griffin of the City of God, which draws the Church's chariot of triumph, is a symbol of the Hypostatic Union in Christ of the two natures, human and divine. The bird part is divinity's incorruptible gold,' the beast part is red and white for humanity's flesh and blood lt is the most K i l 1 1 i augustly appropriate of symbols' and this haunting imaginative quality may be the reason why, of all heraldic monsters, the Griffin seems at once the nearest and most remote, the most incredible, yet most believably realistic. A case might even be made out for griffins being at least as easy to believe in as pteranodons and pterodactyls. What if there are no griffin fossils extant? There are pawprin ts of their making all over the world's major m ythologies. ln its pre-Christian time, the griffin carried very different connotations. According to the Britannica, in the natural history of the ancients, the griffin was supposed to watch over gold mines and hidden treasure. When strangers approached, the guardian griffins leapt upon the scavengers and tore them apart, thus chastising human greed and avarice. The legend of the griffin goes as far back as the fifteenth century before Christ. In classical mythology, the griffin was supposed to have pulled the chariots of Jupiter, Apollo, and Nemesis. During the Middle Ages, however, the griffin underwent a serious identity crisis. To some it was know as the emblem of the devil, and witches were said to have invoked the help of griffins to defend themselves against torturers. Still, the Christian symbolism has prevailed. -K' -16 -ll' THE EXACT circumstances under which the griffin flew to Canisius have never before been revealed completely. First, let us once again consult the Canisius history: Though the problems of when and where the Griffin began his reign as King Herald of the Canisius College Coat of Arms are not easily settled, the whence is easy to establish. Out Griffin flew to us from the prow of LaSalle's lost Griffon, U79 Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes, which disappeared after

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command the Frontier's imagination as, during the 1920's, the 1930's, and the latter years of the 1940's, the cleated warriors of the Little Three once had. Buffalo's uncertain autumn weather had also played a part. Generals Rain, Snow and Cold had brought Western New York College football to its knees. Nevertheless, those three decades had been glorious ones in local sports annals. Though football had been accorded intra- mural cognizance shortly before America's en- try into World War l, its first regular intercol- legiate schedule had had to wait until the aca- demic year of 1919-1920 when, with Hymie Bleich as pioneer coach, eight games were booked: Hobart, Hamilton, Rochester, Alfred, Bonaventure, Theil, St. Lawrence, Niagara. The decade in which America's sports mystique would be, overall, at its height was just begin- ning. Never again would the popular imagina- tion feel quite so unsophisticated an admiration for athletic heroes who, professional or ama- teur, were still thought of as contestants in an Olympiad rather than a gladiatorial arena. For a brief span, amateurs gained the popular affec- tion as they never had before and, most likely, never would again. The good genius who pre- sided over Canisius' sports destinies in these years was a professor of chemistry, Dr. James Crowdle, for thirty-three years Graduate Man- ager of Athletics. During this long period Crow- dle was responsible for two crowning achieve- ments. He was chief architect of the Little Three Conference composed of Canisius, Niaga- ra and St. Bonaventure, the most exhilarating sports combo the Niagara Frontier ever man- aged to put together. lTechnically, it was not a conference: but the association was, if any- thing, even more intimate than that of a con- ference.l lt was his shrewd judgement which, by siring the double-header basketball program, brought big-time basketball to Buffalo for the thirty-five years preceding the arrival of 1970's professional team, the Buffalo Braves. Four years before the twenties began, the coming cult of coaching personality was anti- cipated when the College retained its first for- mal basketball and baseball coaches in the per- sons of Ray J. MacDonald and Eddie Russell, former Montreal outfielder. Baseball, Canisius' first recognized sport - this happened in 1903 was to retreat before the advances, first of basketball, and then of King Football. It enioyed a recrudescence after World War ll, though hardly to the point of regaining its former primacy: and is still being played now. The golden age of Canisius basketball began with Earl Brown who provided the recruiting dynamic that brought the College into the mainstream of basketball's postwar advance. Brown was succeeded in 1947 by Joseph P. Niland, 1948-1953, number one in a triumvi- rate of young coaches, which would also num- ber J. Joseph Curran, 1953-1959, Robert A. MacKinnon, 1959-1972, John R. Morrison, 1972-1974, and John McCarthy, 1974 to pre- sent. Under their cool, intelligent tutelage Cani- sius teams became familiar staples in Madison Square Garden, reaching the N.I.T. final once and achieving a berth in NCAA play for three consecutive years. James Naismith had invented his game in response to the weather exigencies of Springfield, Massachusetts, where, as in Buff- alo, falls were brief and springs late. lt is one of the factors which has always rendered basket- ball the most viable of collegiate team sports in northeastern cities. One of sport's most potent allies is the sportsman's nostalgia for past feats, a human impulse satisfied by 1963's inauguration of the Canisius Sports Hall of Fame which, up through 1975, had installed thirty-nine members. Sport is also a sovereign cement for alumni relations. But there are tides in student interest, and one of the great unresolved problems of American college life is that of inducing student participa- tion on something more than a purely spectator basis. Counteracting the ominous signs of de- creasing student interest during the troubled sixties, there were two favorable portents in Canisius affairs. Student-initiated club foot- ball, simon-pure amateur and operating at a minimal expense, returned in 19665 and this year varsity football returned. ln 1969, through the comprehensive facilities of a magnificent new Athletic Complex, for the first time Cani- sius found itself in a position to realize the desideratum Harvard's great Percy Haughton once simply phrased as athIetics for all. It would be too much to say that all difficulties had been circumvented. Nevertheless, there was some hope that the delicate equipoise Canisius' ninth president, John B. Theis, S.J., 1898-1901, had enunciated in a Latin letter on January 30, 1900, was finally within reach: Ludos ration- abiliter restringimus. That is: We are keeping sports within rational bounds. On the other hand, a swelling tide of professionalism men- aced the old amateur mystique of sport as a liberating experience for body and spirit, one wherein love and need are one. Only the future will tell whether the Griffin, the Canisius totem animal, would succeed in his task of shielding a harmonious evolution of an athletic ideal for both varsity and intramural partici- pants. lContinuef p. 36l s tm f 1 .. 1. 1 'Kimura it rv-YV X154 A h-1.iQ.' 5 ,,g' ff- w r . 1 . f r-, ,iq . I 5 ,gVVur'.,l ., -vf-wr.-t-..i viii, lei 'full gr F -les--.1-1-tr--PEL' s N ,fer is 1. -.iq or ,,,,.,,- 4,., .. me I n 5.1! -' na. 1 .Q J lj, ' :. g ,SEI , A Q If ,' V '- A , . ,T ,Sl A ,ll Q.-' t f A 'til , i f . il9',..f . , ij 'fl' 5--'E 'si - ' 'Z - ' -'Q A W f -lf' ,Q 5. . 3.5.1. - NEFF! :T S I '1 ,iii wig. 'F If JJL' ,sk .- F. M - f' X j Vg- th .D s A L Y 5L '.hh'Qf .ll 1 f if 3 . P? Sai. 4' 1 'Q,,....'5 ,' ' lift- ' iv afggr ' - ff 'S K --1'-LB' ' , t 455,-nf Mi... ,K I rs X 'eq N gn, I V ., swan 'Em 5 I ,Q 1 1' 6-f Stk, L .M K 33 as ' I

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making a safe voyage from the Niagara River to the Strait of Detroit LaSalle's ill-fated caravel, the first ship ever built on America's inland seas, with its 45 tons and five cannon, had its beakhead adorned with a flying Griffin, and an Eagle above it, in honor of the two heraldic beasts on the armorial bearings of the great Frontenac. According to Edward L. Staton in the Courier Express Maga- zine of July 1, 1973, Rene Robert Cavelier de La Salle wanted to obtain the rich fur-bearing land of the west for France. Destitute of funds and knowing that New France would have to be the outlet for the rich fur region, La Salle allied himself with Count Frontenac, who was governor of New France at the time. It was in honor of Frontenac, his powerful business partner, that La Salle named his ship Le Griffon, as Frontenac's family Coat of Arms had a griffin in it. The Canisius history illuminates: lt is one of history's minor ironies that he lLaSallel should more than once have said of his Griffon that, through it, he would make Frontenac's beast-insigne fly above Loyola's Wolf and Kettle. LaSalle had been Jesuit-educated, but later was at odds with them over policy in New France. 4 as X LaSALLE was among the first white men to see Niagara Falls: and it was the same mighty Falls which caused him great prob- lems in building his ship. A seven mile portage was required to carry the materials past the Niagara to an impromptu boat harbor up the river. It took three months to finish the vessel, which was a rough product at best. The ship reached the Strait of Detroit successfully, and it was loaded with 12,000 pounds of furs. However, it disappeared without a trace on its return trip. Staton elaborates: What happened to the Griffon has long been a matter of speculation. LaSalle believed that the pilot and the sailors scuttled her... Among the Jesuits there was the belief that the Griffon was driven ashore by a gale and the crew was murdered and the vessel plundered by lndians. llt is nonetheless clear that Canisius always intended to spell the word with its lN ending, despite the implications from time to time that the French ON suffix would be more proper. Fr. Clayton Murray, the College Archivist, has addressed that ques- tion. Would those who were searching for a symbol have taken as such a ship which floundered in a storm on its maiden voyage? Hardly an inspiring symbol. The animal, on the other hand, is a symbol of courage and vigilance. Fr. Murray also points out that one can conceive of many animal griffins, while, if the members of the teams owed their name to the ship, they would better be called Griffonauts. The Canisius history also deals with the problem of griffins in the plural. One must say a Griffin, since, unlike the Phoenix, there is more than one at a time, even though it is not yet settled what their collectivity should be called. On the analogy of flight of eagles and pride of lions, one might suggest a flourish, a rally, a gathering, even, in view of their implacable faces, a masque of griffins. -X' -K' -K- K .Ku J 7 ,, The LaSalle Medal marked the first official appearance of the Griffin at Canisius. lN ANY case, the appearance of the Griffin at Canisius has been shrouded in as much mystery as the disappearance of the Griffon on the Great Lakes. We know that it was in 1932 that Canisius first cast its La Salle Medal, which has been given out at every Commencement since. We also know that the first student honoree was Charles J. Wick, and that the second was Charles A. Brady. The suggestion for placing a griffin on the medal was very likely made by Fr. Harold C. Gardiner, S.J. We know further that the medal marked the first official appearance of a griffin at Canisius. We said at the outset that we would go from the known to the unknown. All of the foregoing was, in one form or another, known. Let us proceed to what has been, up to now, an un- known: how was it that the La Salle Medal, with its griffin, came about at all at Canisius? In the November, 1931 edition of a now-defunct journal, the Canisius Monthly, a short story entitled The Foot That Went Too Far appeared. The story was the first in a series of Frontier Vignettes which the Monthly started in order to commemorate Buffalo's one hundred yearsasacity. According to the Monthly itself, the Frontier Vignettes were designed to bring home, in some small degree, the wealth of modern Buffalo's historical heritage. lt may be regarded as a small part of Canisius College's contribution to the coming centennial. 'K' 'X' -X- THE STORY concerned the life of La Salle, and included a section on the building of the Griffon. Witness this passage from the story: A ship was gallantly beating up the Niagara River, against the head winds, a ship that carried two tall topmasts, and five guns, 'two were of brass and three Harquebuze a crock,'and it flew the white Bourbon flag. From the beak started that winged Griffin which was borne in the arms of Frontenac. And faithful Tonty was on the deck. La Salle's eyes were wet. Something of his heart's blood had gone into shaping that craft, during those long black months between his driving of the first bolt, midwinter, and today when she sailed her maiden voyage. Rene Robert Cavelier had built his boat the Griffon. It seems certain that this piece of historical fiction, which contains the first reference to a griffin here at Canisius, stirred imaginations on campus. For it was only six months later that the La Salle Medal was instituted. Clearly, the medal was a direct reflex of the short story. There then followed a chain reaction. The first place that the Griffin alighted was on the Masthead of this newspaper. Soon thereafter Canisius teams began to be re- ferred to as the Griffins. The Canisius history continues: For Canisius athletics the Griffin totem provided as sovereign a gold- plumaged aegis as the gold-tasseled, goat-shaggy shield of Zeus himself, a protective relationship that first began before the middle-thirties. Once the Griffin had been loosed at Canisius, it was here to stay. But it was the short story which provided the spark. Says the author, It was just one of those serendipitous things, a felicitous occasion, a gracious chance. The Canisius Griffin was born in the November, 1931 Canisius Monthly. There is a very good reason why the existence of this historic short story has been till now unknown, why it was ignored in the Canisius history. The authors of Canisius College: The First Hundred Years and The Foot That Went Too Far are one in the same man, Charles A. Brady, an English professor here at the Col- lege. lt was out of a sense of excessive modesty that Dr. Brady neglected to tell of his short story in his history. But l can get away with it. Because the guy happens to be my father. Editor's Note: This column has been reprinted from an October edition of The Griffin because of its relevance to the theme and Dedicatee of this book.