Lehigh University - Epitome Yearbook (Bethlehem, PA)

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first play for Mustard and Cheese, Mary, the Child of Misfortune , a highly successful burlesque melodrama. He played football in its earliest davs at Le- high, and his account of the sport at that period, which appeared in the Lehigh Quarterly of 1891, speaks of Jake Robeson, the father of football at Lehigh, and the first game ever played here: J. S. Robeson, ' 86, or ' Jake Robeson, is the father of football at Lehigh. He had played the game at the Germantown Academy, and it was due to him that it was taken up in South Bethlehem. It was he who induced the Sophomores of the University of Pennsylvania to send their eleven up to play an eleven from ' 86 on December 8, 1883, and it was he who captained the Varsity team the fol- lowing year. This game with the 86 eleven of LT. of P. was the first game played at Lehigh, and though it was raining at the time and the grounds were covered with eight inches of mud, over 300 spectators came out to see it played and stood through it until the end, which was a victorv for the visitors bv a score of 16-10, There was no grass on the athletic field then, nothing but rocks, tin cans, and a soft quicksand of mud. As the Lehigh Sophomore team had never .played before, their jackets were as white as when they came from Geisendar- fer ' s shop, where they had been patterned after the only one in the college, one owned by Robeson, and of which we were all very envious. It was so muddy that the players feet actually became fast in it, and ' Bish Howe, the other half back, called pathetically every few minutes, ' Don ' t pass that ball to me, Jake; I ' m stuck in the mud and I can ' t get out. ' When the varsity took the field in 1884 and challenged all comers, Rolieson, Knorr, Bradford, and C. B. David were the only men who had played the game before, and in the first match with Lafayette, which was the first University game played by Lehigh, the other seven men had learned what little they knew about it in three weeks ' practice on the class elevens. We elected Robeson captain, chiefly, I think, on account of his possessing the real footljall jacket before mentioned, and practiced daily on the stones and broken bottles of the athletic grounds. Then we prevailed upon the college to pay S52 for eleven brown and white jerseys, and then we thought what we did not know about the game was not worth learning. With this idea we went down to Easton and played the first of those memorable games which year by year became just so many triumphs for Lehigh until she now can afford to leave Lafayette out of the regular schedule and telegraph her for a substitute game whenever another team fails to fill a date. But it was not that wav then. The score of that first PICTURE: Packer Memorial Church. The chapel, erected in 1887 and dedicated to the founder of the University, was the gift of his daughter, Mrs. Mary Packer Cunimings. ■17-