Queens College - Silhouette Yearbook (Queens, NY)

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and E THA5 October 6, 1940 was a red letter day for Queens College-we finally had a varsity team which brought home a trophy. We feel it Htting and proper to print the names of that famous squad of nine men who brought this first trophy-and the only one to date-that the college has gained in inter-school competition. It was Lou Kunin, George Aaron, Morris Grumet, Moe Altchek, Mel Klein, Milt Schwartz, Tom Thorne, Ralph Hein and Nat Ostreicher who won the championship in the Flushing Y.M.C.A. table tennis league. i Outside of this one departure Queens College has not been able to overcome physical limitations and turn out winning varsity clubs. Groups of men have formed A'clubs to play other schools, but the stu- dent body could never get too steamed up about them. Basketball and baseball have gained a certain degree of popularity, but if it were not for the weekly notices in the Crown few students would know of the existence of tennis, boxing, track, swimming, soccer, handball and golf squads. Some people have visions of the dim future when Queens College will have a stadium and gymnasium and crowds cheering great inter- collegiate teams. But the more realistic person munches his sandwich and walks over to 'Abehind E building to watch the Dead End Boys win another basketball game. 47

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ITRAS... March 8, 1940 the Crown ran a statement from President Klapper in which he outlined his stand on sports at Queens College. . . I am heart and soul for a general participation program that promises in generous measure all the educa- tional values inherent in a well balanced program of athletic activities. For reasons educational and related to our physical limitations, I am decidedly not in favor of a varsity athletic program with emphasis on inter-institutional competition . . . And it has been mainly a program of general participation at Queens College ever since. We find the school more interested in whether the Dead End Boys or Phi Omega Alpha will win an intramural basket- ball tournament than whether or not the varsity Basketball Club will beat Brooklyn Poly. We have seen President Klap- per's wish become fact as hundreds of men and Women enter the tournaments each season. The sports aristocracy lives in virtual exile as the people take over the enclosures. Participation in competitive sports is open to everyone on the campus-racoon coats, football heroes and high paid coaches have been replaced by tournaments in basketball, bowling, paddle tennis, ping pong, fencing, horseshoes, or softball.

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one 4 e the dm, Our first impressions of collitch life were somewhat dimmed by the usual torrential storms which we have since come to accept as a necessary part of the first two weeks of school each September. YVe trotted around docilely in the rain buying math books at 54.40 a throw and those Taylor tabloids that became obsolete faster than the Lockheed P40g saying yes, professor to George Hinckley and asking Dud Straus what his major was. Dean Kiely welcomed us ofhcially in President Klapper's absence and we all decided Madlyn Donnelly must be the College G.G. with her upswept hair and that plaid reversible. Those were the days when we all contemplated our Persian Rugs after reading Of Human Bondage and professorial idiosyncrasies were matters of reverence rather than contempt. lt was this same glad September that Queens acquired those legend- ary characters, those men of rhyme and song whose names are on the lips of all true Queens men - that blessed trinity W- Dr. Bradley, Dr. David and Joe Machlis who have been commenting and commented about ever since. October 26th we celebrated QCTS first birthday. Miss Gram, rising splendidly to the occasion, provided little birthday cakes with one blue 418