St Xavier High School - Tiger Yearbook (Louisville, KY)

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l could be used when The names of Two young ladies, Carrie NaTion and Lizzie Borden, ap- peared in The newspapers. UnTil 1909 aThleTics played no parT in The school life aT ST. Xavier. ThaT year, however, a baseball Team was organized when The prin- cipal, Bro. James, finally gave his sancTion To sporTs. FooTball, baskeTball and oThers were soon To follow. Soon The wanT of a proper place To pracTice and play baskeTball led To The building ofa gym in 1915 on The siTe of The old school building. IT was The biggesT and besT in The ciTy. FuTure Tiger aThleTes were To make ST. X The home of champions. In 1926 X won iTs firsT sTaTe baskeTball TiTle, defeaTing Danville, 26-13. Since ThaT year The school has amassed a sTaggering ToTal of fifTy-six cham- pionships and Two NaTional CaTholic crowns. However The real purpose of a high school was noT forgoTTen, and ST. X conTinued To Take seven-league sTrides in The field of educaTion. The arrival of a new principal, Bro. Benjamin, in 1917, heralded some changes. FirsT he made LaTin, which had been opTional, compulsory, and Thus esTablished ST. Xavier as a sTricTly classical school. Secondly, he decreed ThaT The school would funcTion for high school sTudenTs only, before iT had included every grade from The primary To college level. Then came Jack Dempsey and Mary Pickford and a flying machine known as The SpiriT of ST. Louis. All The sTudenTs were humming Over There, and soon each had pinpoinTed in his geography book a place called Chafeau Thierry. BuT There were several oTher firsTs for The school in This decade. ln June 1924, The Tiger, The ST. X yearbook, was issued. The school enTered inTo inTerscholasTic debaTes for The firsT Time in 1926. Two years laTer The Xavier News wenT To press for The firsT Time. lT Ain'T Gonna Rain No More was heard by Charlie Chaplin, Barney Google, Al Capone and Babe RuTh. Jazz was popular. So was bobbed hair. And So's your old man! And Workers of The world, uniTe! One Thing ThaT wasn'T overpopular occurred on OCT. 24Th, 1929, when The Roaring TwenTies wenT ouT wiTh a whimper. ln 1940 The Tiger BoosTers came inTo exisT- ence. Their special aim: To improve aThleTics and aThleTic faciliTies. Bro. Edward Joseph or- ganized The Band ParenTs Club ThaT year. And The annex, disrespecTfully known as The dog- house, was builT. So was a new field house. On June 7Th of ThaT year we had The firsT Senior Prom. AT The sTarT of The school year in '41, The BroThers' quarTers became so cramped ThaT They purchased The former ConservaTory of Music on 720 S. Brook ST. for Their living quarTers. The school was also overcrowded 111481, so The BroThers used The CaThedral School for Two freshman classes. These alTernaTed every

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The first portraits of the graduates were not taken until 1874. But one interesting item occured on Sept. 3, 1883. The absentee rec- ords tell us that many were afflicted with sud- den but brief illnesses. The fact that Barnum's Circus' came to town that day was probably no more than a mere coincidence! In '84 the year of the Ohio River flood, the School day went from 8:30 to 1:00 with a short recess at 10:00. It was on July 9th of that same year when the Alumni Society started. It elected St. Xavier's first grad, Francis A. Mann, as its president. The young school boys of those days heard their elders talking about names like Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, and of the yellow iournalism of Pulitzer and Hurst. A man named Edison was soon to begin toying with the idea of light without flame, and a Mr. Ford had some crazy notions of a buggy without a horse. Cramped in their Fourth St. location and un- able to expand, the Brothers bought the New- comb estate in 1890. This property extended from Broadway to Jacob St. On Jacob, a brick stable was torn down and replaced by a build' ing which contained eight classrooms. But the gaunt old man with the scythe labeled 1900 was unceremoniously ushered out by a bounc- ing baby replete with banner proclaiming the arrival not only of a new century, but of what has become known as the Good Years. By 1900 a new building appeared on the lawn of the Newcomb estate. This was the new St. Xavier, and it included a gymnasium and a swimming pool in the basement. These were eventually replaced by science labora- tories and a cafeteria. This original building was a rather impressive one, consisting of six- teen recitation rooms, eight on each floor. On the third floor was the auditorium with a ca- pacity of 1200, it was the largest in Louisville. This, too, was eventually replaced by class- rooms when further expansion became nec- essary. The schoolboy who set out for 118 W. Broadway wore knickerbockers and carried his books slung over his shoulder with a leather strap. His mother could buy a shiny brass- rimmed bed for 353. His father went about the house all day grumbling about something called the CW income tax. The newspapers spoke about the Boxer Rebellion, the Big Stick and Bigger Business. The North Pole became an important part of his map, and he heard many stories about the different ways a hatchet BRO. JAMES, C.F.X. The principal of St. X for nearly twenty-five years. THE FIRST FOOTBALL TEAM-VINTAGE 1910

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Twenty days with two other freshman classes so that they would not lose the ST. X spirit. Disregarding The protests made by bigots, St. Xavier became The first school in Kentucky history to compete with a colored school. X played Central in football to a 7-7 tie. It was to be The beginning of a long and friendly re- lationship between The Two schools. Ensign Bob White Cclass of '391 was in a place called Pearl Harbor on a quiet Sunday morning on Dec. 7th, 1941. He was The first St. X alumnus killed in This second war-to-end- all-wars. Marine drill sergeants came to ST. X for The next few years to drill The Seniors in aeronautics. The Students became as familiar with ration tickets and victory gardens and war bonds, with fireside chats and synthetic rub- ber, as They were with The initials G.l. Their knowledge of geography extended To places called Corregidor, The Coral Sea, Dunkirk, The Aleutians, El Alemein, Normandy and Hiro- shima. After more Than Three quarters of a cen- tury of Trying to supply Louisville's needs for Catholic higher education, St. X welcomed The arrival of Flaget on Sept. 8, 1942. Trinity, De- Sales and Bishop David were soon to ioin The ranks. While The fuss' about the 380 Parallel was going on, St. X was continuing its educational leadership. In 1954 Bro. Thomas More inaugu- rated The Honor Club, Career Night, College Night and The Testing Program. With The old school falling apart at The seams, Bro. Thomas carried on The intensive ten-year search for a new home for St. Xavier. The best location possible was found to be on Popular Level Road. Work was begun, and on a warm Sep- tember day in 1961 The new, modern St. Xavier stood with its arms open, ready to receive new generations of Catholic youth. Passing into history were the anguished pleas from Hungary and the cries for indepen- dence from Africa. The shattering noise of the intercontinental and interplanetary rockets was to be drowned out by the roar of an assassin's gun on a Dallas street. But these are our times, iust as much as the Civil War was for the St. Xavier student of 1864. With such a wonderful legacy, St. Xavier has grown from a small school on The corner of 2nd and Broadway to a renowned institution of learning, keeping pace with the rapid growth ofthe nation. It has grown from a student body of fourteen to that of nearly fourteen hundred. The achievements of this school know no bar- riers or comparisons. Excellence is pre-eminent and Christian gentlemen are its students. Its alumni number among the greatest men of the state. In short the influence of Xaverian training and the fine tradition of the school have become inseparable from the education of its graduates. The memoirs and heritages of This century are ours, but they will only be called ours if we, too, as the others before us, build upon them and nourish the hopes and achievements of The next century of education at St. Xavier High School.