University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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i .fi ..- . f ,W s --, - .-.-, , rn- 1?--tw--psf,-aye, -,.3:,....-,af-,...,-,q A-.W r guna- .,-f-.. -- .,.. ..--r...i.. 1914 Qllnrks ann Qlurls 25i Under the Cardinal Red and Silver Grey By as avfzpae X DEDICATED t To the Cirls we loved, still love, and always will love. We loved the cardinal in thy sweet red lips, lflfe loved thee to thy dainty finger tips, Oh girl of Albemarle! For all thy gentle lfindliness, For all thy loving friendliness, And all thy dear sweet wholesomeness, We love thee siilll Oh girl of the olden, golden time, When the touch of that dear hand of thine Filled our hearts with rich, red wine, Oh girl of mine! Through the length'ning shadow of the day We pledge thee now, the same old'way, Thy royal crest, though silver grey, To love alwayl P the old red hills and down these sweet, green valleys of Virginia, one-half a century ago, tramped a team of athletes clothed in grey, bearing a blood-red battle Hag-men to whom the sting of death was but a triumph, and the grave a victory. They drank long, deep draughts from that sweet loving cup which death offered them, to uphold the altars of their gods. They laid them down clothed in the bloody grey of the Confed- eracy, and died for the sake of a sentiment and a principle. They chose death because they were men in whom the spirit swelled and surged and strained. Those who lived, lived to fight the harder battle of the two: They lived to meet with triumph and disaster, And treat those two impostors just the sameg Lived to hear the truth they'd spolfen Twisted hy lfnaves to malfe a trap for fools, And watched the things they gave their lives to, hrolfen, Then stooped and built them up with wornout toolsf, Some five thousand of these grey athletes sucked their strength from the breasts of this, their Alma Mater. Of these, some tive hundred 'between

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Holxinger LOOKING UP WEST LAWN

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26 Qlurks ann GIlZurl5 1914 Manassas and Appomattox took the lVlaster's Degree, and were crowned with its glorious immortality. The red bronze roll of these great graduates looks ,,,, down from the walls of the Temple M- to All the Gods for which they died, l V an everlasting mute reminder to those who walk these peaceful, pillared arcades, that once upon a time there were Men bred here. Two thousand five hundred are camped under the great bronze sen- try at the golf grounds, and if you are a Southerner you are sure to find your name, or that of your mother, in his care. Should you feel weak and spiritless, go, look at that sentry's face and at the grip of his two hands, walk around and look at his back and the way his head is set upon those shoul- ders, and then give thanks to Cod that you are one of us! The writer was asked to give some account of the athletic interests of the University of Virginia prior to the modern athletic system which had its in- ception in the late eighties. The period in which we are interested covers the years from 1861 to about l885. Of the first four years nothing further need be said, save for their influence and bearing upon the subsequent ones of this period, the remainder covers the twenty years following the War between the States. This period is roughly differentiated from that which follows it by the fact that in the first period the University of Virginia was attended by students who were almost exclusively the sons of the soldiers of the Confederate Army, while since then they have been the grandsons of these soldiers, and others as well. Immediately after the War, and, in fact, until about l870, many of the students were the young soldiers of the Confederacy, for it must be remembered that they went into the army as young as fifteen years of age. During the first ten years, from IS65 to l875, there was little opportunity or leisure for the existence or organization of any systematic form of athletics, The men who attended the University during these ten years had little or no money and less time to waste. Most of them remained only one or two years, to get as hastily as could be a little education, and then hastened back to home and work, to the reconstruction of ruined homes and fortunes.