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

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'The faculty, 3 little stuffy towards this remark, gave the following punishment to Mr. May: He could only keep liquor in his room if it was four feet above the ground, and that after a certain hour he would have to retire, and after which he may not touch the floor to retrieve any liquor; it was meant to keep Mr. May to a limited amount of indulgence. This punishment was later removed; it was de- cided not to interfere with Mr. Mayls habits. This decision was brought about because of the ingenuity of Mr. May. To circumvent his punishment, Coleman took a mule into his room, put a bottle of liquor on the mantlepiece, tied the rnule to his bed-post, and got into bed. When he felt thirsty, he untied the mule, mounted from his bed, rode to the mantlepiece, took a drink, rode back, tied the mule and got into bed. He did this repeatedly with his feet never touching the floor? Phelps spoke up at this point saying iiVVell, Cleghorne, you talk about students drinking here but you don,t hear too much about the old time faculty boozers. One of the deans had an impressive reputation for nipping whenever he got the chance. As he was short on secretaries, he hired a student to work part-time in his oilice. One afternoon the student assistant came barging in just as the dean was pulling a flask out of his desk drawer. Not in the least taken aback, the dean exclaimed, iBest damn hair tonic in the world; as he vigorously rubbed it into the few remaining hairs on his head? After this story Phelps came out with a loud laugh and slouched back into a listening position. Cary Randolph seemed to take this gesture as a cue. As he stood by the roaring fire he boasted that the incident of whiskey on the Deans head couldnlt match the time bourbon anointed the noble skull of the President of the United States. uLate one November, President Coolidge was witnessing a heated Virginia- Carolina brawl on an unusually cold afternoon. Fellowship and ferociousness, however, were not enough to combat the bitter forces of Old Man Winter, and some of the Virginia partisans were forced to take stronger measures. With only seconds remaining a guy named Swyback scored for Carolina to win the game. The play was run on fifth down, and the ball carrier stepped out of bounds in the process of scoring, but the final score stood. The Virginia fans erupted, Coolidge was hit in the head by an errant bottle, and the Carolina football team barely escaped to its dressing room without loss of limb. Recently, fans of other schools have been known to throw unopened beer cans, but let it be said that VVahoo fans have never been known to hurl an unemptied container. You might be in- terested to know that this scene took place during the prohibition era? nIs that right? Thatis amazing? For the first time that evening Fletcher showed some sign of life, and, as everyone in the room well knew, these stirrings 0n Fletcherls part were induced by that magic word iifootball. iiYou know, I re- member reading somewhere that football, as we think of it, was first played at the University around 18873, : Yeah, Fletch, is that something that all the grant-in-aid boys have to learnPT, Vanderslice remarked with a sardonic smile. Nevertheless, F letcher continued undisturbed. uBut the games were not very popu- lar with the student body. Realizing a dire need for some sort of stimulus at this stage, a guy named Leny from the Law iDepartment, suggested erecting:r a wall around the playing field and charging a gate fee. Sure enough, curiosity soon won the day, and a marked increase in attendance guaranteed the games future status. About a year later an athletic association was formed to organize and to coordinate the different sports activities. Leny deservedly was made its president. It was at this juncture that Virginia athletes first began wearing the orange and navy bluef'

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was hungry, and then she reached into this shopping bag she had with her and pulled out a container like they give you when you take out stuff at a delicates- sen. She also had a little plastic spoon, and when she took the top off the contain- er, she started eating cole slaw. Hell, there must have been a pound of it. She saw me watching and offered me some. lCole slaw is very good for you, young man, and it also gives a nice shape to your legsf she said to me. I told her to for- get it, that I was happy just watching her. Well, and by now I was looking for an emergency escape window, she finished the cole slaw and started to 'chew on the container. I thought that by the time we got into D.C. she would have eaten the whole thing . . . I,Ve had nightmares about that woman ever since? IiPhelps, if there is anyone who can throw the bull more excessively than you, Yd have to hear him to believe itfl Martin chuckled. uOne look at Phelps and you can tell he does many things to excess? H.T. snickered. Bob Fletcher, always the great Habless defender of flab, added, IiWell, that mid- dle-aged bankeris body of his has gotten more lovin, than most of us dream of. Charlottesvillels version of King Faroukfl uI guess this Mid-VVinters we wont have to worry about Rhett Cleghornels ex- cessiveness. Do you have the strength to lift that whiskey sour, or are you just going to hold it all night? Martin Vanderslice asked Rhett. Rhett turned with a scornful look and said, Since I plan to be a member of the faculty here, it has been one of my major interests to learn of some of the traditional attitudes of the faculty. As a matter of fact, excessive drinking on party weekends deeply worried our saintly faculty of old. The once extant Virginia Temperance League imposed upon any University student seen and reported drunk in public a fine of one dollar for his first offense. Consequent offenses brought progressively larger assessments until a persistent violator might stand to lose as much as a hundred dollars on his fifth offense tCod forbid that there ever be such a reprobatel This scheme soon proved ridiculous since clandestine drinking continued nonetheless. So the administration, with the Temperance Leagues endorsement, decided to abandon the fine and simply make all University sponsored dances ipledgedl af- fairs. This meant that no one who had drunk anything alcoholic after noon could attend a dance that night. IVhen you entered the dance floor, you were in es- sence pledging not to have imbibed that afternoon. The dances L..;ually lasted until 6:00 A.M., after Which everyone migrated to a delightful breakfast at the Southern Railway Station. This limited consumption is far more preferable to todayIS horror shows with which I am sure you are thoroughly familiar, Vanderslicef IiTherels no doubt about it, Rhett, you should have been a pedagogue in an ear- lier era. For instance, I can just see you meting out to Coleman May, a young man whose case is an archetype of faculty ridiculousness. I found, while trying to avoid studying in the Library, that in the 1840s a young man, Coleman Chrisholm May, Esq. was brought before a committee of the faculty for certain of his habits. The dialogue as it read in the minutes went much as follows: ii IMr. May, we hear you have been drinking too muchf I WVell, professor, itoo much is a relative term. As a matter of fact, my doctor prescribed whiskey for my healthf I Have you found it beneficial, Mr. May? It Very much so, professor. A month ago I ordered a carton of whiskey delivered to my room on the West Range. It took the help of three husky slaves for me to carry that carton into my room, and now I can lift it all by myself

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iiI believe you are sadly mistaken? chimed in Rhett Cleghorne. 8The true story about the school colors dates from 1888. Before then, gray and red, representing the Confederacyis gray, dyed by her heroes, blood, had been the Universityis col- ors. In 1888 the question of colors came up at a student meeting, and the colors were very arbitrarily chosen. It seems that one student pulled a striped silk handkerchief from another studenfs neck and waved the handkerchief with the suggestion that its blue and orange stripes be adopted as the Universityis colors. The suggestion was enthusiastically approved, and the good old colors, began their reign. The silk handkerchief responsible for the choice had been bought at Oxford as part of a boating outfit, so that the gentlemen of Virginia are indirectly indebted for the good old colors, to the boating habits of the gentlemen of Oxford? iiWell, that may be true, replied Fletcher, iibut let me tell you another story I heard of one of the early Virginia-Washington and Lee baseball games. Virginia had been the Victor in the last contest the two teams had played, and the Cava- liers offered to let W8IL seek its revenge. A big crowd was in attendance, of course expecting to see the acknowledged superiority of Virginia prevail once more. The Lexingtonians were Erst at bat and were quickly dismissed. Then Vir- ginia lined up her heaviest hitters to begin the annihilation. Strangely, at the same time W8IL began laying all the bets they could in an unexpected show of confidence - 0r foolhardiness. Of course, U.Va. men have never been known for turning down a bet on a sure thing. So they pulled out their coins, too. Virginia batters took to the plate and swung - three strikes! And so it went all afternoon for Virginia. Finally the game ended, 12-0, in favor of WESIL, and the fallen Vir- ginia team paid their debts. Only then did they learn that they had been witness- ing their first exhibition of the icurved ball: only recently discovered and itil then unknown? Martin Vandersliee said with the hint of a sneer that Fletcher failed to notice, iiThatis certainly groovy. Do you have another one to tell us?,, iiAs a matter of fact, my cousilfs father, who attended the University and was graduated in 22, related to me a great story concerning the Virginia-North Carolina football game of 1921. It was his fourth year, and as a member of the team, this Thanksgiving Day game was to be a very big event, indeed, in his college career. However, the game almost never came about and, moreover, was not such a big event after all. It seems that North Carolina that year had ac- quired a certain Bill Fetzer as the new head football coach. Fetzer the previous year had coached at Davidson and had had with him an outstanding back, Red Johnson. And as he moved to take the position as head coach of U.N.C., it seems that he also brought along Red Johnson, who, under the Southern Conference rules, was not eligible at U.N.C. until he had been there for a year. HOWever, Carolina thought this fact to be of minor importance so it proceeded to use Red anyway. ttPresident Alderman was informed of this, but stated he was certain that Caroli- na would not use Red against Virginia on Thanksgiving day. Nevertheless, Presi- dent Alderman, a. prudent man in all respects, dispatched a Carolina alumnus, Dean Ivy Lewis, to oflicially state Virginia,s objections to Red Johnsonls playing. The Carolina people, also very prudent, realizing that they were out to win the football game, politely informed Dean Lewis that Red Johnson had played the whole season, and they would not remove him from the Virginia game. Upon hearing this, President Alderman promptly cancelled the game. ttThe football squad, under the leadership of Captain Hillis Rinehart, met at the Cornerf It was the consensus that Virginia had waited too long, and the game should be played. A committee was appointed to visit one of the local banks and