The Century in Sports, continued

The Gates Plan

If the revamping of athletic control at the University in 1917 was a bold move, the reforms instituted in 1930 by new President Thomas S. Gates W’93 L’96 Hon’31 Gr’46 were the equivalent of Columbus setting sail for the New World. For years, University presidents had struggled with the over-emphasis of varsity athletics in general, and in particular the widening philosophical chasm between college football teams and the schools they represented. Yet few had had the wherewithal to take decisive action until Gates, a former partner in J.P. Morgan & Co., tackled the 500-pound gorilla head-on with sweeping changes that sent ripples through campuses across the country.

The Gates Plan, as it became known, took control of all athletic functions from the Council on Athletics and placed it in the hands of a new Department of Physical Education, which would be accountable to the University administration, just like the math, chemistry, and philosophy departments. It also decreed that any coaches who weren’t already members of the physical-education faculty become so, and assigned them to assist in the development of intramural sports. The second and third floors of the training house, once reserved exclusively for varsity athletes, would host the student-health headquarters. A playing field was developed between the University Museum and Franklin Field, and other playing areas were studied for use by intramural teams. Student ticketholders were even given preference for center-field seats at football games. “Sports for all” had replaced “sports for the few.”

The effects were felt immediately. Student participation in sports swelled; the Gazette remarked in the fall of 1931 that about 800 students had tried out for the varsity, junior-varsity, freshman, and scrub football teams, while fraternities and dormitories were organized into leagues for intramural competition.

“The responsible college world knows that [President Gates] is right and will watch the Pennsylvania plan hopefully, looking to the time when in every educational institution in this country his leadership will be acknowledged and his example will be followed,” The New York Times wrote. The Philadelphia Inquirer predicted, “Eventually the rest must come into line. They will profit, of course, from Penn’s mistakes. Meanwhile they are paying heavily for mistakes they continue to make in their present pursuit of an aimless policy.”

Franklin Field: From Standard-Bearer to White Elephant

Long before the term “multi-use” became synonymous with the cookie-cutter designs of sports stadia in the 1960s and 1970s, Franklin Field, the brick-and-steel behemoth at 33rd and Spruce Streets, could lay claim to the title. Erected as the first horseshoe-shaped stadium in the country in 1903—and finished by non-union carpenters and “student volunteers” after union carpenters went on strike—at various times it hosted football, track and field, baseball, lacrosse, soccer, field hockey, and intramural sports—not to mention an al fresco production of Verdi’s Aida, military exercises for the U.S. Navy, and a large-scale Christmas tree sale. Weightman Hall, which closed the open end of the horseshoe at the west end of the stadium, was dedicated in December 1904, and featured a swimming pool, gymnasium, and locker rooms. The training house was completed by the fall of 1907.

As college football flourished after World War I and more and more fans found themselves turned away at the gates, the Gazette began its pleas for a bigger stadium, writing that “the athletic authorities of the University cannot delay until another year to find some method for enlarging Franklin Field.” It continued the drumbeat until the University board of trustees approved plans for a new stadium in 1921, and work began the following May with the demolition of the old structure. The finished stadium, which cost about $725,000, hosted its first game on September 30, 1922, though only 29,000 seats were ready for use. A crowd of 48,000 attended the official dedication a month later at the Penn-Navy game.

A prescient Gazette article noted, “At the rate interest is now growing in intercollegiate sports, particularly football, it may be that even this large field will prove inadequate for the football and relay crowds.” It took less than three years for the trustees to approve a plan to put an upper deck on the field and increase its seating capacity to more than 70,000, making it one of the largest college stadiums in the United States. Even that was not enough, as it turned out: For a game against Illinois and the legendary “Red” Grange in 1925, “100,000 seats would have been none too many.”

The tune had changed by the late 1950s, after the Ivy Group Agreement brought an end to big-time football at Penn and the University resorted to luring the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles in order to make up some of the revenue shortfall. “It is no secret that Franklin Field has long been regarded as a ‘white elephant’ and that it has been responsible for a large part of the annual athletic deficit,” Daily Pennsylvanian editor Kenneth W. Sehres W’58 noted in a column reprinted in the Gazette.

As football attendance dwindled steadily in the 1960s and 1970s, the Penn Relays, and track and field in general, became the biggest draw at Franklin Field. No structural renovations could improve the notoriously fickle Philadelphia weather, however. Legendary Quaker track coach Lawson Robertson is said to have muttered in 1931 while turning up his collar to ward off another spring squall, “These Relays started in 1895—and it’s been raining ever since.”

“The Barn”

With the basketball team beginning to outgrow the cozy confines of Weightman Hall by the early 1920s, the Gazette, as was its habit, sounded the call for a new athletic building “which can be used for indoor baseball practice, and which can also be converted into an auditorium large enough to accommodate the crowds which wish to see college basketball.” Plans were finalized five years later for an indoor arena, gymnasium, and swimming pool complex. The arena’s seating scheme, with spectators entering short ramps into the middle of a section so they would walk up or down to their seats, was termed “unique for this section of the country.”

Naming the new arena took a little maneuvering. The University Council on Athletics favored “The Colosseum,” while the board of trustees nominated “The Palestra,” a derivation of the ancient Greek “Palaistra” suggested by Dr. William Bates, professor of Greek. Bates had also considered “Ephebeum” or “Konistra” (the Greek equivalent of “arena”), neither of which exactly rolled off the tongue. In its report of the decision to name the building The Palestra, the Gazette wrote on December 17, 1926, “To those who wanted a name that would stick in the minds of the public, the committee believes that the new name will accomplish this.”

The cavernous arena, referred to by some as “The Barn,” opened for business on New Year’s Day, 1927, with a 26-15 Penn victory over Yale in front of nearly 10,000 people, “marking a record in basketball attendance for the Eastern part of the country,” according to the Gazette. In the 75 years since, excluding 1943 to 1946 when it served as a mess hall for Navy and Army personnel, the Palestra indeed has stuck in the minds of the public. The “ancient echo-chamber of horrors” for visiting teams moved writers to wax nostalgic as far back as the 1960s. Alan Richman called it “the University of Pennsylvania’s last link with the world of big-time amateur athletics” in a 1964 article that described the since-outlawed practice of rival schools’ fans unfurling derogatory banners during games. He also took jabs at Penn’s reserved fans, saying, “The trouble with the Pennsylvanians is that they lose interest in the game if the Quakers fall behind by more than five points,” and added, “They have the laziest cheerleaders in existence.”

Above: Franklin Field, newly double-decked, and earlier being used for military drills in World War I. Left: The Palestra floor was the site of an anti-war protest in 1969, a use likely undreamt of when this building sketch appeared in 1926.

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Copyright 2002 The Pennsylvania Gazette Last modified 5/02/02