Harold Stassen and the Ivy League, continued

    In July 1952, the presidents signed what they officially titled the “Ivy Group Agreement.” Besides fleshing out the points they had agreed to in February, it created a Presidents’ Policy Committee having “full and final responsibility for the determination of all agreed policies of the group” and committed the presidents to meet twice a year thereafter to provide direction for the new entity. College presidents around the country hailed the announcement, though few expressed interest in imitating it.
    The practical effects of the spring-training ban did not become apparent for another year, however. Back when the other Ivy colleges had begun their boycott, Franny Murray had filled the open dates on Penn’s 1953 schedule with three national powerhouses—Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Vanderbilt —to round out a slate that already included California, Penn State, Navy, Army, and Michigan—a big-time schedule for big-time revenues. (“What the hell was I supposed to do, play Swarthmore and Drexel?” Murray later barked. “We had a good football team.”) No one, however, had bothered to tell Coach George Munger until a newspaper reporter broke the scoop a year and a half later. The coach bluntly told Stassen, “We can’t play teams like that with our material.” Stassen assured Munger that he would “have the horses.”
    By the time the 1953 season rolled around, though, Stassen was gone, having left Penn for a post in the Eisenhower administration. Then the NCAA surprised everyone by adopting a resolution offered by former Princeton coach Tad Weiman to end two-platoon football, which many had come to criticize as too expensive. Starting that fall, players would once again have to play both offense and defense.
    Over time, such a rule should have helped the Ivy League by reducing the number of good players a college needed in order to field a successful team. Its immediate effect, however, was disastrous. Players who had played only, say, the offensive line the previous fall would now have to learn how to play the defensive line as well, and quickly. There would be a scant six months in which to do this. But by banning spring practice and limiting fall practice, the Ivy League had cut its teams’ preparation time to just days.
    No one felt the effects of this change more than Penn, which was now saddled with one of the toughest schedules ever assembled. The Quakers would have little enough chance of beating these teams under any circumstances, but none at all when their opponents would have several extra months of practice in which to relearn the new game.
    Penn players, who recognized this as well as anyone, met among themselves to discuss what to do. On March 4, 1953, they sent a joint letter to acting University President William H. DuBarry, 58 members of the university trustees, and leading alumni, taking Murray to task for having assembled their schedule without consulting Munger. Although they expressed their belief that Penn should remain a part of the Ivy League, they complained that the University had set them up with a suicide schedule, against teams “to which we are vastly inferior in conditioning and organization.” Finally, they pleaded for permission to hold spring practice, even if it meant allowing the players to organize it on their own.
    Murray called the team together for what he called a “harmony dinner” but which was in fact a trip to the woodshed. Reading from a prepared speech, he first attacked Munger, and criticized the coach’s suggestion that the schedule be lightened by canceling Vanderbilt, saying such a move would be “a cowardly act.” Sounding like a tin dictator, Murray continued that “A coach has no more right to question my administration ... than I have to question the presidents’ undertaking.” He called the players’ petition “unfortunate” and suggested that they were quitters. “We’re here to help you, to try to get you off the hook in the impression you made on the general public.”
    As soon as Murray sat down, Munger sprang to his feet. “That was an unfair and unjust attack on a fine bunch of college athletes,” he leveled at Murray, in a rare show of anger. “The boys’ courage shouldn’t be questioned. ‘Off the hook’ could be applied more to our athletic authorities.”
    News of the feud leaked to the press, as DuBarry tried to finesse the situation by announcing that he was appointing the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice and dean of the Law School from 1948-1951 Owen J. Roberts L’1898 to undertake “a searching study” of Penn’s athletic policies. But without Stassen’s backing, Murray’s days were numbered. Two months later, Penn bought out the remaining two years of his contract, and eventually he went off to rejoin Stassen at the Office of Foreign Operations.
    A week later, Munger and his entire staff submitted their resignations, unwilling to supervise a University-sponsored massacre. Only after much pleading did he agree to stay on for one more year, before moving upstairs to become director of intramural athletics.
    All things considered, the Quakers performed heroically that fall, defeating Vanderbilt, Penn State, and Navy, and coming close against Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Army. It was Munger’s only losing season, but in light of their performance under such conditions, Penn football historian Dan Rottenberg C’64 suggests that the 1953 11 can lay claim to the title of the Quakers’ best ever.
    A year later, though, the bottom fell out. The Quakers lost every game they played in 1954 and again in 1955, their program decimated. When they finally snapped their 24 game winless streak against a mediocre Dartmouth team, fans sacked the Franklin Field goal posts.

Excerpted from Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession by Mark F. Bernstein, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Copyright © 2001 University of Pennsylvania Press. Reproduced with permission of the publisher.

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