University of North Carolina Athletics
Woody: In the Beginning...
September 8, 2000 | Football
Sept. 8, 2000
Carolina has played Virginia more times--104--but Saturday night in Winston-Salem, Carolina and Wake Forest will stage the 97th renewal of the oldest college football series in North Carolina.
The Tar Heels--that wasn't their nickname in those days--played the Deacons for the first time on Thursday, October 18, 1888, at the State Fair in Raleigh. (And, I wasn't there to call the play-by-play!) That was more than 20 years after baseball had been introduced on southern campuses, and more than 10 years after football was first mentioned in Chapel Hill.
The sport, which was a modification of English rugby, became a campus craze. It was played every afternoon on the athletic field (near the site of Bynum Hall), once the money had been raised to purchase a $4.00 ball. The ball was round and about the size of a basketball. To score a goal, which counted two points, the ball had to pass between the goal posts and touch the ground behind. Each goal consisted of two poles at each end of the field. They were 10 feet high and ten feet apart without crossbars.
Each player, and there were as many as 15 on each side, advanced the ball at his own risk. He could run with it, pass it in any direction or kick it on or off the ground. On defense, the opponents were allowed to do anything to stop a player with the ball. They could tackle, trip, push, block or clip from the front or behind.
Of course, the rough play led to many fights which interferred with the game, and sometimes stopped it completely until the issue was settled. It was settled by forming a circle in the middle of the field with the combatants inside. They engaged in a free-for-all and fist-to- fist confrontation. The dispute was always decided in favor of the winner. Afterwards, the game resumed as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
By 1886, the University Magazine described football as "the king of winter sports." Two years later, the players were seeking new levels of competition.
Charles Mangum (Class of 1891) was among those players, and in 1934, he wrote the following account:
"Early in October, 1888, the sophomore class, which happened to contain an unusually large number of athletes, challenged a team chosen from the other three classes of the University. The game lasted through two afternoons before the sophomore class finally won."
Flushed with this victory, the sophomore class had its team manager, DeBerniere Whitaker, challenge the sophomores at Wake Forest College, then located in Wake Forest, N.C., to a game of football. The challenge was accepted, the game was set for Thursday, October 18, 1888, at the State Fair in Raleigh.
"Many years later, Vernon Howell, a member of the Wake Forest team who played in the game, told me the conditions of the challenge were misunderstood, and their team was picked from the entire student body. The roster even included a druggist from the Wake County village. He was the type of man who would make a star fullback, and he put me out of the game.
"Mr. Howell had always thought that our team represented the whole University."
The Raleigh News and Observer put its game account at the bottom of the regular column on the State Fair:
"Decidely one of the most interesting features of the whole fair was the game of foot ball (two words) yesterday between Wake Forest and Chapel Hill, resulting in a 6-4 victory for Wake Forest. The game was exciting and was played by excellent teams on both sides. It was witnessed by a tremendous crowd. The players were uniformed and were a skilled and active set of boys."
Mangum thought the defeat was a chief factor in arousing a general interest at the University in football, and led to the introduction of the game before the college year came to an end.
In November, 1888, the UNC sophomores eagerly accepted a challenge from Trinity College (now Duke University) for a rugby game. A crowd of 600 turned out, with the gentlemen paying 25 cents and the ladies 15 cents. Carolina outweighed Trinity 156-150, but could not overcome Trinity's experience. UNC was beaten 16-0, but the boys had the best time.
Nevertheless, they were distressed by two losses in their first season, and were determined to make up for it in 1889 after the formation of the North Carolina Inter Collegiate Football Association. The students in Chapel Hill raised funds to hire a coach, and Hector Cowan came down from Princeton in February to teach the game. He stayed only one week, but for two days President George Winston excused the entire team from classes.
The training paid off. On March 1, 1889, at Raleigh Athletic Park, Carolina, showing off its newly acquired skills, defeated Wake Forest 33-6. It was the first intercollegiate football victory in the history of the University.
