Will to Win

After 90 years, Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. had ample reason to be proud of itself. Named for Marcus Whitman, the missionary pioneer of Oregon Territory days, it had a fine old campus of broad lawns and red brick buildings, a small but earnest student body (770), high scholastic standing and a sprinkling of noted alumni (among them: U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas). Whitman took all that for granted. What it was after last week was a football team that could win games in its own league.

Whitman's football temperature had come to fever pitch a fortnight ago after the game with little College of Idaho (enrollment 495). As usual, Whitman lost (31-19). But what really stung Graduate Manager Frederic Santler was the gate receipts--only 158 paid admissions. For the season, Whitman had not only lost six out of eight games; it had also gone $4,000 into the red. Cried Manager Santler: "This marks the beginning of the end for Whitman . . . in intercollegiate athletics."

Fill the Bleachers. Whitman students disagreed. What the school needed, they decided, was more paying spectators to get more money for more athletic scholarships. The first step to that end was plain: fill the bleachers for the season's last game, with Eastern Oregon College of Education.

Led by Student Body President Art Whitman, a distant cousin of the founder, the students went to work in a rash of pep talks and rallies. At one rally, members of the faculty showed how they felt by turning up in football uniforms. Then the crusade moved into downtown Walla Walla (pop. 23,500).

Ten students invaded the weekly "coffee & doughnuts" meeting of the Boosters' Club, got the Boosters to sign for 1,500 tickets there & then. They plastered the town with signs ("Wanna see a college that's really on the beam? Fill the stands on Saturday and watch us back our team!"). Twice a day, they snarled traffic with their jalopies, peddled tickets to pedestrians and motorists. Each afternoon they had a six-piece band jiving in front of the Book Nook store. Covering every angle, they even patched the hole in the stadium fence so that grade-school kids could no longer sneak in free.

"A" for Appreciation. Walla Walla caught the fever. The Boosters' Club proclaimed "A" (for Appreciation) Week. The Chamber of Commerce switched the date of its annual "pigskin party" so that 250 high-school students from nearby towns could see the game. The Chamber's secretary and the town's health inspector rigged themselves up in turtleneck sweaters and knickers as auxiliary cheerleaders.

At week's end Whitman totted up the results of the crusade. They had sold over 3,000 tickets, almost wiped out their season deficit. The team had won its game with Eastern Oregon 48 to 20. And the Walla Walla alumni had promised to raise enough money to pay half scholarships ($175) for 20 athletes a year.

At New York University last week students were pining for the good old days (circa 1928) when N.Y.U.'s Violets, led by Halfback Ken Strong, were a team to be proud of. Chanting "We've had enough," 800 of them descended on the office of Graduate Manager of Athletics John E. Miller to protest N.Y.U.'s record in its first seven games (five defeats). Concluded a student council petition: "It is our honest opinion that return to big-time football will not only be beneficial to the university financially, but will also achieve the athletic prestige that is so important to a student body."

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