Lehigh Football Nation

Going into the 1912 season, the Rivalry was at a point when Lafayette was a dominant force over the Brown and White. In an era where Princeton, Yale, and the Carlisle Indian School all competed for the top, Lafayette was right there alongside the top teams in the nation. And soon, Lehigh would be in the conversation once again as well. In 1911, Lehigh announced their seriousness to vault back into contention by signing four key transfers, including a future Brown and White hall-of-fame quarterback, QB Pat Pazzetti , from Wesleyan. "The Pennsylvania college is pulling strongly for a record-breaking football team this year - hoping to put one on their old rival, Lafayette - and is doing all in its power to get the athletes in the institution," The Lafayette reported.

It was common knowledge in 1893 that Lehigh was a rich institution. “[Our] forced economy in itself is a great hindrance to our success in athletic competitions,” a 1890s letter sent out by Lafayette’s alumni committee said.  “Our nearest antagonists - Lehigh, Princeton, Pennsylvania - are now so wealthy, that we, with our comparatively untrained teams, are at great disadvantage.  Our alumni all desire our success but few realize how much this success depends on them.” Thanks in no small part to Asa Packer ’s bequest to Lehigh of a huge sum of money and stock after his death in 1879, the University was the richest institution of higher learning at that time, surpassing, according to the New York Times, even Harvard and Yale. The vastness of Lehigh’s endowment was actually controversial. “In one view, the gift is the noblest one of the kind ever made,” the New York Times said of the bequest, “for it establishes the only institution - so far as we know - which gives ...

Lafayette dominated the early Rivalry, but in the late 1880s the tides turned dramatically, thanks to a play devised by the founder of Lehigh’s football program. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the origins of the play have also been disputed with a distinct Lehigh/Lafayette flavor. The “V Trick”, or “Lehigh V”, as it’s known in South Bethlehem, was a revolutionary play in college football at the time. It involved, on a kick resulting in a change of possession, to have the eleven men form a “V” with interlocked arms to direct the mass of the entire team against a hapless weak link on the opposition’s line, with the halfback running behind the rush line. This was especially effective after a kick, since the ten men would be able to run forward and get a head of steam going, applying their mass momentum to make larger gains.  To some, it was the basis of all the mass momentum plays that followed, such as the infamous “Flying Wedge” implemented by Harvard. Though it would ulti...

The same year Lehigh and Lafayette started their football Rivalry, the cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid down on Beldoe's Island on August 5th, 1884. In attendance at that event was the president at that time, Republican Chester A. Arthur , and Democrat Grover Cleveland , who would win the presidential election later in the year. In 1884, Mark Twain lived in a house just outside Hartford, Connecticut, a Victorian Gothic mansion where he and his family settled after he had penned The Innocents Abroad .  That year, in the upstairs billiards room, he wrote Huckleberry Finn . More local to the Rivalry, in that same year the city of Easton would get electric power for the first time in its history.  “Electric lights now burn brightly in Easton’s streets,” the Lafayette student newspaper noted, “and in many of her business houses and places of amusement.”  (South Bethlehem wouldn’t get electric streetlights until 1887.) It also would be year of the first...

Now I know, dear Reader, you're not sitting there on your smartphone or computer waiting with baited breath as to why - dear God, why - have I not been cranking out blog postings on a regular basis over the last month. But I'm going to tell you anyway. Over the last few years I have been working on a book. And the story of that book continues below the flip.

In the distance, a lawnmower is heard on a bright, sunny day at Committee headquarters.  The caps and gowns from graduations across the East coast are hung up on the hooks at the door.  Half-empty bottles of scotch, and a few Yuengling bottles, litter the conference room table. A knock is heard at the door.  A Committee member gets up from a pizza and beer-induced coma, and answers the door. "Package from Georgetown," the UPS guy says. The Committee member signs for the envelope, and opens it up.  It's the complete list of recruits for Georgetown's Class of 2018, complete with a plush stuffed Hoya. "Ah yes," the Committee member mutters to himself.  "It's May, and it's about the time that both Hoya football fans turn their attention to recruiting."

(Photo Credit: Justin Lafleur /Lehigh Athletics) At the University of Alabama they call it "A-day," and hold it in from of more than 76,000 fans. Head coach Andy Coen didn't brand Lehigh's spring scrimmage "L-day", and, well, there weren't exactly 76,000 fans who came to Murray Goodman Stadium on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning, either. Instead, though, the fans that came were treated to a pass-happy scrimmage that featured no tackling contact after the third series, thanks in part to the fact that Lehigh only suited eight linemen on the morning. It was a scrimmage that featured a whole lot of energy - and a whole lot of newness.