I may not have written it, but I found it via diligent research in the Alden archives years ago as a student. Therefore, I want to be appointed assistant to the Bobcat Bard, with at least half of his salary!
The 1897 football season, which produced the best record of any of the 19th Century campaigns, started with two straight losses—to Marietta College and Cincinnati. The team then reeled off seven straight with victories over Muskingum College, Dennison College, Ohio Medical University, West Virginia University, Otterbein College, and Marietta College. The home victory over WVU inspired a poem that appeared in The Athens Messenger and Herald newspaper.
And they came and they were conquer'd
With swift dispatch and ease,
And they felt that twinging sorrow which
In vain they could appease
Thought not that woe awaited them
Across Ohio's stream.
And like the poet found that things
Aren't ever what they seem.
And they came from fair Virginia
The place of Morgantown.
Where swift Monogahela flows
Past mountains looking down:
Proud and boasting came they hither
To wrestle for the goals
Which they found almost as quickly
As disembodied souls.
Badly battered left they homeward
In vain could they conceal
The awful havoc of their bucks
'Gainst O.U.'s pointed steel:
And they left here sad but wiser
Of many manly tricks,
For the gridiron here is hot
As Athens politics.
Last Edited: 4/17/2021 10:53:29 PM by OhioCatFan