Yale Bulldogs (1960)

I was wandering through a place calming to be Maine’s largest antique store (and frankly, I believe it; three LONG floors, plus an extra building next door) when I came across this:

A Princeton-Yale program from November 12, 1960, just days after former Harvard freshman footballer Jack Kennedy was elected president.

Alas, my scanner is on the fritz, so I can’t scan in the goodies from this 118-page beauty, but here are some of the highlights:

• A guide to the Yale Bowl that includes concession prices. Cokes were 15 cents, “pop corn” (yes, two words) 20 cents, hamburgers 35 cents. What, no avocado toast?!
• Depth charts and offensive formations. Yale used the double wing-T, Princeton the single wing, which was grossly outdated by 1960, but the Tigers still made it work.  
• Profiles of former Yale coach T.A.D. Jones and Princeton mentor Charlie Caldwell, complete with full-page team photos and results of each of their teams of yore (so the 1948 team has its own page with a team photo, scores and paragraph summary).
• And, since it’s the Ivy League, a profile of former Princeton (and U.S.) president Woodrow Wilson. Wonder if he ever called any plays to the sidelines. 

The information on past Yale teams is a real treat.

As for the game itself, Yale took a 43-22 decision (a wild score in those days) in front of 62,528 at the Yale Bowl in a battle of Ivy League unbeatens. I doubt Yale draws that much for a whole season unless Harvard comes to town. 

And now, a closer look at Yale. We’ll get to Princeton next time:

The Team: Yale went 9-0, outscoring its foes 253-73, to roll to the Ivy League title. The Bulldogs finished No. 14 in the AP poll and No. 18 in the coaches poll. I doubt Yale was one of college football’s 40 best teams that year, but the pollsters liked to put a token Ivy team in there. Yale also earned a share of the Lambert-Meadowlands trophy (symbolic of Eastern supremacy, meant a big deal then, but zilch now) with Navy.

The Players: Five of the all-Ivy eleven come from Yale: Mike Pyle (tackle), Ben Balme (guard), Hardy Will (center; great name), Tom Singleton (back) and Bob Blanchard (back). Back Ken Wolfe was on the second team. And the listing doesn’t differentiate between halfbacks, fullbacks, quarterbacks, H-backs or sore backs; they’re just listed as backs. Anyway, Singleton was the quarterback and accounted for 14 TDs (nine through the air, five on the ground) and Blanchard ran for 540 yards and eight TDs. Wolfe was the leading receiver with 18 catches (!) and four TDs.

Whether running or passing, Tom Singleton (right)
was always doing something. This is from the Yale Daily News'
photo spread commemorating the Bulldogs' season-ending won over 
Harvard, and the only time they wore their road jerseys that year.
All of Yale's other games were played at home.

Bob Blanchard works his magic against Princeton.

The Coach: Jordan Olivar went 111-63-8 at Villanova, Loyola Marymount and Yale and was 61-32-6 with the Bulldogs. The 1960 team was his second and final team to win the Ivy league and finish nationally ranked.

The Uniform: A little different than the classic look adopted later in the decade. The helmet has a number in lieu of the “Y” and the home jerseys have either gray or white stripes (photos  from that year show both). The road whites mirror the homes, only in reverse. 

The Aftermath: Yale tumbled to 4-5 in 1961 and 2-5-2 in ’62 before Olivar stepped aside (or maybe was pushed?) in favor of John Pont, who lasted only two years before he left for Indiana and took the Hoosiers to the Rose Bowl (yes, I just used “Indiana" and “Rose Bowl” in the same sentence).

Another cool program bonus: An All-Ivy, All-Decade team
covering 1950-59.

Colgate, Holy Cross (Spring 2021)

And we sloooowly make our way through the uniforms of Spring 2021 with a couple Patriot League schools. Like the last two efforts at spring football (AAF, XFL 2.0), not everyone completed their seasons.

New-to-us Colgate played two games before calling it a day because of COVID-19 concerns. The Raiders' Under Armour unis have some really small numbers on the front and shoulders. The jersey fronts also have an Under Armour logo, a "COLGATE" wordmark, a Patriot League logo and a small shield that looks more at home on a soccer kit. Actually, the shield represents "Colgate’s 13 founders with 13 dollars, 13 articles and 13 prayers," according to the release from last fall announcing the Raiders' new athletics identity. The familiar "'gate" logo remains on the helmet.

Holy Cross had itself a nice little season, capturing its second straight Patriot League title before falling in the first round of the NCAA FCS tournament. Like Maine, the Crusaders donned four different style in four games. While the purple home shirts remained the same from fall, 2019, the roads feature a new wordmark and number font. (I'll be up front, my attempt at this font sucks and I'll try to improve it down the road.) Holy Cross wore both purple and white helmets (those white helmets should be worn full-time, honestly), and thankfully the black and gray and god-knows-what-else alternates from the recent past were cast aside.