2020 LYCOMING COLLEGE SPRING MAGAZINE

A x The football team posts an 8-1-1 record under coach Bob Heisel, and the school declares itself the State Prep School Champions at the end of the year. c Earl Z. McKay becomes the head football and basketball coach of Dickinson Seminary and Junior College. He led the basketball team to an 81-45 record in nine years with the program, enlisting in the war effort in 1942 as a Red Cross field director. m The Dickinson Seminary and Junior College football team posts a 4-1 record and claims title to the Eastern Junior College Championship. E – Y Basketball is the only sport that continues during World War II. The 1944-45 season ends when three members leave for the service. U Bob Smith begins a decade-long run as men’s basketball coach. He posts a 119-81 record in the decade, stepping down to become the school’s athletic director in 1957. I As the school becomes Lycoming College, the cheerleaders announce a vote to give the College new school colors; blue and gold replace the Seminary’s gold and white. O As the College transitions to four-year degrees, the athletic department uses a survey from the Williamsport Sun-Gazette to find a new nickname for its teams. In 1948-49, Warriors is officially adopted. S – D Athletic Director Bob Smith and President John W. Long help Lycoming join the NCAA and ECAC. D – F The Warriors join the MAC. At the time, the Warriors sponsored only baseball, basketball, and tennis, but at the MAC’s urging, football, wrestling, swimming, golf, and soccer were added over the next six years. J Budd Whitehill is hired to serve as an assistant football and head wrestling and baseball coach. He serves as the wrestling coach until 1993, amassing a 374-175-7 record and coaching 38 All-Americans and four national champions. : Nels Phillips is hired to lead the College’s men’s soccer, basketball, and tennis teams. He serves with the soccer and tennis teams for the next two decades, posting 12 winning seasons and a record 111 career wins with the tennis team. Z Mort Rauff ’41 begins a 13-year tenure as the head swimming coach, recording eight straight winning seasons. Harry Romig ’61 becomes the College’s first national champion, as he wins the 137-pound title at the NAIA Championships. C College Field, now known as David Person Field, opens at the intersection of Mulberry Street and Union Avenue. Dutch Burch begins a 32-year tenure at the College as head basketball and baseball coach. He helps the basketball team to 318 wins in his career and three MAC regular season titles. The wrestling team wins the first MAC title in program history as Bill Kehrig clinches the team title with a fall in his title bout at 137 pounds. B Walt Manning ’64 wins the College’s first MAC swimming titles in the 200- yard individual medley and the 100-yard butterfly. N Ron Knoebel ’65 wins the College’s first NCAA national title at the Small College Wrestling Championships, beating Western State’s Jim Rush, 6-0, at 137 pounds in the finals. M Led by MAC Northern Division Player of the Year Ron Travis ’67, the basketball team wins the MAC Northern Division title, winning 12 of its last 13 games in a 16-5 season. ’ 30 S ’ 40 S ’ 50 S ’ 60 S The impetus for athletics at the Seminary came from America’s growing love of the game, and by the middle of the 1880s, games between schoolyard “nines” became a regularity. Finally, in the fall of 1890, Pott’s Business College issued a challenge to the Seminary and a baseball team was formed. The Seminary won that first game, 17-6. Three years later, The Rev. Edward J. Gray sought out land for the purpose of an athletic field and in 1895, a football team hit the field for the first time. Athletics folded naturally into the landscape of the Seminary. By 1902, the track and field team had a group that won a relay heat at the legendary Penn Relays and in 1907, a basketball team was formed at the school for the first time. Legend-making wins occurred throughout this period. Bobby Rich, who eventually became the president of the board of trustees, scored 10 touchdowns in 1902, including a fumble recovery in the endzone to hand Mansfield Normal School (Mansfield University) its first loss at home in six years. When The Rev. Dr. John W. Long became president in 1921, his first major project was the building of an adequate gymnasium, and the resulting Hilltop Gymnasium ended up serving the school for 54 years. By 1927, the school had also begun to field a women’s basketball team, playing local YWCA squads as well as high schools over the next decade. The football team declared itself the State Prep Champions in 1931, posting an 8-1-1 record under English professor Bob Heisel. In 1935, the boys’ basketball team posted a 13-2 record, as it was led by guard Don Manno, “the guard without a flaw,” who went on to play Major League Baseball, hitting a grand slam in his first game for the Boston Bees in 1940. In 1936, the football team claimed the Eastern Junior College Championship and a year after that, Ralph Cordisco dove into the end zone to lift the team to a 6-0 win over the Army Plebes (freshman team) at West Point. When the team returned to campus, a pep rally, victory parade, and bonfire ensued. Kenny Stofer, who went on to Cornell University and a professional contract in the All-America Football Conference, served as the star of that team. During the 1930s, the athletic department itself basically consisted of one man, Earl Z. McKay ’25, who directed the football and basketball 13 www.lycoming.edu