Gridiron Adventures

What happens when a small liberal arts college starts its first football team? Well..

"This is not to say that the introduction of 100 young men, generally large young men, to a small, predominantly female campus, is accomplished without challenge, college officials said.

"I'll never forget when I first brought 14 recruits, including some big 270-pound linemen, through the dining hall door and all conversation just stopped," Coach Barnes of Shenandoah said. "You could see the looks on the other students' faces that said, 'So this is what's it's going to be like.' And then the 14 recruits ate everything the cafeteria people had, they just emptied them out.

"The head of the dining staff walked out with this stunned look on his face. He whispered to me: 'We're going to have to start ordering a lot more food, aren't we?'

Of course, integrating two different cultures doesn't always go this smoothly..

At Utica College, the new football players clashed with the existing campus social order. "The fraternities on campus ran the social calendar, but the athletes did their own thing and there were some scuffles," Mr. Kemp said. "After parties, we would have five frat guys jump a football player. I kept telling my players that they couldn't fight back.

"When it kept happening, I went before the Greek council on campus and told them I was lifting my no-fighting ban. The next week, 12 frat boys jumped 5 football players, and the 5 football players beat them up pretty good. We haven't had a problem since."

Progress marches on.