The Town Historian’s Lecture—

The First ‘Last’ Football Team, And Other ‘New’ Old Things

By Shannon Hicks

Town historian Daniel Cruson presented his annual lecture on January 10. This year’s offering, he told the audience up front, was a little different than past years. Where recent lectures had a specific subject to discuss (Putnam Park in Redding last year, 19th Century local photography in 2009), Mr Cruson returned to a “What’s Old That’s New” format that he had also used in 2008 to share a wide range of recent discoveries.

“It’s really a Newtown miscellany,” he told the approximately 50 people gathered for Monday’s lecture in the lower meeting room of C.H. Booth Library for the event. The 45-minute program was a quick-moving PowerPoint presentation accompanied by Mr Cruson’s narration.

The presentation showcased newly found photographs. The first image, he noted, was the one that got his wheels spinning when he began organizing his 2011 lecture. It was an image he had found of the 1911 Newtown High School football team with a note that said “the last team.”

This was curious to Mr Cruson upon its discovery, he said, especially considering the first football team at the high school had been formed only three years earlier, in 1908. Further research by Mr Cruson uncovered the facts that the young men on those early teams were really not meant to be playing football.

Early football, explained Mr Cruson, was more similar to rugby than today’s football game. It used a much larger ball and there was much more running, virtually no passing. The uniforms rarely included protective elements (they were expensive), and early football was known for its aggressiveness and violence.

Below the waist tackles were made legal in 1905, a few years before the first NHS team was formed, and these were devastating. On the college level, 18 deaths on the college gridirons were attributed to on-field tackles in 1908, said Mr Cruson, and an editorial in The Bee that year pointed out that another 184 serious injuries were the result of this aggressive, unprotected playing style.

“Think about the physics of this,” Mr Cruson said. “You have no defensive padding, nothing to protect them when they get taken down. When these guys got tackled below the waist, what was the first thing that hit the ground? Their head.”

The teams had varying degrees of success. While the 1910 team had a three-game undefeated season, the so-called “last team” had a season of six games. Four were scoreless ties, one was a loss against Danbury and the other was a 17-0 win over Shelton.

By 1912, he pointed out, the school did not have enough weight, “or heft on the field,” he said, to put together a team. The school’s 1913 yearbook, The Bugle, made note of continued lack of weight as well as growing parental objection.

“So this was the last team for a few decades,” he said, “until [Coach] Harold deGroat, who arrives in 1944.”

At that time, Newtown High School resurrected its football program, but with a twist. Instead of the 12-man formation, Newtown adopted the six-man football team.

“This is what was done when schools began their football program,” Mr Cruson said. “Differences included a shorter field, and field goals were generally worth four points instead of three.

“Touchdowns, however, were still six points,” he said. “This type of game became very popular, and it was a little safer, so it was preferred.”

At this point, players were certainly a little more protected. A photo of the 1944 NHS team shows young men wearing shoulder pads and plastic helmets.

“Notice there are still no chin straps or face guards yet,” Mr Cruson said. “And I’m not sure about mouthguards.”

The six-man teams continued at NHS until approximately 1950. A petition went around by the early 60s to expand the team, but that issue was not adopted by the school until the late 60s.

Mr Cruson’s lecture moved away from football at that point, and stepped into other fields. There were photos of the 1916 NHS track team, the first one that was formed at the first high school location, which is across the street from St Rose, where the Citgo station is today; a photo of the 1917 track team (“Another team that didn’t win much, but they had fun,” said Mr Cruson); and a photo of the 1912-13 NHS girls’ basketball team.

Mr Cruson also discussed photos showing a basketball team from the short-lived Newtown Community School, whose roster included familiar names like Ferris and Glover; a girls’ basketball team from Hawley School whose uniforms included knee-length skirts and loose tops with sailor knots (“I love the outfits, the uniforms are absolutely marvelous,” Mr Cruson said).

Mr Cruson’s lecture also touched upon Sandy Hook Athletic Club, formed in 1947 by “an unsung hero of the Sandy Hook area,” Wilton Lackaye. SAC offered children of town organized sports, “minimally organized and not through the schools,” explained Mr Cruson.

The private organization’s fields were located along Riverside Road in Sandy Hook, and Mr Cruson showed photos of the fields before they were cleared — by Mr Lackaye along with the kids who were going to be using them (“A real interesting twist on how things are done today with million-dollar contracts,” he said of the work. “These kids went in and built their own fields and I think they did a pretty darn good job.”) — along with some of the SAC 1948 baseball team, and the first annual SAC Banquet, held at The Parker House (later the Yankee Drover).

Grace Moore Finale

The evening’s finale moved from a slide show format to a DVD adapted from 16 mm film footage of the town’s 1939 Memorial Day Parade.

The 14 minutes of footage, which was produced by the C. Howard Peck Jr & Sr VFW Post, opens with views looking south down Main Street, toward the flagpole with its flag at half-staff for the holiday. Cars are seen driving past Edmond Town Hall, which is decorated for the holiday with bunting on its front pillars. The road at the time was cement, “covered with a lot of sand,” the historian pointed out.

“The video,” said Mr Cruson, “is a real time capsule.”

The parade route that year, unlike the current route that starts from and moves away from the Liberty & Peace Monument on the top of Main Street, worked its way toward the monument. The parade culminated there so that the public could join in the celebration of the monument’s dedication.

The ceremony included a rare public appearance by Grace Moore, the celebrated opera singer and actress who resided in Newtown for a portion of her life. This was the only time Ms Moore sang publicly in her hometown. A crowd of 2,500 people showed up for the dedication.

“She was supposed to lead everyone in singing ‘America,’ but no one wanted to sing because they wanted to hear her,” said Mr Cruson. “So it was a success in that we got her to perform, but not in getting everyone to sing that day.”

Ironically, the video that was screened Monday night did not include any audio.

“When they did the transfer [from 16 mm to video format years ago] they added some cheesy music, so I just dropped the audio and we are left with a silent film,” Mr Cruson said. “The awful part about the whole business is she’s singing, she’s known for her voice, and you can’t hear her.

“But it’s still the only footage we have of what we still believe is her only public appearance in town,” he pointed out.

The footage also includes a number of groups from that day’s parade, among them two cars filled with what Mr Cruson described as “town dignitaries” who led the parade, an Army National Guard unit from Massachusetts, World War I veterans, a VFW band from Stamford, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, students from Hawley and Sandy Hook Schools, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Grassy Plains School Drum & Bugle Corps.

“They are still around and they still march with us [in the Newtown Labor Day Parade],” noted Mr Cruson.

Not many spectators are seen during the early parts of the parade, but the crowds grow by the time it is approaching the monument. Ms Moore and husband Valentín Parera are seen in the reviewing stand, as are Frank Chapman and Gladys Swarthout, husband and wife singers from the Metropolitan Opera who were guests of Ms Moore and Mr Parera.

“According to The Bee’s account of that day, the Chapmans were weekend guests, so I think their appearance on the reviewing stand was unplanned, but very fortuitous for those who were there,” Mr Cruson said.

Also seen during the celebration of the monument is Milton Hull, a member of the VFW who served as the day’s master of ceremonies; the Reverend William Collins, who offered an invocation; and Charles G. Morris, “a judge, among other things,” Mr Cruson said, who offered a short speech.