I was trying to decide what I wanted to put up on a rainy Sunday afternoon (at least rainy here in MD) and saw a great Sports Illustrated article written in Oct 1962 by a previous Pitt Chancellor, Dr. Edward Litchfield, about the national debate if Grant-In Aids (athletic scholarships) were a good thing to have on college campuses.

This intro below is a personal bit about why this article strikes my fancy.  The article itself is the other audio bar.

Here is the body of the article – excuse the small mistakes if you will, I’m not a professional at this.  I especially like the contrasts between Litchfield’s descriptions of Pitt athletics then and today’s state of college football.  There are some great points made here – especially some timeless ones that hold true today.

Hope you enjoy it!

“Camel Driver” – try putting that on a kid today!  I also love that we stole almost a whole opposing team –

Far back in 1903, for example, out-university felt mortified to have been defeated two straight years by the football team of little Geneva College. Football in those days seldom made much money at the box office but many colleges recruited passionately, simply because they found defeat unbearable. In the wake of our losses to Geneva, corrective action was deemed imperative and there seemed only one surefire way of seeing to it that we beat Geneva the next year. We took it.

We lured to our campus most of the Geneva players and the following season, 1904, defeated Geneva 30-0. During the balance of the decade Pitt football teams lost only 13 of 71 games. Now what sort of boys were they, do you suppose, that could be proselyted so frivolously? Because many of them have passed on, we were able to trace only 17. Of that number, four were physicians, five dentists, two attorneys and one a Ph.D.

And I cracked up about the Holier-than-Thou attitude Litchfield held toward our players trying to extort $100…

“Unhappily, in 1937, the university received a black eye which ultimately led to a prolonged period of de-emphasis in athletics and from which Pitt did not recover for many years. Pitt’s ’37 football squad, invited to the Rose Bowl, demanded that the university provide each player with $100 entertainment money.

The university refused, knowing full well its refusal would mean the loss of $100,000 in Rose Bowl receipts, and thus the team remained home on New Year’s Day. One may well imagine the notoriety Pitt received in the nation’s press. Even allowing that the commercial tone of intercollegiate football had contributed to our players’ attitude, no one could condone their behavior.”

Huh!  Now Pitt is extorting huge $$$ just for the right to buy some season tickets for our games… my, how times do change.

Here is a link to the .pdf of Irwin Shaw’s “Eighty Yard Run” short story that the author references. Hard to read but great writing…

A bit about the author:

Edward H. Litchfield, formerly the Dean of the School of Business and Public Administration at Cornell University, assumed the role of Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh on July 1, 1956. In addition to his new position as Chancellor, Litchfield maintained several connections to the business world, including committee memberships and directorships with corporations such as Smith-Corona, Avco, and Studebaker-Packard.

Litchfield orchestrated many changes at the University of Pittsburgh such as a reorganization of the administrative structure, salary increases for employees, and pension increases for retired professors. He focused many of his early activities on improving faculty conditions, reducing teaching loads, and implementing sabbatical leaves and the formation of the Senate Council. A second focus was on improving and developing the academic programs by limiting entrance to professional schools to graduate students and by improving the quality of the professors.

One of Litchfield’s most important contributions was physically expanding the campus through the addition of dormitories, the purchase of the Schenley Hotel and the acquisition or construction of several additional buildings. Financial problems, due to overspending and unforeseen problems, characterized the later part of Litchfield’s chancellorship, until his resignation in July, 1965.

He, along with his wife, his two youngest children, and his mother, were killed in a private airplane crash on March 8, 1968 over Lake Michigan near Meigs Field. The Litchfield Towers (dormitories) on Pitt’s main campus were named in his honor.